I didn’t even know this book existed until I was doing research for my review of Tear of the Gods. When I was working on that, I discovered that there were originally plans for one or two more games after Return to Krondor, which was extended and novelized by Feist after the game came out.
This book, Jimmy and the Crawler, takes place almost immediately after the end of Tear of the Gods, and after the games were cancelled, there was not enough interest or money. Feist had originally planned to write two novels to round out the Riftwar Legacy Saga, but in the end all we got was one novella.
However, this novella fills an important role, because Tear of the Gods left a lot of space between its ending and the start of the next book—in the chronology of the world, Prince of the Blood, which was written much, much earlier, in 1989! This book came out in 2013, so there were a ton of books written between them which happen after them.
Novellas don’t sell well in American book stores, so although I had bought nearly all of my other Feist novels from them, I never saw a copy of Jimmy and the Crawler on any store’s shelf, as far as I can remember. The copy I did manage to snag was a reprint from the UK. All of my other Feist novels were printed in America. I feel kind of sorry for the poor guy who had to switch out all the double-quotes for single-quotes.
Despite this book being very short, and much of the potential background has been cut for time and word count, it’s still quite good. The pace is quick but steady, with a few spikes for action scenes. What’s left of the plot is a story that spends almost all of its time doing what Feist does best: small fights, stealth, intrigue, low magic, and serious character interactions.
Compared to the books that were based on games, this novella avoids the “gameified” feel almost completely. It’s much more reminiscent of Feist’s early work, and is much more to my liking for its seriousness. As much as I thought Tear of the Gods was fun, the frequent one-liners and snarky dialogue were less appealing to me than Feist’s more serious and grounded dialogue from his earlier books. Which isn’t to say that there is no humor in the book; it’s there, but more subtle.
As a short plot synopsis, now that the Tear of the Gods is where it should be, there are no major, world-shaking catastrophes on the horizon. Prince Arutha is tired of the Crawler messing around in the western kingdom, and finally he tells James to focus on this problem until it is solved.
Based on the evidence they have, James believes the most likely place to pick up the Crawler’s trail is in Durbin, a semi-independent city in Kesh. He, William, and Jazhara are heading there to gather information, find any signs of the Crawler, and proceed accordingly until his whole organization is destroyed. At the same time, James is tasked with extending the intelligence network Arutha has tasked him with building.
If this had been a full-size novel, surely we would have gotten more on James’s plan as well as details of Durbin’s people, culture, and government, but almost all of it gets cut in the interests of keeping things at novella-length.
What actually happens is that the story goes in a rather unexpected direction, with a plausible evil plot and a fairly shocking ending. It was really quite good.
There are a few fun references to other story elements from other books, but Feist doesn’t overdo it. We get a little more on William’s feelings about Talia, and several other good call-backs.
One excellent point of this book is a discussion of the different kinds of demons in the other planes of existence, something that helps fill out the lore in a satisfying and interesting way.
All-told, I think this book gave me more enjoyment per page than Tears, but less in total, since Tears is about three times as long! If you like Feist’s old stuff or low-magic fantasy in general, you’ll probably like this book.
Grab a copy here.
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