It's going to be impossible to review Magician: Master without spoiling a little bit of Magician: Apprentice, so if you're sensitive to spoilers, you may want to check out my review of the first book, and figure out whether or not you want to read it, and then come back here.
With that warning in place, here we go!
Magician: Master is the second book in Raymond Feist's first four-book Riftwar Saga, and it's even more closely connected to Apprentice than the two that follow (those would be Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon).
Overall, the book is very well-paced, with a couple of extended vision-sequences that do drag a little, in my opinion. I would have broken them up more with present-day developments, and I would have varied the way the visions were introduced and ended, too, but that's a fairly minor complaint.
There is a lot going on in quite a few different places in this book, and, as usual, Feist handles transitions from group to group fairly well. Sometimes the transition is a bit jarring, but I'm not sure whether or not that was intentional--it might have been.
We get resolutions of most of the mysteries introduced in Apprentice, as well as a few new mysteries brought in to pull us into the next book. Things get explained, and the explanations make sense and feel organic and planned.
This book has tons of worldbuilding for the planet of Kelewan as well as the Empire of Tsuranuanni. We learn so much about their culture and history, their social classes, politics, methods of warmaking, sense of honor, etc. It's extremely well-done and sprinkled generously throughout the book without ever being overbearing.
There are several very powerful moments scattered throughout the book. Without spoiling too much, there's one conversation between Borric and Lyam, and one between Martin and Pug that always get to me. The way Tomas succeeds over some important magical forces is quite good, and the moment that Pug is identified as a magician is striking and really underlines how different things are on Kelewan.
Feist's dialogue is good, and his descriptions are finely-detailed, as usual. No complaints there.
Now let's get into things a little more deeply. I might spoil a little bit from here on out, but I'll try to keep it vague.
Magician: Master is where we actually get Pug's hero's journey, if you want to call it that. In the previous book, we saw him largely fail as an apprentice magician, and the last we saw was his capture by the Tsurani. In this book, Feist focuses in on Pug's life on Kelewan, starting as a slave, cheating death a few times, building up a life there to the degree he was able, and all of that being dashed away in the blink of an eye when it is discovered he can use magic.
The Empire treats magicians very differently from the Kingdom of Midkemia, and that provides most of the impetus for Pug's story. We get to see his training anew, we learn about the nature of magic in Feist's worlds, and we get to see Pug "become Tsurani" to the best of his abilities. However, later in the book he does end up returning to the Kingdom, but I'll leave that mostly a surprise, because it's very good stuff.
Other mysteries that were introduced in the previous book are further developed here. Tomas's mystery box from the dragon turns out to be something far more than a simple suit of magical armor. The magic inherent in that armor leads to a vast series of developments for Tomas, as well.
We get a lot more of Arutha's intrigue in this book, too. He heads to Krondor and we see how information, rumors, and lies move about in the Kingdom. We meet Jimmy the Hand for the first time, who will become an extremely important character in later books. Arutha and company's intrigue and escape from Krondor are handled incredibly well and always fun to read.
In the last book, war between the Kingdom and Empire began, and this time we get to see how the peace process goes. It's a complicated plot full of twists and turns with a surprise ending you might not see coming. We also get to see the way that new kings are chosen for the Kingdom when no clear heir is declared, and it's handled in a nuanced and complex way that allows for tons of very cool machinations in the background, as well as showcasing the strong sense of honor of the sons of Duke Borric. It's a fantastic bit of world-building, too.
All in all, Magician: Master is a fantastic book. I love the Riftwar Saga for maintaining (for the most part) a somewhat limited-magic world and digging into the politics of the Kingdom and the Empire both. It's fascinating stuff, packed with action, excellent characters and character moments, and world-changing events. If you liked Apprentice, I can't recommend enough that you continue with Master.
Grab a copy here: https://a.co/d/2AViTEp
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