Thursday, January 04, 2007

King of Foxes by Raymond E. Feist

One of my favourite series in Fantasy is the Serpentwar saga by Raymond E. Feist. It is set on Midkemia, just like all the other Feist books in this very long line of stories. King of Foxes mentioned some characters from the Serpentwar saga and that may have been its best moment.

I like Feist as an author, and I hope that he continues to write good stories, but if the stuff that he’s going to write is like King of Foxes, I’m tempted to say he should just turn in and call it a career.

Feist’s main character in King of Foxes is Talon of the Silver Hawk (which was the name of the first book in this trilogy). Through some amazing circumstances, he becomes the best swordsman on the planet, a culinary master, a musician, the world’s best hunter, lover, man’s man and all around good guy as he disguises himself as Talwin Hawkins, a squire, so that he can take his revenge on the person responsible for the destruction of his people.

I get annoyed by super-characters who never need to do any growing, outside of the “training” section of the novel. Everything goes right for Talon, all the way through the novel, and the only hardships he ends up having are fixed by magic. I had hoped that the story would go another way, but it didn’t, and while I’m not sorry I read the book, and I’m currently reading the one after it, I’m reading them to get to the next story, which, to hear tell, is built up fairly significantly by this trilogy.

One book on the books, 49 to go!

Next up: House of Chains by Steven Erikson