Full Krondor: the Assassins Review

Monday October 18th, 1999

Paul G. Allen, the editor of Explorations, Barnes and Noble's sci-fi/fantasy book review, recently wrote a glowing review of KtA (mentioned below). He was kind enough to send me the full text of the review:

Krondor: The Assassins
Book Two of The Riftwar Legacy
Eos/Avon
$25.00; November

Who is the most popular fantasy author of all time? What's the most popular sci-fi/fantasy series of all time? If sci-fi/fantasy fans could be one genre related character for a day, who (or what) would it be? Unanswered questions like this were running around inside my head for months until I came up with the perfect plan. I went to my nearest Barnes and Noble bookstore on a busy Saturday afternoon and hung out in the science fiction/fantasy section with a clipboard and some questionnaires. (I wore a suit and tie so I wouldn't scare people off, I'm pretty scary in person...) After six hours, I had talked to almost two hundred people and, after swearing that I really was the editor of Explorations, gathered a ton of interesting and potentially useless information.
One of the most surprising results was Raymond Feist being voted the favorite all-time fantasy author. (I had thought the consensus would've beenJ. R.R. Tolkien but he was a distant second.) I can't disagree with two hundred people though, Feist is a genius. His world of Midkemia is one of the most fully realized, rich and wondrous worlds in literary history; even more complex than Tolkien's middle-Earth and Silverberg's Majipoor. After reading Feist's Riftwar series and his Serpentwar saga (Shadow of a Dark Queen, Rise of a Merchant Prince, Rage of a Demon King and Shards of a Broken Crown), I feel as though I've lived in Midkemia for years! I've been to Sorcerer's Isle and seen the magnificent tree city of Elvandar. I've sailed the Bitter Sea and watched hundreds of people die on Nightmare Ridge. I've seen the Sauur, twelve foot high serpent people, and I've crawled through the sewers of Krondor looking for the Mockers.
His newest series, the Riftwar Legacy, uncovers more of Midkemia's never ending supply of awe-inspiring secrets and evil-hearted villains. In the first book, Krondor: The Betrayal, Prince Arutha and his loyal followers battled and eventually defeated the dark elf Delekhan and his army of elves and The Six, a mysterious group of powerful sorcerers. The precious Lifestone buried under the abandoned city of Sethanon was saved and the kingdom of Krondor was spared yet again. Krondor: The Assassins begins quite peacefully, at least for a few pages. Prince Arutha is coming home from the war and everyone is looking forward to a few well earned years of tranquility. Yeah right.
Before Arutha even gets to the city gates, he's informed that there's been a rash of murders in the city. Someone is randomly killing off the citizens of Krondor. The street people are dying, the magicians are dying, even the Guild of Thieves, the Mockers, are dying. Arutha calls his trusted squire James (aka Jimmy the Hand) for help. James is a veteran of the Krondor underworld and soon finds out things are worse than they seem. A group of Keshian thugs led by a man who calls himself the Crawler are overtaking the city, battling the Mockers for supremacy of the crime underworld. And to make matters worse, the Guild of Death, the Nightcrawlers, are back in full force.
Feist concentrates on some new characters in this novel. The wizard Pug's son, William, is one of the main characters and Lord Radswil, Duke of Olasko, and his royal family play an integral role in the story. Some characters from the first book are conspicuously missing, namely Locklear and Owyn Belefote, off on their own adventures.
Go out and buy the newest Riftwar Legacy installment, it's classic Feist. 100% pure Midkemia. A word of warning though, usually all of Feist's novels conclude with a nicely tied-up ending. This conclusion leaves a lot of plot lines blowing in the breeze. I'm not going to mention any of them to you because I don't want to ruin your fun but when I finished this book, I almost screamed! The epilogue of Krondor: The Assassins is basically the first chapter of the next Riftwar Legacy novel. A huge secret is uncovered and yet another sinister plot is set in motion. Mr. Feist, if you're listening, I want you to know that you are going to be torturing millions of readers with this novel. If there's an ounce of sympathy in your body, you'll publish the third book of this series as soon as humanly possible.