I really liked this when I was 20. I barely remembered it - about the only thing that stuck was Pug getting taken as a slave. Re-reading it 40 years later left me unimpressed. Fantasy has moved on I guess. It seems awfully generic now - feudal kingdoms, tall beautiful Elves, miner Dwarves, orphan boy who has a Great Destiny, and ordinary boy who becomes the Mighty Warrior with enchanted armor. And it takes forever to advance the plot, without any major character development along the way. The Rift idea is cool, and I really would have liked more about the magical devices that kept it open. But my major disappointment came at the end, when it's revealed that everything was foreordained to happen as it did - no one apparently had any free will in the matter including the one who machinated events for apparent centuries. Eh.
It isn't bad by any means, but I remembered it as a lot better. For me, it suffers by comparison with newer ideas.
It isn't bad by any means, but I remembered it as a lot better. For me, it suffers by comparison with newer ideas.
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