RIDES A DREAD LEGION - RAYMOND E FEIST

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Permalink Reply by Remco van den Burg on November 16, 2009 at 10:09pm

Great book.

Find it very clever that Feist in this book, may have come back earlier characters, in a different perspective.

Same as in David Gemmell's Books, he let his characters often come back in several books and the personality of the characters changes.

I find that's the best of their books, each story stands alone, but everything is interrelated.

Excuse me for my lack English

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Permalink Reply by Broken Serenity on December 8, 2009 at 3:00am

Didnt this get nominated last year? surely a book shouldnt be able to be nominated 2 years running? if im wrong however ignore this post.

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Permalink Reply by drosdelnoch on December 8, 2009 at 10:44pm

Broken Serenity said:

Didnt this get nominated last year?

Last years nom for Feist was Wrath of a Mad God. Easy to see the confusion when you remember that its a continuation of a series.

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Permalink Reply by Jarrett Neil Ridlinghafer on December 9, 2009 at 5:21am

Hi Dros,

I'm new here and not sure how it all works. Who does the nominating? As far as I'm concerned Feist is probably second only to Gemmell or Lawhead, although I'd have to say in my HO it would go 1. Gemmell, 2. Feist, 3. Lawhead

About Feist's work and "Rides a Dread Legion" in particular:

I have been comparing every author to DG's work now for about 15-20 years. I remember the first time I discovered his work and back then they were VERY hard to find here in the US and I was so blown away I was speechless and I remember driving like a madman back to the bookstore when I read the cover and it listed all the books he had written I was just flabbergasted that I had never heard or read him before!!!! I kid you not I was almost weak at the knees when I got back to the book store and I think they had maybe one other book of his.....I was just completely dumbfounded and ask the clerk why there were no more of his work and I can't remember what they said but I do remember asking and pulling my hair out in frustration.....I found out after going on the Internet and finding almost no one who had copies of his books for sale in the US that it was a thing back then that for some reason English (British) Authors very rarely were shipped over here to the US and I could not figure out WHY! I still cannot understand it, they are so easily transferable and swappable, I can rarely tell that its not a US author so I have no idea why they would stop from doing it, you'd think they would want the money that big US sales would bring for their Authors! So enough about my Soap Box issues, the fact is, that its getting MUCH better but back then I went to EVERY new and used bookstore I could find within 200 mile radius looking and buying up every DG book I could locate and then I started ordering them one at a time until I read every single book and then I stood back and took a deep breath (a few years later this is :) and said WOW MAN WHO IS THIS GUY AND WHY HAS HE NOT BEEN KNIGHTED AND GIVEN THE KEY TO NEW YORK YET!

I mean I had been reading Fantasy and Sci-Fi since I read my first book when I was 16 (I hated reading up till then and I picked up the Carlos Castaneda "Don Juan" books about a college student who traveled to Mexico to write about the Mexican Shamans and ended up eating Peyote and Magic Mushrooms and stuff and it had present day witches and dream sequences that were not and it was an amazing series of books, I highly recommend them to anyone who's never read them.) anyway, I started out and cut my teeth on the early Edgar Rice Burroughs, Conan Doyle, Robert E. Howard, Tolkien, the huge Gor series (No I'm not a chauvinist pig :), and then there was a big period there when I think I had read through every Fantasy author and there seemed to be a dearth of new writers in the genre for many years so I would snatch them up as I found them and towards the end of that period was when I found that DG book (Unfortunately I cannot remember which one it was, I think it was one of the early books ( I'm sorry but I read so many I cannot recall them like it seems you all can although I rarely ever read a book more than once as I am way to impatient and probably have some ADD in me :) but I cannot watch a movie twice either or I get way too bored since I know what will happen already.

What did DG do for me that was so so different than any other author before or since?
1. "Characters with Character" He was the first since Howard & Doyle who made non-wimpy characters. Characters who, like Howard's original Conan, had major issues, could get in the sh*t and yet had a code of honor that was realistic and not some nursery rhyme goody two-shoes. And they found ways to deal with their flaws and character issues, it made them much more human, believable and created an emotional bond that had never been there before by any other writer I've ever read, still to this day.
2. "No Fear/Brutal Realism" DG was not afraid to kill off a character and to show the brutality of what he was actually speaking about. I often read historical fiction and was blown away recently by "Agincourt" and I majored in European History and have always been fascinated by that period of life. It seems to romantic and Chivalry laden......but if you think further and get beyond the glory and initial romance you can see how utterly brutal and short life was back then. Imagine, instead of guns everyone carried the equivalent of cleavers and machetes around. To kill someone you had to literally hack at him with all your might to try to pry him out of his shell in order to butcher his flesh and/or head with your meat cleaver or meat tenderizing hammer. And that was if you were RICH and LUCKY! The peasants??? Forget it! You could be killed for no reason at all and no one would bat an eye, just for sport you could be run down and trampled to death if a Lord felt like it.....Well DG captured some of that and then addressed it with the Hero not taking that kind of crap and DG was a master at doing it without turning it into a blood fest book. I remember thinking that his book was the first book I had read in so long that was just "real" and not afraid to let it hang out and be real.
3. "The Message" Now most Fantasy books try to tell a message, the good vs bad or light vs dark and for many years during the late 70's 80's and into the early 90's the genre almost died out from PC (Political Correctness) in my opinion, as everyone for some reason developed these characters who were either the dumbest people in the universe (things like "We should stop here and make a camp and eat before we get hungry" and ""The orc was big and ugly") were typical sentences and I'd get through maybe 5 pages and throw it in the garbage, literally. They were writing about characters who either spent half the novel telling us about their intricate thought processes and philosophies or spewing dumb-ass sentences that would get someone slapped to death in reality, or being the wimpiest heroes ever produced by mankind. DG brought back truth and honor and real chivalry to the genre (for me at that time anyway, obviously it had never left I just couldn't get it where I lived for many years) that set a new standard by which I judge all books now.

I've probably wandered off topic as I tend to do so and ramble as well so please forgive me that shortcoming, I will attempt to quell it in future.

I would be happy to review this book as I recently purchased it and LOVED it and will be able to read it again for the review if it has not already been taken by someone?

--JNR

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Permalink Reply by Deborah J Miller - Award Administrator on December 9, 2009 at 2:06pm

Hey there, Jarret - if you're doing a reply, you can actually delete the text from the message before :-) That way, the page doesn't get reeeaaally long and unwieldy!

Good to see you've jumped into the discussion Forums - we love to have loads of Members joining in the chat - especially during Nominations time. By the way, the Nominations come from the Fantasy publishers. If the readers feel anyone has been over-looked they can let us know and we'll let the publishers know there is a ground-swell of support for such-and-such an author. Of course we wouldn't do that if it was just one person suggesting... we've found that almost all of the eligible authors/novels ARE nominated anyway...

Back to Mr Fiest? This is his thread after all :-)

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Permalink Reply by Jarrett Neil Ridlinghafer on December 9, 2009 at 7:20pm

Hi Debbie,

I went ahead and deleted my reply so its not taking up so much space. Thanks for the heads-up.

--JNR




--Jarrett

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Permalink Reply by Matthew Staker on December 11, 2009 at 1:00pm

I did love to read raymond feists books but after a while his books became too similar and the characters too plain. I stopped reading not long after the Serpentwar sage and the death of Jimmy because of that. So while this could be a good book and a comeback for Raymond, it wouldnt get my vote this time around.

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Permalink Reply by Jarrett Neil Ridlinghafer on December 15, 2009 at 9:25am

Matthew Matthew Matthew.....that's about the same as saying DG's books are all the same.......Thats about as similar as Feist works are to each other, the same as DG's in that, sure they have the same overarching feel to them, its called a writers "style" and each writer has his own unique & distinctive one, but the difference is that some writers become predictable, perhaps thats what you meant however I'd have to dissagree again as his books are anything but predictable! They have so many twists and surprises that it keeps me on the edge of my seat waiting for the next installment. It has ended up with people dying that 99% of authors wouldn't dream of killing off(one of the things I liked about DG the best, he wasn't afraid to kill off characters either)! and then he has people you figured were long gone and dead that somehow....well I'm not going to shed any spoilers here!...maybe you should give it another try and see if you still feel the same way with his later work however, you would want to go back and pick up where you left off otherwise you'll miss all those twists and unpredictable shockers I spoke of :)
So although he may have a similar feel to each book, that doesn't mean they are all the same. If you want boring sameness then read Jordan or Salvatore (two I personally place in that category), but don't try to lump RF in that group :) Obviously you can do whatever you want, its a free county at least it was last week.. (I'm in the USA)

If you seriously think that about his work, you must pick up where you left off and begin to read his work again!
I Insist! :)
I'll even buy you the next book on the list after where you left off if you'll give it another go, wadya say?

--Jarrett

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Permalink Reply by Matthew Staker on December 19, 2009 at 4:43am

Lol nice post Jarret. Im more saying that a lot of Raymonds new characters have lost their likability compared to his older ones, which never happened to DG's characters. And while salavatores characters are very similar his battle writing is top notch:) And Jordans first book 'eye of the world' was great:)
I was just very disappointed in Feists darkwar saga, he followed characters who ended up having little to do with the whole story and ended up dying, and they were such cardboard characters. I think i stopped somewhere in that series but i cant remember which book, i just remember reading a bunch of his cardboard books like Jimmy the Hand and Flight of the Nighthawks and got put off so went elsewhere to read.

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Permalink Reply by JOE CRAWFORD on December 22, 2009 at 7:33pm

Hello Matthew,
I couldnt help but notice that you have given up on Feist. I came late, have a friend who is nuts about him and has read all the volumes. So i read this one and found similarities to DAG. Liked it so much i went and bought the book before this one- Wrath of a Mad God. If its as good as this one, i will like it. I sent a msg to Debs asking if i could write a review but it seems people have already made up their minds. shame.....this is more like Davids work than any thing else i have read. Well, i have more books to read, more later.
joe

Matthew Staker said:

Lol nice post Jarret. Im more saying that a lot of Raymonds new characters have lost their likability compared to his older ones, which never happened to DG's characters. And while salavatores characters are very similar his battle writing is top notch:) And Jordans first book 'eye of the world' was great:)
I was just very disappointed in Feists darkwar saga, he followed characters who ended up having little to do with the whole story and ended up dying, and they were such cardboard characters. I think i stopped somewhere in that series but i cant remember which book, i just remember reading a bunch of his cardboard books like Jimmy the Hand and Flight of the Nighthawks and got put off so went elsewhere to read.

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Permalink Reply by JOE CRAWFORD on December 22, 2009 at 8:59pm

Hi Jarrett,
Sounds like those people were being paid by the word, i know a journalism professor who would give that ms a D-. TOO WORDY! Thats why it should be law that an outline is required before even beginning a literary work. Tell your story in as few words as possible. And get it over with. Then some people like the sound of their voice! So they talk as much as possible.
joe

Jarrett Neil Ridlinghafer said:

Hi Dros,

I'm new here and not sure how it all works. Who does the nominating? As far as I'm concerned Feist is probably second only to Gemmell or Lawhead, although I'd have to say in my HO it would go 1. Gemmell, 2. Feist, 3. Lawhead

About Feist's work and "Rides a Dread Legion" in particular:

I have been comparing every author to DG's work now for about 15-20 years. I remember the first time I discovered his work and back then they were VERY hard to find here in the US and I was so blown away I was speechless and I remember driving like a madman back to the bookstore when I read the cover and it listed all the books he had written I was just flabbergasted that I had never heard or read him before!!!! I kid you not I was almost weak at the knees when I got back to the book store and I think they had maybe one other book of his.....I was just completely dumbfounded and ask the clerk why there were no more of his work and I can't remember what they said but I do remember asking and pulling my hair out in frustration.....I found out after going on the Internet and finding almost no one who had copies of his books for sale in the US that it was a thing back then that for some reason English (British) Authors very rarely were shipped over here to the US and I could not figure out WHY! I still cannot understand it, they are so easily transferable and swappable, I can rarely tell that its not a US author so I have no idea why they would stop from doing it, you'd think they would want the money that big US sales would bring for their Authors! So enough about my Soap Box issues, the fact is, that its getting MUCH better but back then I went to EVERY new and used bookstore I could find within 200 mile radius looking and buying up every DG book I could locate and then I started ordering them one at a time until I read every single book and then I stood back and took a deep breath (a few years later this is :) and said WOW MAN WHO IS THIS GUY AND WHY HAS HE NOT BEEN KNIGHTED AND GIVEN THE KEY TO NEW YORK YET!

I mean I had been reading Fantasy and Sci-Fi since I read my first book when I was 16 (I hated reading up till then and I picked up the Carlos Castaneda "Don Juan" books about a college student who traveled to Mexico to write about the Mexican Shamans and ended up eating Peyote and Magic Mushrooms and stuff and it had present day witches and dream sequences that were not and it was an amazing series of books, I highly recommend them to anyone who's never read them.) anyway, I started out and cut my teeth on the early Edgar Rice Burroughs, Conan Doyle, Robert E. Howard, Tolkien, the huge Gor series (No I'm not a chauvinist pig :), and then there was a big period there when I think I had read through every Fantasy author and there seemed to be a dearth of new writers in the genre for many years so I would snatch them up as I found them and towards the end of that period was when I found that DG book (Unfortunately I cannot remember which one it was, I think it was one of the early books ( I'm sorry but I read so many I cannot recall them like it seems you all can although I rarely ever read a book more than once as I am way to impatient and probably have some ADD in me :) but I cannot watch a movie twice either or I get way too bored since I know what will happen already.

What did DG do for me that was so so different than any other author before or since?
1. "Characters with Character" He was the first since Howard & Doyle who made non-wimpy characters. Characters who, like Howard's original Conan, had major issues, could get in the sh*t and yet had a code of honor that was realistic and not some nursery rhyme goody two-shoes. And they found ways to deal with their flaws and character issues, it made them much more human, believable and created an emotional bond that had never been there before by any other writer I've ever read, still to this day.
2. "No Fear/Brutal Realism" DG was not afraid to kill off a character and to show the brutality of what he was actually speaking about. I often read historical fiction and was blown away recently by "Agincourt" and I majored in European History and have always been fascinated by that period of life. It seems to romantic and Chivalry laden......but if you think further and get beyond the glory and initial romance you can see how utterly brutal and short life was back then. Imagine, instead of guns everyone carried the equivalent of cleavers and machetes around. To kill someone you had to literally hack at him with all your might to try to pry him out of his shell in order to butcher his flesh and/or head with your meat cleaver or meat tenderizing hammer. And that was if you were RICH and LUCKY! The peasants??? Forget it! You could be killed for no reason at all and no one would bat an eye, just for sport you could be run down and trampled to death if a Lord felt like it.....Well DG captured some of that and then addressed it with the Hero not taking that kind of crap and DG was a master at doing it without turning it into a blood fest book. I remember thinking that his book was the first book I had read in so long that was just "real" and not afraid to let it hang out and be real.
3. "The Message" Now most Fantasy books try to tell a message, the good vs bad or light vs dark and for many years during the late 70's 80's and into the early 90's the genre almost died out from PC (Political Correctness) in my opinion, as everyone for some reason developed these characters who were either the dumbest people in the universe (things like "We should stop here and make a camp and eat before we get hungry" and ""The orc was big and ugly") were typical sentences and I'd get through maybe 5 pages and throw it in the garbage, literally. They were writing about characters who either spent half the novel telling us about their intricate thought processes and philosophies or spewing dumb-ass sentences that would get someone slapped to death in reality, or being the wimpiest heroes ever produced by mankind. DG brought back truth and honor and real chivalry to the genre (for me at that time anyway, obviously it had never left I just couldn't get it where I lived for many years) that set a new standard by which I judge all books now.

I've probably wandered off topic as I tend to do so and ramble as well so please forgive me that shortcoming, I will attempt to quell it in future.

I would be happy to review this book as I recently purchased it and LOVED it and will be able to read it again for the review if it has not already been taken by someone?

--JNR

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Permalink Reply by luke ridger on January 2, 2010 at 9:57am

yeah i've read magician, silverthorn and a darkness at sethanon and i got rides a dread legion for Xmas but it seems that i should read some books before this one. Which one should i read?

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