King of Ashes (The Firemane Saga #1)

I bought a paperback copy of Magician: Apprentice sometime around 1982 when it was first published. I was 21 at the time and a Junior in college. That book somehow managed to penetrate the beer-soaked, party driven haze of a typically rambunctious Fraternity life style and demand my attention it delighted me. I enjoyed it enough that I progressed to the sequel Magician: Master then the next and the next and the next. I bought and read every word that Feist wrote about Midkemia until he finished his work in this world in 2013 with the publication of Magicians End I believe I was 52 at the time 30 years of great reads.

In all, his Midkemia work consists of 30 titles my shelf count is 29 since I have the combined Magician volume consisting of both Apprentice and Master. I enjoyed this world so much I even played through the 1993 Betrayal At Krondor computer game multiple times its considered a classic. Its a mammoth body of work and I believe its worth the time of anyone who enjoys this genre.

Needless to say, I was sad to see this all come to an end but in the back of my mind I couldnt help but feel that it was time. The stories had gotten a bit stale to me the players and the world a bit long in the tooth. It was almost like saying goodbye to a beloved but old and infirm dog one whod been a good and loyal friend for most of your life but who didnt really have anything left in him ready to slip away and let you move on.

That was 5 years ago and Id wondered from time to time if Id ever hear from Feist again or if he had decided to call it quits. I got a pretty decisive answer a year ago when I found out that he was almost ready to launch a new series one hed obviously been working on for quite a while. I was of course excited but I was also a bit wary that feeling you have when you decide its time to bring a new pup into your life wondering if your new friend would bring the same sense of joy and wonder and companionship as your former best friend.

King Of Ashes came out this month and there was no question that it was going on my New May Releases list. Interestingly enough, of the five books on that list, I saved it for last partly because it was the longest but partly out of that sense of hesitation and wariness described above.

Im happy to say that Feist seems to have put the intervening 5 years to very good use. I really enjoyed this one. Its is an extremely well-crafted book the writing is very good, the world is effectively constructed, the characters are strong, multi-faceted and likable and the story builds in a very satisfying way the product of a professional, experienced and truly skilled writer. The book serves as the first chapter in what will obviously be an extended story it serves to build his characters, explain his world and its history and bring everyone to what feels like the starting line of a long distance event.

Its a less forgiving world than Midkemia death is closer and less sanitary the heroes are not quite as pure baser human instincts and emotions play no small part in the narrative but it doesnt aim to shock or brutalize its a far cry from some of the GrimDark fantasy thats so popular today. It feels genuine and real very human imperfectly epic and heroic a reflection of Feists ability to adjust to and incorporate our own changing sensibilities. The tone he sets really worked for me.

By the end of the book, youve come know the three possibly four young adults who are likely to serve as our protagonists understand their histories and experience the year in all their lives where they transition from adolescents to adults independent, increasingly confident and quite capable. In one case, two of them are bound together in a tense and highly ambiguous relationship that could end either in a powerful, lifelong alliance or confrontation leading to assassination. I found that to be a particularly strong inducement to buy and read the next volume. I said Feist did this all in a skillful way shame on me for not paying enough attention to the maps at the beginning of the book or possibly just being slow to catch on but I loved the way he managed to bring all of these characters together over the course of the last 100 pages.

I found small imperfections along the way Feist has a habit of occasionally repeating an explanation almost as though he assumes that his readers werent paying attention at earlier points in the narrative Hatus internal struggle with his developing sexual maturity and the urges hes feeling for Hava his closest childhood friend was a bit tiring but I found them to be inconsequential and they in no way interfered with my enjoyment of the story. For me, almost everything he did over the course of a 500 page introductory novel worked and worked well. Im in all in and I cant wait for the second book in the series.

Still too early to tell but I suspect that this pup and I are going to spend quite a few years together me growing old and him growing up enjoying every minute of a fine new friendship.

It’s been a while since I enjoyed a Feist book as much as I did this one. Some critics have suggested that it doesn’t have the epic feel of the riftwar books, and while that is somewhat true, King of Ashes is a better book because of it.

This is the intro to a new series, and Feist takes a lot of time to set up the main characters so that they have believable motivations, and to explain some of the politics and society of his new world. There’s a fair amount of action, focusing on the swords and horses side of things, with only a gentle intro to anything more mystical, but mostly this book is about plot and character development. It sets up the world and provides the reasons why they main protagonists are grouped together.
Some of it does feel a little contrived, hence dropping one star – the secondary characters all appear a little cliched and one dimensional, and there’s a hint that the main protagonists will all be a little overpowered.
None of this really detracts from what is an interesting page turner of a read. This is the first book in years that kept me up ’till the early hours reading it. The ‘just one more chapter’ effect is strong, and I found myself really wanting to know what happened to each of the characters.

This was the first Raymond E Feist book that I have read, and I dont know why I havent heard about him or read any of his books sooner!

There once were five kingdoms in this world, each with their own King and culture. There was peace between all five, and where this book picks up is right after four of the kingdoms betrays the fifth. That kingdom was Ithrace, and its King was Steveren Langene, known as the Firemane for his bright red hair. Even his allies turned against him when they saw that Ithrace would be destroyed. The victors then put Steverens entire family to death, women and children included.

Before (and after) the betrayal, there is a legend that a rampant chaos would be unleashed upon the world should the Firemane line end. So because there was no end of the world, many start to assume that there is a missing Firemane child.

This is a (mainly) dual perspective book, following two young men. One is Declan, a young master blacksmith who lives in the Covenant lands, which is a place where the five kingdoms declared to be a safe area free from any wars or political maneuverings. Then we also follow Hatushaly, or Hatu for short. He is a very angry and confused youth who is training at a school for assassins. It is shown pretty early on that Hatu isnt a native of the island nation where his school is located, and he has to hide his bright red hair. Its not a spoiler, but it is implied upon meeting Hatu that he is very likely the missing Firemane child mentioned in the prologue. We also get a few chapters from the perspective of Hava, who is Hatus best female friend who is the best fighter at their academy.

The world building was phenomenal, there were so many different races, religions, and histories mentioned and I love it when books have a fully fleshed out world where everything is explained! I know some people dont enjoy it when books are too detailed, but for me, I would prefer more detail, especially when it comes to the world.

Another great thing this book had going for it were the characters. Hatu and Declan were both so different and they were fully realized and fleshed out. They both go through some major character development as they figure out who they are and their place in the world. Baron Daylon Dumarch also plays a huge role in the book, as he is the one who spirited away the missing child in the prologue and has been pulling strings to finally rise up against the people who betrayed his best friend, Steveren. Its never really discussed what his motives are or why he wants to keep an eye on Hatu and Declan, but since this is the first book in a series I dont expect it to give away all the secrets and plot twists!

There is a lot of set up for the series in the first book, but that is the case with many first books in series. The main issue that I found myself having was that every time we would go back to a perspective, we would basically get a recap on everything that happened previously. I didnt really notice it at first, but once I hit about 200 pages then I really started to notice it and it bugged me a little. It was almost like coming back to a TV show after a commercial break. I also didnt really think that Hatus anger issues needed to be pointed out as much as they were, I would have preferred it to be shown, instead of always telling us that he is angry, if that makes any sense.

Another thing that I didn’t like was that the synopsis led me to believe that Hatu and Declan would meet and go on adventures together, but that isn’t the case. They don’t even meet until the last, like 100 pages or so. I also wished that there was more assassin stuff going on, because Hatu is being trained by assassins but we didn’t really get anything out of that. But if course that could just be my love of assassins in fantasy rearing its ugly head. If a book mentions assassins even remotely, I want more of them!

Overall, this was a really enjoyable fantasy with great characters and great world building. As the first in a new series, the plot didnt really go anywhere, just a lot of set up for the rest of the series. I do plan on continuing on with the series as soon as the next book comes out! I also really want to read some of his other works, so if anyone has read anything by Raymond E Feist before give me some recommendations as to where to start!

Happy reading everyone!

The writer’s style here is quite different to his earlier works. Less action with the major characters spending more time working through their thoughts and feelings. I am not sure what demographic this saga is aimed at but the writing style suggests it is teens and twenties readers rather than those of us who read the Riftwar saga and follow-ups way back when.
While I prefer more action than reading pages of thoughts etc I am looking forward to reading the next publications in this saga to find out what happens to the main characters!

Perhaps its just me, but I read novels like this to escape the mundane predictability of a rather staid life of my own. I need to immerse in a book and forget that it is just a collection of words compiled by a human being.
Leaving aside the plot and storyline merits of Feist in this endeavour, as Mrs Tait said in my 1973 school report, Im easily distracted and this edition has plenty of editing errors that do just that.
Seems to me that every 3 or 4 pages there was a spelling error, examples being hut in place of but and arc for are. Got to the point that I was looking for the mistakes and felt like an unpaid proof-reader.
Can only assume that HarperVoyager gave this one to an executives niece on summer work experience to run through a MS spell checker whilst she was also otherwise engaged looking at pictures of cats with sunglasses on Facebook.

Sloppy and unprofessional production QC, not worthy of a writer of Feists prestige and value to the publisher.
4 stars but 1 deducted for poor housekeeping so only a 3 from me.

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