Exile’s Return

I’m changing the format of my “now reading” bits to be more “just finished reading” so that I can actually talk about the books. As I’ve mentioned before, Raymond Feist is one of my guilty reading pleasures, along with Stephen King. Feist is a prolific high fantasy writer whose stuff is, by and large, not wonderful by most literary standards. But it’s almost always a ripping good yarn and I enjoy reading it. He’s built such a backstory and depth to his world of Midkemia that long-time readers like myself are sucked in like some kind of literary quagmire.

Exile’s Return is the third book in his meandering “Conclave of Shadows” series, and it appears to not be the last. The book deals with (former) Duke Kaspar, who was exiles at the end of the previous book. Kaspar is a real bastard who killed a lot of people in his grasping for power, and Feist sets up an interesting premise when he promises to explore what redemption for a guy like this would be like. And for a while it’s interesting, but I quickly got the impression that Feist wanted to speed this development up for the sake of the book’s plot, which involves the unearthing of an otherworldly suit of armor that could lead to –wait for it– the destruction of Midkemia. Feist even throws a trite “Eh, Kaspar was really being mind controlled by an evil sorcerer so he’s really not that bad a fellow” explanation in there, which made me roll my eyes and knock the estimation of the book down a whole peg.

So Kaspar’s development and redemption soon get swept up in the admitidly more exciting but ultimately less meaningful action surrounding the mysterious armor. It culminates awkwardly in a munchkin-fest battle featuring the high-level heavyweights of Feist’s D&D-based world. Still, it IS fun and I did find it hard to put down until it was over.