Wrath of a Mad God by Raymond E. Feist

Mortification Scale: 3 Tomato Faces

• 1 for SciFi/Fantasy
• 2 for embarrassing title
• 3rd for being later Feist

Mitigating Features:

• An imaginative new "explanation for it all" - there's a new one every book or so
• Introduction of the Quor - I sense a future series
• Actually, a fairly gripping plotline. Good pacing, interesting development. Not bad
• Kills off a main character, always fun

Synopsis:

Pug & Pals are still in the Dasati realm and are finding out more about their society and history. I don't want to spoil the surprise (which is heavily hinted at), but the Dark God of the Dasati is not what he appears to be. Meanwhile, Miranda is busily trying to run the Conclave of Shadows in Pug's absence while helping to plan the evacuation of all of Kelewan. She drops a few balls and Kelewan is invaded by the Dasati before an evacuation has begun. Whoops! My mistakes rarely result in the death of at least 10 million people.

There are some nice story threads of some beloved older characters as well as a few who are clearly in development for future books. We have the engaging youngish man James Dasher, the great-great-grandson of Jimmy the Hand and Gamina (Pug's adopted daughter). Nice to see the continuity. Not to mention, Feist has an excuse for using the same character notes, after all Jimmy and James are related. James is just the latest incarnation of the streetwise man darting hither and yon on behalf of the crown.

There's also some interesting developments in the theological underpinning of the whole Fantasy Universe. It actually annoys me that every couple of books, Feist rewrites his explanation as to the history of the universe and how things came to be so screwed up. Also, there were a couple of bloopers in this one that showed a failure in editing. For example, speaking of Eric von Darkmoor, this book states that he never married and lived a lonely life in service to the crown. Does no one remember Kitty? Hello?

That's it. These three books were back to Feist's usual formula and away from the (in my opinion) failure of the Talon of the SilverHawk style. Ugh. It's a relief to get the Feist I expect, but I would mind another collaboration with Janny Wurts to get something about New Kelewan. Wouldn't that be fun? I would cautiously recommend this book to a long-time Feist fan.