Magician: Master

Unlike its predecessor, Magician: Master, doesn’t suffer too much from the split of the original novel into two books. Its problems are mostly its own, with a narrative that is unable to justify the strange focus on some of the supporting characters while failing to conclude any plotlines in a way that is not anticlimactic or arbitrary.

The story of Magician: Master continues to follow the transformations the two boys Pug and Tomas undergo during the war between the inhabitants of Midkemia and the invaders of another world, the Tsurani. While the magician’s apprentice finds himself captured by the enemy, living as a slave in a completely unknown environment, Tomas begins to suffer the effects of the magical armor he has acquired, having his personality slowly replaced by that of another being. If the previous book began with the title “Pug and Tomas,” this one now begins with “Milamber and the Valheru,” pointing to the new identities they’re going to take.

During the book’s first hundred pages, their journeys are indeed compelling. Pug has become a slave and is thrown into an alien environment, so the boy’s bewilderment and confusion are used to introduce us to a new culture in the book’s universe. The Tsurani are presented as a militarized patriarchal society, governed by rigid customs and code of honor. The oriental influences on them are numerous: from their names (Shinzawai, Hokanu), to the descriptions of their houses (“Pug and Laurie then discovered the house was fashioned like a square, with a large garden in the center, accessible from all sides.“) and customs (such as a suicidal ritual very similar to seppuku), it’s very clear what real people inspired their design.

The clash of cultures is one of the novel’s central themes, with the Tsurani being developed far beyond the unidimensional villainy that characterized them in the previous book. If in Magician: Apprentice they appeared as suicidal warriors devoid of personality, now the Tsurani are presented as a politically divided people who were always war-driven, but now are finally beginning to question its effects. Since the Tsurani are developed in Pug’s chapters, we begin to sympathize with them alongside the protagonist, so the affection the boy gradually starts to feel for that land doesn’t sound strange or sudden in the narrative.

Pug’s journey through the Tsurani Empire is a reflection of the one he went through in the previous volume: if in Magician: Apprentice the boy ascended the social hierarchy of Midkemia very quickly, going from a simple orphan boy to a landlord, in Magician: Master the change is even more abrupt, as he goes from a common slave to the greatest social position of that world, a Black Magician, in the span of just a few chapters, as soon as his affinity for magic is discovered.

Through various time lapses, the narrative tries to make us understand the extent of the protagonist’s dilemma: he was born in Midkemia but really grew up in the land of the Tsurani. He feels a duty to both peoples and, thanks to his studies and powers, finds himself in the anguishing position of being able to fatally alter the outcome of the war.

On the other side of the conflict is Tomas, who has managed to realize his dream of getting the attention and love of the Elven queen. With the help of the sudden energy, strength, and wisdom that emanates from the armor he acquired in the caves, the boy has been able to become a competent general, whose recurrent and imposing presence in the elven court ended up arousing the interest of Queen Aglaranna.

However, his armor – much like the One Ring – retains part of its creator’s design, so it doesn’t take long for Tomas’ personality to be influenced by a Valheru – an ancient race that rode dragons and treated elves as pets. Tomas, then, begins to become addicted to war, showing no mercy to all those who threaten Midkemia: he’s a character that starts to move towards the precipice soon after conquering what he most desires in life. His plot is permeated by internal conflicts, with the boy having to face the presence of the Valheru inside himself, unable to contain most of its actions.

The elves finally gain unique traits here, too, with chapters showing Tomas learning about their quirky customs, such as never mentioning the names of their deceased to not risk disturbing them. This grants these which gives elves their own identity and helps differentiate them from their Tolkien counterparts. Queen Aglaranna is an excellent example of the elves becoming much more fascinating in this novel: if in the first book, she is presented only as a haughty, wise and introspective queen who cherishes nature and is known for the magic of her kingdom, here she appears as a leader who often fails to impose herself in court and who regrets the nature of her relationship with Tomas – she understands that she’s more attracted to his power than to his personality – but feels unable to fight against her feelings. In other words, while in the first novel, she was an archetype, in Magician: Master she is a proper character haunted by contradictions.

The quality of the novel, however, takes a hit as soon as Prince Arutha is once again put under the spotlight. Arutha, before the conclusion of the previous book, was just a supporting character devoid of any development that was duly relegated to the backstage of the action. At the climax, however, the spotlights were suddenly placed on him, resulting in a final battle without any dramatic force.

In Magician: Master, the focus on the prince remains problematic. Arutha’s trip to Krandor in search of military support takes up significant space in the novel, introduces more irrelevant characters – like almost all members of the city’s guild of thieves – and produces… no tangible result at the end. In other words, if all his chapters were ripped out of the story, not only the main events of the novel would not have been affected, but the pacing would have also been greatly improved.

It’s also in the middle of the book that Tomas’ character arc is concluded in what could be considered an anticlimax, as his final psychological battle against the Valheru occurs during a random and insignificant event in the story.

The novel’s main problem, however, lies again in its last act, which is plagued by deus ex machinas. This is a concept from Greek theater that refers to an arbitrary force that suddenly appears in the story to solve all problems and save the heroes. In Magician: Master, there is a character who basically embodies this: the mysterious wizard Macros.

Every time Macros appears in the novel, he does so to solve a conflict that would otherwise kill the main characters, and then he disappears back to wherever he came from. In the middle of the book, his presence is not that problematic, as the character manifests powers far beyond what was deemed possible in that universe, indicating the existence of other worlds and races, which has the potential to intrigue us. But the character gets to the point of presenting a conflict just to solve it afterward. That is, instead of the book’s main climax being the result of a cascade of events built throughout the story, it’s actually introduced at the last minute by Macros just so he can save the day again. In other words, the deus ex machina in Magician: Master is so intense that even in the instant that there are no problems to be solved, it creates some more just so it can save the day again.

One of the last chapters of the book, for example, is about Macros telling the characters that they have been in immeasurable danger all this time because of an evil force capable of destroying worlds that they did not know about and that had absolutely nothing to do with what they were doing. However, now they no longer had to worry about it either, because he, Macros, had already stopped the creature from appearing, solved everything, and saved everyone. Congrats to Macros.

The narrative also turns his attention back to Arutha once more before the end, making the last conflict in the story about his family. However, not even this makes the prince relevant, since the whole question is based on a choice his brother has to make and not Arutha himself.

Raymond E. Feist may have written an intriguing narrative arch for both main characters, but the problems plaguing their endings are impossible to ignore. Therefore, the promising beginning of Magician: Master only makes its conclusion much more disappointing.

February 21, 2025.

Review originally published in Portuguese on May 26, 2016.