Rides a Dread Legion: Book One of the Demonwar Saga Review

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Rides a Dread Legion: Book One of the Demonwar Saga ReviewThe awkwardly-titled Rides a Dread Legion is a more promising beginning than Feist's last several series have started with. Although new characters, even a newly discovered people, play an important part in the story, old favorites Pug and Tomas again assume important roles in the story.
Most readers who have stuck with Feist since the 1980s have become accepting of his style, reminiscent of the space opera of Doc Smith, of following up a universe-saving battle in one book with a far more vital multi-universe struggle ten years later in the next series. That's been the Feist pattern so long that it can't be regarded as a bug, it's simply a feature.
We're back to the threat to Midkemia and other worlds coming from the various demon circles, and this book makes use of several new demon raising characters to more systematically explore what these beings are and what they want. There's a fair amount of conferencing between the various principals and experts, but action is not neglected either. The book does bog down in such scenes at times when Feist suddenly jumps to a fight between obscure characters or peoples who were only briefly introduced in prior series.
Really this book's strengths lie in the interplay between the various characters - especially Tomas, Pug and his family, and new additions Amirantha and Gulamendis, a being with a very different background than most of Midkemia's races, despite his people's connection to the world. Tomas again gets to flex his Valheru muscles on the side of good.
If you have no idea what that last sentence means, this would NOT be a good place to start reading Feist. He's written over 25 books set in or based on the Midkemia world, and although not all are vital to understanding this story, at the very least the first series, known as the Riftwar Saga, should be the starting point for anyone attempting Feist. It kicks off with Magician, which you may find split into two parts beginning with Magician: Apprentice. The Riftwar Saga, and the Empire Trilogy co-written with Janny Wurts, are classic fantasy series, even if not every Midkemia sequel has been up to those standards. But a new reader who does like Riftwar could do worse than to follow up by reading this book and its forthcoming continuation as well.
I might have given Dread Legion another star if it had more resolution. It's become (too) typical in fantasy for the individual books in multi-volume series to simply be long chapters, with the end of each book prior to the final one not particularly resolving anything. And because it's now the standard, if Feist were a 26 year-old newcomer I'd accept the 2009 style without comment. However, Feist is not that newcomer, and this what I consider lazy and sloppy new trend represents a backward step for writers of his generation. Magician had a point as a novel, despite being part of a series. So did Silverthorn, and Daughter of the Empire. I'm judging Feist by Feist standards rather than Brandon Sanderson standards, which I don't think is unfair. Feist is still published at all simply because he is grandfathered in as an established fantasy stalwart. If he had never been published and he walked into a publisher's office cold today with a Midkemia manuscript, he'd get it tossed back with a scornful comment about this not being 1983 and DelRey Books. Now I don't have a problem with my old favorite authors still writing sequels to those 1983 classics - obviously or I wouldn't still be reading them - but they can't have it both ways. If you're going to still live off 1983 fantasy, then give us self-contained 1983-style novels, not 2009 installments.
As is apparent, I regard 3 stars as an above-average rating. I have no quarrel with those who seldom give anything below a 4, but for my purposes I find it works best to save more room at the top while crowding all the average and poor stuff into the 1-2 range.Rides a Dread Legion: Book One of the Demonwar Saga Overview

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