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The penultimate volume in The Conclave of Shadows from worldwide bestselling author Raymond E Feist. Featuring one of the most fascinating characters and scenarios ever created in the genre. The series promises to become one of the great all-time classics in the field. Once absolute ruler of his nation Kaspar, former Duke of Olasko, has been cast into exile. Abandoned in the wilds of a continent on the other side of the world and left with nothing but his wits and determination, he must fight merely to survive. Armed with guile, cunning and an iron will, he starts his odyssey with a single goal: to return to his home and revenge himself upon the man who cast him down, Talwin Hawkins. But fate has other plans for Kaspar, and as he struggles against adversity, he encounters dangers greater than any he had imagined. More is at stake than he realised and Kaspar is but a single player in a far greater game than he imagined, for pitted against the Conclave of Shadows are the agents of the Dark Empire, a looming menace that threatens not only Kaspar's homeland, but the entire world of Midkemia.… (more)
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I was hoping it was the end of this series, but was disappointed. I think I am going to go back and read his Mikdemia books from the beginning before starting Flight of the NightHawks.
So far the entire story is about Kaspar, the ex-Duke and his hardships. I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel sorry for him or what, but the story seems headed that way.
I just finished this novel, and have dropped its rating by three points. There were numerous typos (Salador was called “Salvador” twice, and once he even failed to spell Pug correctly!), and several broken or run-on sentences that seemed like the author started editing an idea and just forgot about it and left it halfway new and halfway old. I re-read some of these sentences four or five times hoping that I was just not reading it right, but they never made sense. The story was okay, but barely involved the main character (Talon of the Silver Hawk, or Talwin Hawkins) from the previous two books. The series ended wide open and incomplete, so if you want to actually figure out what happens, you need to read the next book (Flight of the Nighthawks).
So overall, the ending of the series without wrapping it up, the typos, and the messed-up sentences detracted enough pleasure out of this book to make me lower its rating, even though Feist is one of my favorite authors.
The trouble is, this book is not the end of one series, it is the beginning of another. You could call this an attempt at a bridging novel, but as such , it
This book follows Duke Kaspar, exiled in a faraway land, as he attempt to work out just what really happened to him, he realised he had fallen under the sway of an evil wizard, and commited acts that were simply insane.
Given the title of the book, it will be no surprise to learn that Kaspar does indeed return home, there is little doubt in the book that he will do so. However he, like Talon before him, finds himself working for the Conclave of Shadows, as they try to rid the world of a dangerous magical artefact that Kaspar has come across on his travels.
This quest is not resolved, but merely leads into the next book. This is not ending to one series, but rather the start of another. Mislabeled.
Kasper deal's with his exile from his Dukedom, free at last of Loren's magical compulsion he sowly regains his sense of honour and learns what life is like as a peasant. Something he'd never contemplated before. However there should have been made more of the comparison to Talon - he endured 3 years of deprevation wihtout moaning. Kasper starts to feel sorry for himself after only a few months. he is an annoying character although a slight amount of sympathey can be felt.
I wasn't so taken with this plot, it is quite far feathed even by Feists usual standards, It appears that bengs form other dimenions not just worlds are once agian poised to overcome Midekemia, Quite why our heors shoudl have been born on such a desirable and luckless world out of the millions in Feists's universe isn't explained.
By dint of lucky coincedences only some of which are explained, and some inexplicable magic Kasper gets to meet many of the most powerful people in Midkemia and has another chance at killing Voren. Whether he will remain human at the end is question whose answer you don't really care about.
Still told in Feist's light fantay style, this doens't work as well as the previous two volumes, the magnitude of the enemies becoming ever more ludicrous as the coincidences mount which keep them at bay. However as it features Tomas again I'll probably still read the hopefully concluding part of this nominal trilogy.
This is another fast-paced adventure and it contains information that kicks the larger story back into high gear.
RAY! You aren't writing trilogies, you're writing what the writing world refers to as a "series". Get over yourself. I knew it was a mistake to go back to reading a fantasy book. I just hope I am more stubborn a reader than Ray is a bad writer.
But is he the same person as he was before he was deposed? As he makes his way through all that Novindus can throw at him, Kaspar reluctantly comes to the conclusion that he isn't - not just because the evil influence of his court magician has worn off, but because he has genuinely come to see that his previous life wasn't leading him anywhere he really wanted to be. Along with that revelation, Kaspar falls in with a group of other exiles from the Kingdom and it's environs. A trio of traders are all that remain of a larger venture that had attempted to find wealth in this distant land but their discovery of a strange suit of armour was, instead, leading to their deaths. As Kaspar began to understand what they were up against he realised that the.. thing represented a threat to all life on Midkemia and the only ones who could help were the members of the Conclave of Shadows who wanted him dead...
By this time I found the series was getting a little too repetitive in many respects and while it was interesting to see Kaspar changing some of that was a bit unlikely in my opinion