I really don’t understand the high ratings for this book. I was reasonably engaged at first, but from about halfway through the first book, I was mostly dragging myself toward the bitter end — which took a while, since my edition contains both Book 1 and Book 2. My biggest complaint is that there is hardly any magic in ‘Magician’. Things change somewhat in the second book, but not in the way I would have expected — or wanted — from a book called ‘Magician’. Overall, ‘Magician’ felt as though Feist came up with a general concept for where the story was supposed to go and then filled the framework with a collection of anecdotes. I never felt that I actually knew any of the (far too many) characters. At times, I couldn’t even keep their names straight. None of them felt particularly consistent, and most seemed interchangeable. In any given situation, it felt as though any character could have acted in any way, and I wouldn’t have been surprised. I couldn’t even tell you who the actual protagonist was. Was it Pug (the magician!), Tomas, Arutha, or perhaps Martin? And as for the other characters with their equally unfamiliar and difficult-to-remember names… let’s not even go there. Whenever a character supposedly develops, we are simply informed that they have changed, without much explanation of why. Feist’s handling of romantic relationships is downright embarrassing. More than once, the central emotional dilemma seems to be that a man has feelings but has absolutely no idea how to express them. Riveting stuff. And then there are the time jumps. Suddenly, it’s months or even years later, with barely any warning. What? Did I accidentally skip a chapter? This book is frequently called a masterpiece, and it’s a bestseller. I genuinely don’t understand it. For me, ‘Magician’ was an absolute waste of time.