I'm always on the lookout for a good fantasy story. After seeing such good reviews on this one, I decided to try it out. I really enjoyed it. It was a somewhat light read and not bogged down with too many characters or too many plotlines. It is the first book of this series.
The story is mostly based around a boy named Pug. Pug is a good hearted boy who was orphaned at the castle in Crydee. He was raised by the cook and his wife. They had a biological son as well named Tomas. These two boys were raised together and not only were they best friends but just like brothers. The difference is Tomas was tough, lean and well liked. Pug was small, a bit clumsy and was only well liked because he hung out with Tomas. This leads to their paths for the future. As were Tomas is trained to be a great soldier, Pug is trained as the apprentice to the magician. They live a happy life until invaders from another world arrive and try to take over the land. This leads to war. Both boys are separated to fight their own battle and neither know if the other is alive or not. There are other characters in this book that I grew to like very well. As matter of fact, we do not hear about Pug or Tomas throughout the end of this book. They focus on other characters such as the Princess, Squire Roland and the Duke's son, Arutha. All of these are very likeable characters. The one main part of this book that I liked is that I could not predict the outcome throughout the book. This is usually easy for me. I'll be reading a part of a book and can usually see where it is going before it gets there. Everything that I tried to predict in this book was wrong in the end. I loved that!
I highly recommend this book if you love fantasy or a good character driven book. I've started on the 2nd book in this series - Magician: Master and am very happy with it so far.
I read this book (and the trilogy it belongs to) many years ago and still recommend this trilogy to other fantasy fans. I remember the book keeping me interested until the very end and I was excited to pick up book two and see what happened next!
Oh, it's been a long time since I read this series - ten years at least, I think! I do recall bits and pieces of the story, but for the most part, this is like reading a whole new series of books! Very well-written and peopled with interesting and likable characters, I am really looking forward to reading this entire series and catching up on the books that have been published since I last read these. All in all this was a wonderful and intriguing start to the series, set in a detailed new world.
