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| Wrath of a Mad God (The Darkwar Saga, Book 3) | 
 enlarge | Author: Raymond E. Feist
Publisher: Eos
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $13.81
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Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 15949
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 0060792981
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060792985
ASIN: 0060792981
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The celebrated New York Times bestselling master of fantasy returns with the thrilling conclusion to his enthralling, explosive Darkwar Saga . . . Wrath of a Mad God
Book three of The Darkwar Saga "At this very moment, a dome of black energy is being expanded in a vale in the far north. This is not merely an invasion, but the beginning of a colonization, a process that will end with the complete annihilation of every life-form on this world." The Darkwar rages upon Midkemia and Kelewan, bringing bleak days of destruction and despair. To save the future of both worlds, the powerful sorcerer Pug and select members of the secretive Conclave of Shadows must journey deep into the dangerous realm of the bloodthirsty Dasati, there to carry out an audacious mission that has little, if any, chance of succeeding. In Midkemia, young warriors Tad and Zane, and their fellow soldiers, protect the Kingdom from raiders. And Pug's beloved wife, Miranda, finds herself a prisoner of the Dasati and, even more ominously, of Pug's nemesis, the evil sorcerer Leso Varen. Salvation may come from a friend thought long dead, an unlikely ally whose remarkable powers will be sorely needed in the momentous battle to come . . . a final, fevered onslaught against the most malevolent agents of evil ever known.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 Sad disappointment to the Darkwar Saga April 1, 2008
25 out of 31 found this review helpful
I have read every single book Raymond Feist has put out, starting with Magician: Apprentice. I consider Magician, and the subsequent books - Darkness at Sethanon, etc, to be his greatest work. However, in this novel there were some glaring problems that just did not seem like Feist was on his game at all.
In the first two books of the Darkwar Saga, we were introduced to Tad & Zane & Jommy, who played a predominant role. In this book, Tad & Zane have maybe 3 lines. Jommy has a few, but not really. It is as if these characters were just removed from the whole plotline, they influenced the book not at all. I was very disappointed in this. Why do we have characters being introduced in the first couple of books, and then suddenly they are not killed off, but just relegated to supporting characters.
Secondly, the interaction between Pug & well, let's say, the powers that be... It seems like Feist has taken his once beautiful setting with imagery and characters that you could really enjoy, and instead turned it into a Terry Goodkind knock-off. If the characters are so powerful and the storyline so dull that they need to chum it up with Gods, perhaps it is time to put an end to the whole Riftwar/Midkemia deal.
Now, I read all the Conclave of Shadows novels and I felt they were of lower quality as well, but the Darkwar saga has extremely disappointed me, and if you are looking for traditional Raymond E Feist quality work, you will not find it here.
If anyone disagrees with my viewpoint, I highly encourage you to read this book (from the library) and then re-read Magician: Apprentice, Master, Darkness at Sethanon, etc, those books really drew you into the story, and made you feel like these were living, breathing characters. With the Terry Goodkind-esque omnipotent characters in this book, the believability is gone and there is no way to empathize with either the characters or with the Tsurani, which was probably the hardest thing to reconcile.
Daughter of the Empire, Mistress of the Empire, Servant of the Empire, with Feist/Janny Wurts - Those were also excellent novels in which you were drawn to the characters. If I had to pick between another Midkemia book or a Tsurani one, I would shoot for a Tsurani one with perhaps Wurts collaborating again.
Anyways, I hope that the next book Feist comes out with has a little less bling and a little more substance.
Thanks
 A return to Riftwar form...Interesting New characters..some major plotholes. April 2, 2008
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
This book book offers a return to quality and scope not seen since A Darkness at Sethanon. Almost everyone is in rare form. Even Miranda, whom I hate and wished killed off 6 books ago isn't as horrible as she has been in the past. Clearly, Ray Feist actually gave the characters some thought when he wrote this, even introducting 2 NEW races and re-introducing old villains not seen since A Darkness at Sethanon(ADAS)
Pros
The God that has been molding Pug from his beginnings is finally revealed.
The story is epic in scope, as much so if not more than ADAS. Worlds die as evil beyond the Midkemian universe seeks to devour world after world.
All the secrets of Macros are finally revealed.
Why the Gods of Kelewan are so useless is finally revealed.
The Gods of Midkemia finally take a hand in preventing the destruction of the universe instead of just saying THEY ARE WHAT THEY ARE.
Pug does some cool spells to stop the Dark God, though is almost too little too little.
We finally get to see Kelewan in more detail after almost 16 years since Mistress of the Empire.
Nakor's secrets are revealed and it's a doozy.
We see Pug interact with the Thuril for the very first time, the people of his late wife Katala
The Tsurani finally get a challenge worthy of their awesome Empire, and it proves almost too much.
We get, for the first time, some hope that Pug can ultimately succeed in saving the universe from destruction.
The Tsurani great ones are in action, always a must see.
We learn more about Pug's ultimate destiny.
Leso Varen finally gets his!
Cons
Why was Miranda able to escape so easily? Many of us looked forward to her demise?
Why didn't the Choja help defend the Empire? They're allied with some of the houses and their Magicians are first rate Defense Spell users. The Dasati were eating up their entire world and they did nothing? They might have bene able to help defeat the Dasati Big plot hole.
Why didn't the Thuril fight? It's their world too.
Why did Pug have to let so many Tsurani die? He's had the rift game on lock since A Darkness At Sethanon. Him and great ones could have made another golden bridge if need be. Why didn't they?
Why were so few great ones seen in action. There were at least 2000 of them from numbers given in Magician. Acting together, they should have been able to do much more damage to the Dasati than they did. Their ancestors made the Golden bridge for sakes!
Why does Tomas remember important details only when the world is going to be destroyed? It might save like millions of lives if he didn't have memory block from Ashen-Shugar's days.
Why does Pug only do one awesome spell? Come on, he spends most of his time dodging and hiding from people he can magcially body slam. I'd like to see Pug go all out instead of huffingand puffing from place to place?
Why was Pug couldn't tired from simple spells like flying. Being invisible and flying should be simple to him.
Since this was a Macros tell all, why didn't we learn his final fate? We are left with the assumption that he died fighting Maar and that's it.
Again, since this is a tell all of sorts, why are not told what the Chaos wars was really about. Weve been told the lesser Gods attacked the Greater Gods under Nalar's instigation and the Greater Gods attacked the Blind Gods and the Valheru attacked the Lesser Gods. Who attacked who and WHY?
Why are the dread made to look so dangerous? Tomas and Pug smacked one in like 5 seconds in ADAS and now they're saying how tough they are? Tomas even bragged about vanquishing the Dread Lords in ADAS. Why is he so worried now?
Pug\Milamber should be a legend on Kelewan. Why does everyone always protest when one of their own legends try to save them.
Why didn't Pug make a Golden bridge to save more people? It was within his power?
Why is Tomas always a doosh until Pug says he has to help and he gets off the Queen to go save the world?
Why didn't Pug think of the Paradise world by himself? I mean, how many empty worlds has he been to?
Why didn't Pug relocate Sauur like 50 years ago. Why didn't he get them to help the Tsurani?
Why didn't they interrogate the Dreadmaster in the city Forever?
How come Pug still doesn't know time magic by the end of this book even though he's already traveled in time?
Why did the Dread have such an elaborate plot to steal life energy to ascend when there were shown to be easier ways to enter the Midekmia universe in the very same book?
Why one Great One left to guard the high council when they were under attack and there should have been dozens on hand.
Why does Pug bother arguing with leaders any more? Just magic them!
All the history of the Acoma from the Empire books was wiped out in one book. Kind of a put off to reading the Empire series again.
Who are the Quor and the Crystal race they serve? They seemed to perform pretty much the same function as the lifestone. But if the lifestone was ixnayed, why do we need these guys. What is their relationship to the Masters of Majinor?
I could go on and on about the cons, but at least it's shorter than the Serpentwar books faults. Closer to original. Just some significant plots whole that didn't have to be there kept this from being an awesome book. I haven't recommended a book in this series since ADAS, and I would barely recommend the first two of this one, but this one gets a recommendation. If Feist could leave out the ginormous plot holes in this and the previous books, the next series will be better than riftwar.
 Potboiler April 5, 2008
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
It's sad to see how far the quality of writing has fallen with Mr. Feist. If you have read all of his novels, this book will leave you with the impression of someone who spent years building a beautiful, interesting, and amazing sand castle, only to stomp through it and destroy it all in one day. I wouldn't be surprised to find that he is no longer even writing these himself.
 Major closure in the Darkwar Saga April 23, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
More than any other Feist novel, this book references/spans all the prior history of Midkemia and Kelewan and beyond. It ties up all the major plotlines, and give the reader a satisfying sense of closure to the story. While one can anticipate a sequel series (The Demonwar Saga), it is not specifically introduced as a teaser. There is no "Bad Guy" who gets away at the end and plots his next move in a future series.
Many reviewers like to pick at some of the errors based on previous books in the Feist universe. I do not care if Erik wed in a previous book, and in this book it is said he never wed. That's trivial.
The scope is so huge, it leaves me asking many questions.
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SPOILER ALERT !!!
READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN"T READ THE BOOK
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1) The Big Finish: Why did Nalar (The Nameless One) wait until Kelewan was defeated by the Dasati to send his Godkiller (Leso Varen) to deal with the Dasati Dark God (the Dread Lord)? When Varen dove into the pit/tunnel with the Dread Lord, wouldn't that have killed the Dread Lord? Why did Nakor pull Varen away and take the sliver of Nalar and use it himself? Was Nalar's sliver not been powerful enough to kill the Dread Lord alone? Was Pug's trick with the Moon also necessary to defeat the Dread Lord and send the Dread Lord back to the void?
2) Why were the Quor and their "Masters" (Sven-ga'ri) important to the story? The Anoredhel protect the Quor. The Quor protect the Sven-ga'ri. The Sven-ga'ri are not of Midkemia yet are somehow linked to the heart of Midkemia. Was this concept just created to add more wonderments to the epic story? It seems as though the Quor and the Sven-ga'ri could perish and it would not have affected the story at all. Maybe it would have resulted in dire consequences for Midkemia down the road.
3) Why were Jommy, James (Jmmy), etc. even concerned with Michele and getting married? Weren't they on the brink of the apocalypse? If the Dread Lord developed a base in Kelewan, and Pug could not close all the rifts, Midkemia was toast. Why worry about the shenanigans in the King's court and whether Michele was suitable wife material? When your entire world is in jeopardy, would you worry about what court life is going to be like if/when you get home? No way! Even though virtualy everyone knew life as they knew it could cease to exist very soon, they pondered some pretty trivial stuff. They should have been praying to their gods that Pug, Nakor, and Bek were successful in the only mission that really counted. Nothing else was really that important. Especially Miranda's role. Turns out most of her influence was tied to the eventually destroyed planet of Kelewan. She did help Pug return to Midkemia by being an anchor in Midkemia, but Magnus could have done that without her.
4) Pug's limitations were very inconsistent. He could very quickly create a rift millions of miles in space to grab a slice of the Moon, and create another rift large enough to cram the Moon slice into the tunnel with the Dread Lord, but earlier he was exhausted after a series of short line-of-sight jumps when traveling, and he was not capable enough to easily fly a small group from place to place like Magnus did.
5) More of the Big Finish: When the Dread Lord was ascending the tunnel to Kelewan, Nakor noticed that the Dread Lord met another immense power/being. I believe this was the 10,000 Talnoy-clad gods of the Dasati coming home to take their world back. Did the Talnoy simply move out of the way? I thought there would be a huge battle between the Dasati gods and the Dread Lord. The gods simply emerged from their Talnoy shells on Dasati world and the tunnel was closed by the Nalar sliver flicked into the tunnel by Nakor. Why wouldn't Nakor use the Nalar sliver to seal off the tunnel into Kelewan and save Kelewan instead of Dasati? And Pug could have used the same moon trick to reign a pile of rock onto the Dread Lord on Dasati. I guess Feist wanted to redeem the Dasati world and free them from the Dread Lord who was using them for centuries. In effect, the 12 worlds should be redeemed from the Dread Lord now. Kelewan was perhaps more expendable and was chosen to be used as the location of the Dread Lord's demise.
6) Demonwar Saga: I predict we will not see the Dasati gods in the next series. They are starting over anew, and the people of Dasati and the 12 worlds have much to repair and learn about being "normal" folk again. The Midkemia gods are still playing their game, and now the Demon Plane will take a larger interest in this modest yet wonderous planet. Will Maarg seek to conquer Midkemia? Perhaps the Quor and the Sven-ga'ri will play a key role in this struggle. Will Nalar finally return from his prison to bring balance back to the gods? Will the Valheru return to play a part in this awesome battle?
I'm no scholar of these works. Just a huge fan of Feist. [...]
Disappointing... May 5, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I had been looking forward to the release of "Wrath of a Mad God' for months but was very disappointed with the book when it finally arrived. It has countless grammatical and spelling mistakes as well as glaring editorial problems. While the story is interesting and kept me up late at night, that was more as a result of wanting to know what happened in the book and not complete absorption in the story (as with his other books). The story at times does not even sound as if it was written by Feist and overall gives the impression of being very rushed and quickly produced without the relevant quality checks. Given the cost of a hardcover book (especially in South Africa), I didn't think this book was worth it and was very disappointed with the final result.
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