Daughter of the Empire: Riftwar Cycle: The Empire Trilogy, Book 1

Even with multiple re-reads, all 5 of it's stars are deserved.Within a clearly Japanese based society, a young girl inherits her family's title, lands, holdings, and responsibilities. Despite being utterly unprepared, and with the lives of all those who look to her House in the balance, she must find a way to survive the deadly Game of the Council.With truly dire stakes, and intricate plotting, we get spying, double-agents, assassins, legacies, politics, finances, and tactics. Almost all fantasy readers are going to find something here that hooks them.The Game of the Council, is a genuinely deadly one, no low-stakes exist, and we're with Mara as she finds a way to navigate very treacherous waters.I hope more new readers discover this trilogy, because I think it's one of fantasy's most under-hyped, pieces of excellence.P.S. The audio is really good too.

Feist is the first author to take us through the Rift to Kelewan in "Magician". The culture of the fictional "Tsurani" in Feist's books is well known to me. Although Feist's inspiration for Kelewan was a book by M.A.R. Barker, Kelewan is also reminiscent of feudal Japan. It provided a rich backdrop to many of his characters' adventures.Daughter of the Empire is a collaboration of J. Wurts and Feist, but if any of Feist's writing style went into this story, I completely missed it in the first 200 pages. The first few chapters were so cumbersome to read that I considered putting the book away without reading it. The roundabout way of describing even the most mundane thoughts and deeds of the main characters was needlessly intricate and exhausting. At times I felt like I was attending a very bad Renaissance festival. Don't get me wrong. Shakespeare wrote in Elizabethan English and still entrances the reader. This isn't Shakespeare.The main character, Mara, is a "lady" of the empire, bound by the honor, shame, formality, brutality, and other trappings of Tsurani code. I truly "get" that, but the first 100 pages were almost unbearable to read. While Feist expressed Tsurani culture beautifully in his early books, with only his characters' dialogue and seamless descriptions of Kelewan, this book tells the story as if the narrator is a Tsurani. The characters seem to be thinking out loud throughout the entire book. We don't get a break, even in the most basic descriptions of everyday life: "She would rest, and contemplate upon what her aged nurse had instructed"......"Weakness overcame the Lady of Alcoma (aka Mara) as sleepless nights and tension overcame her staunch will"....Oh, and get this one: "Though the Lord of the Acoma had been like a porina boar in a wallow, even to the point where he stank like one, rushing to take her with the sweat from his wrestling still rank on his body, he had understood her." Reminds me of an old Barbara Cartland romance novel. Yikes.After many Advils, I got past the middle of the story. I was rewarded with the signature magic that Feist brings to the fantasy genre: Intrigue, redemption, heartbreaking battles, and page-turning suspense. The ending was worth the trip.

Though I am not familiar with the Riftwar Cyle, the setting of Daughter of the Empire is distinctly Second World Low Fantasy. I categorize it as Low Fantasy, as there is no evident magic in Book 1; though the same could be said about Game of Thrones until later on.Whether or not the characters were Asian, I couldn’t tell; but with an Emperor-like figure ruling in name, but a Shogun-like figure known as the Warlord ruling in fact, it felt like Warring States Japan. The comparisons continue, with a “Game of the Council” representing the plotting, alliance-building, backstabbing, and warfare that has to follow exacting conventions.Untrained in this Game of the Council, sole POV character Mara must quickly learn how to lead when she unexpectedly and suddenly inherits leadership of her clan. At the start of the story, she is about to become a nun when she learns her father and brother were slain in a treacherous ploy by a rival clan. What I found especially enjoyable about her as a main character is that she is not a “Chosen One.” She’s not a warrior, or a mage, or have any other special abilities beyond her own intelligence and wit.Driven to protect her clan and live up to the legacy of her father, she takes many risks and faces many dangers—from marrying a brute who is tied to a powerful family to confronting a rival warlord on his own estate. She is helped by her childhood nanny and two bodyguards, as well as a spymaster and bandit leader whom she must win over. All the characters are distinctive enough to form a strong mental image.Beyond the Game of the Council, the story feels real with lush world building, organically described without infodumps or stilted dialog. One element that stood out to me was an Ant-like race, complete with Queens, which excel at both combat and craftsmanship.

An incredible book and a fresh introduction into the beautiful yet completely different world of Kelewan. It was an ever so slightly jarring change in pace to the Rift War saga books but well worth the transition. Expect a different, more grounded energy with this saga. Where the familiar battles, magic and archetypal hero’s of the rift war are replaced by intrigue, plots, honour and chess like one-upmanships thrown into a very different court of ethics. With longer chapters and a focus on new and unfamiliar characters to its predecessor, it may take a little while to adjust, as it bares almost no relation to the previous novels, but the main protagonists is just as (if not more) enigmatic and absorbing as her counterparts in midkemia. The second book in this series does bring Midkemia back into the fold, but by the time I began it I was already engrossed in this new world. A hugely fulfilling read. I was won over very quickly. Would definitely recommend to anyone who wants to keep going past the Rift War.

3 part series.part one was very good. it felt like reading about seanchan empire from the wheel of time series. the ending was a bit lame.part two was ok but felt very long but still still readable.part three. alarm bells started ringing from the very beginning. a life shattering events takes place in the first few pages of the book, but it was as exciting reading a shopping list. this gets very very bad. it was very clear that two different people were writing the story. one was ok the other was very bad at writing. over complicated sentences, where i had to keep stopping and reading again and again trying to make sense of a sentence without much success. the same writer keeps describing how the character was feel, which was not very engaging(steven erikson's show not tell rule makes very painfully clear).i just felt angry how a very good story in part one can deteriorate to such a badly written, over long mess.

I enjoyed Feist's Magician very much, and this story, covering some of the same period on the Tsurani world, is brilliantly written and plotted. Mara may be something of a Mary Sue in that she is a brilliant politician and player of the game, despite her very young age and total lack of experience, but that doesn't spoil the enjoyment of the story - after all, the protagonist has to win in the end!In many ways I felt this book was better crafted - both in plotting and in the writing - than the Riftwar books, and Janny Wurts' experience and touch shows, particularly in the way Mara is developed. Overall I thought this was a brilliant book, which I would happily read again.

I just finished reading this trilogy again for the third time, after reading it first twenty years ago. That should say something! The characters, the struggle, the backdrop just suck you in, and you are genuinely rooting for their cause. I'm left with an image of the characters faces as if they are real people I've known. From the genre angle this book is a cross between Magician and James Clavell's Shogun (there's a Lord Bunto in both I believe! ;) ). Though this is a collaboration between Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts somehow they managed to produce a book that is much better than anything written by them individually. Buy the book, it's well worth a read.

Firstly I would like to say if you read this book I highly recommend reading the Riftwar Saga first which involves:Magician (Another masterwork)Silverthorn (Very good)Darkness at Sethanon (Epically Amazing)The Empire trilogy fits in perfectly into Raymond E Feist fantasy universe. The storyline runs in linear to the main series and you get to understand how the exotic empire functions; the reasons behind war, politics and culture. After reading this book I was hungry for more. Great value for money.