Rage of a Demon King (The Riftwar Cycle: The Serpentwar Saga Book 3, Book 11): v. 3

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I liked the demons, the descriptions of their society and political wrangling. I would have liked more.

In this third book in the Serpentwar Saga, the war from Novindus comes to the Kingdom of the Isles. Roo's hard earned money goes to finance it. The training that Erik's been put through comes into place as he leads the soldiers and tries to keep as many of them alive as possible. There is only so much they can do though, and at the end of the book, you realize just how much more the Kingdom of the Isles has to do to recover, and you wonder how they'll be able to do it without the strong characters that died in the fighting. Look, there's lots to enjoy in fits and starts through Rage, but it's far from Feist's best work. In returning to his complete works, I worry that I am coming to realise that his earlier books just weren't as good as I remember. The middle two books here could have been combined to one, a lot of the needless guff edited out, and a very strong book may just have been the result. Instead what we get is the literary equivalent of trying to arrange four food items on a dinner plate: there's nothing wrong with the sum of the parts, but it's just never going to be right. (Seriously, try it. You can't make even numbered food items look good on a plate!)The Emerald Queen's army is almost upon Midkemia and the army is staging. Erik Von Darkmoor is sergeant-major of the King's armies and Rupert is almost single-handedly financing the war. The Emerald Queen and her army are making for the Lifestone, a magical source of power capable of destroying worlds. Vast preparations are being made in Krondor, the anticipated point of invasion by the Emerald Queen's army, and all of Midkemia's allies - as well as some enemies - are being called upon to help. And Roo's odd segue to go and deal with Sylvia and Duncan - to utter miscreants from RoaMP - is so weird. It's almost jabbed in amongst the rest of the narrative as an afterthought. "Oh, I'd better deal with those people..." Instead of having their fall be the result of some crescendo of intrigue and subterfuge, Roo just stumbles upon them while he's trying to flee the fallen Krondor. It's almost absurd, and certainly is very far away from the satisfied feeling one should get when horrid characters like Sylvia and her father get their comeuppance.

Deeply and incredibly entrenched with emotion and reality, despite set in a high epic fantasy world, the Serpentwar Saga, and by extension the Riftwar Cycle, continues to entrap me. Body and soul. Tot nog toe het beste boek uit deze reeks, niet alleen omdat de oorlog begint en het meer actie heeft, maar vooral omdat het niet langer op Ru is gericht. Dit verhaal focust zich op Erik en het gevecht en op de magiërs Puc, Macros, Miranda en Nakur die proberen uit te vinden hoe ze de wereld kunnen redden. The magical reset button on the age of Pug and Miranda. Feist just can't let go of his main characters. Obvious flaws were the demise of James and Pug's children. The only point I could see in it was the melodrama, which I dislike in any book. And of course the demon boss battle. Really? All it took was a bit of sea water? That could have been done so much sooner – plot hole alert! As the Emerald Queen’s shadow lengthens once more across the land of the Midkemia, her forces stand ready to launch a devastating invasion. But come the battle’s dawn, the magician Pug, and his life-long friend Tomas, will discover that something far worse than the Queen’s sorcery is afoot. Swords, bows, wits and courage will no longer be enough to defeat the descending plague.Rage of a Demon King is the third out of four books in Raymond E. Feist’s Serpentwar Saga, one of the subseries in the much larger Riftwar Cycle. Exciting battles with nicely detailed handling of the gradual loss of ground, hard choices to destroy cities and towns as the retreat became inevitable. Rage of a Demon King is a fantasy novel by American writer Raymond E. Feist, the third book in his Serpentwar Saga and the eleventh book of his Riftwar cycle. It was published in 1997 in the United States by Avon Books and the United Kingdom by HarperCollins. At the opening of the novel Erik Von Darkmoor is helping to train soldiers for The Kingdom's armies while Rupert, at the height of his trading success, is coerced into financing the war. Meanwhile the forces of the Emerald Queen are approaching Krondor, and it is discovered her target is the "Lifestone", the legendary device discovered by Pug and his cohorts in A Darkness at Sethanon. The below spoiler is possibly a spoiler for the entire larger series, but it’s only speculation based on content in this book and the title of the final book.