It's been a while since I did a Feist book review, and part of the reason is that this book is probably one of the weakest books in his bibliography. Tear of the Gods is the third novel in the "Riftwar Legacy" saga, written long after the characters in it were dead and gone in Feist's normal writing.
This book was published in 2000, and it's based on the plot of the game Return to Krondor, which was not as critically acclaimed in the CRPG world as Betrayal. The plot is simpler and feels a lot more like a game, with lots of little bits of action, many small combat spells thrown around, side quests galore, and a clear progression of the enemies, almost as if the "player" is leveling up.
At the same time, it's a fun read with some valuable and unique elements that shouldn't be ignored.
It starts with a fairly solid intro: pirates attacking an Ishapian ship carrying some kind of artifact. It's simple and somewhat trite, but there are a few fun twists that are worth experiencing.
Then, the book spends about half of itself in Krondor. James is on the mend after the events of Assassins, and Jazhara, the new court magician, has arrived. They run through a bunch of little quests that lead into new ones, including rumors of a false orphanage, monsters in the sewers, a dead guild master, and more.
The antagonist, Bear, attacks the city and makes even more work for Jimmy and company.
The second half of the book follows Jimmy and William as they take separate paths to outmaneuver Bear and his men.
The prose is, overall, decent, but not up to Feist's usual standards. There are a few points that repeat similar events in close succession that probably would have been caught in a careful edit. The tone is very "talky," which has good and bad points. It keeps things fast and fun and full of banter, but depth suffers, too. We get a solid fantasy atmosphere with more magic, especially "little" magic, than usual.
There are a few elements of the book that land squarely in its favor, though. For instance, we get some details about William's magical abilities that don't show up anywhere else, as far as I know. We get to meet Jazhara, who is an intriguing and interesting character, and we get more Jimmy the Hand, which is always welcome.
We get a bit of character development here and there where appropriate, but nothing to write home about. The villain is kind of basic and generic, and the lesser bad guys don't fit in well with the rest of the Midkemia world-building. "Legends" show up and once Jimmy and company beat them, they just move on. Imagine that you looked out your window and saw a Griffon fly away with your car. You wouldn't just be worried about getting your car back, you'd wonder what the actual existence of a Griffon means for your world, where it came from, etc.
The other books in the "Riftwar Legacy" saga had their good points. Betrayal had the well-developed character of Gorath and a great cross-section of Midkemia. Assassins had a ton of what Feist writes best: stealth, small-unit tactics, and intrigue. This book has less of both, and suffers as a result.
Overall, it's a fun read. The plot from the game is even simpler and straightforward than Betrayal. It feels game-y. It's definitely the weakest novel in this little saga. When I was doing a little research for this review, I found out there is actually a fourth "book" in the saga, but it's a novella. Jimmy and the Crawler is its title, and I've never read it, so I don't know how good it is. Supposedly it condenses the plot of what should have been two more games, but they got cancelled.
Still, Tear of the Gods has some points that make it worth a look if you've liked the other two books in this saga. Also, if you're a big fan of RPG-style plot conventions, you might like this book even more.
For more spoilers, check the embedded video (Spoiler section begins at 16:48 and ends at 39:06).
Grab a copy here.
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