Into a Dark Realm (The Darkwar Saga, Book 2)

I'll admit - I'm a longtime Feist fan (as is probably evident by my reviews of his books on this site), and have been anxiously awaiting this second installment of the Darkwar Saga to come out on paperback.

Feist has written virtually all of his books in small groups - the Riftwar Saga, the Serpentwar Saga, etc. Yet his brilliance lies in tying threads connecting these sometimes seemingly disparate sections into one larger tapestry, and this book truly brings his genius to the fore.

We found in prior books (Exile's Return, the last of the Conclave Of Shadows trilogy, and Flight of the Nighthawks, the first of the Darkwar Saga) the main characters discovering some mysterious armored creatures hidden in a cave on the island of Novindus. The creatures are known as Talnoy - ruthless killing machines controlled by an alien race known as Dasati, and powered by captured souls - in essence, necromancy. There are thousands of Talnoy secreted in this cave, and the big mystery is how they got there, although the common consensus is they were put there by Macros the Black, a now deceased mage once considered the most powerful user of magic in the Kingdom of the Isles (in the planet of Midkemia).

It turns out the Dasati are a ruthless race of warriors, who see compassion as weakness. If they encounter it in someone, they kill them. In many respects, they are animalistic, responding to violence, anger and lust, and trained right from birth in this cruel mindset and having a honed survival instinct ingrained in them. However, they reside on another plane of existence (remember the saying "Seven Hells"? Well, think of each plane of existence below ours being a lower level of hell).

What alarms Pug, Nakor, Magnus, and the other members of the Conclave, is it seems the Dasati plan on invading Midkemia - and the effect of such an invasion by billions of Dasati would be the utter destruction of everything they hold dear, and the anihilation of life as they know it. In order to gain more knowledge, the three of them, together with the mysterious Ralen Bek, travel to the second realm, in the hope of finding answers, and possibly of averting this disastrous invasion.

In some of his earlier books, Feist had a tendency of switching characters each chapter (which in me had the effect of wanting to skip chapters so I could see what happens next!). In this novel, he has upped the ante, so to speak, and sometimes switches between characters (or groups of characters) several times within each chapter. The next result is that he has ratcheted up the suspense and made it virtually impossible to put the book down. His skill at explaining the workings of magic and exploring the nature of deities is second to none. Combine that with someone who brings characters to life and who weaves brilliant tales together, not to mention delving into a whole new race and plane of existance, and you have a brilliant book.

I highly recommend this book, and cannot wait for the next installment "Wrath Of A Mad God"!

The previous title in this latest Midkemia series was dissapointing for me - to say the least. Old characters came back, new ones were added, but there was little new in the story.
This one, however, brought something totally different. A new world, home of the Dasati, with new characters, and Pug & co. up against some competition that is overwhelming.
In previous books I often wondered why - with such power at his disposal, Pug doesn't often use it. For example, with access to off-world resources, why not recruit high-powered mercenaries for really tough jobs.
No more wondering, Feist has lifted the gauntlet and off-world is here.
The book also has a favourite bad-penny coming back, but telling who will only spoil it.
Obviously, if you are reading your 15th or so Midkemia novel, there is little chance you will miss this one.

Good but only the beginning.

Good story.

Raymond E. Feist is always entertaining

Great book.

Again, Feist astounds with his world-building skills. The world that Kalkin (Bannath) had revealed to Kaspar comes fully-fleshed, and actually believable. When the Dasati world was first revealed in Exile's Return, I was quite skeptical towards the world (as were most of the characters). After all, how could such a society evolve that way? The usual reason of Nakor that "evil is insane" didn't quite make that in anyway believable. But Feist did a marvelous job in detailing how it came to be. The thought of a Dark God twisting the people was very well-written. It was subtle enough, and powerful enough, especially when it was revealed to Lord Valko that "the people weren't always that way. Everything you've ever learned is a lie." You get as shocked as Valko did.

It was also good that a major theme in this novel was learning. While Pug and company learned how they were to survive in the Dasati realm, Valko was learning what was to come after claiming his birthright, and as this was happening, Tad and Zane were learning from the University of Roldem. Now, the reason I gave this 4 stars instead of 5 was the fact that, again, Tad and Zane's storyline dragged the plot down. Their part wasn't really needed. Of course, their roles and the significance of the events they were in will be touched upon again the next saga, but unlike Conclave of Shadows, this gave the book a very unfinished quality that almost unbalances it. In the previous book, Jommy was introduced and immediately adopted into the family. Easily, Jommy was more fleshed out as a character than either Tad or Zane. One gets to wonder if Jommy was introduced because Feist got bored writing Tad and Zane's story. I certainly was. But the effort to flesh out Jommy could as well have fleshed out Tad and Zane. We know Feist is great at characters, but Tad and Zane were probably the least-developed main characters I've ever chanced upon. And its not that they're not magic-users, because we just saw Feist's prowess of story-telling with Tal and Kaspar. No, it just so happened that the more epic storylines were being told now, and so the non-magic users were again relegated to the background.

I also liked how Feist was shaping up the theology in his world as well. I came to anticipate Nakor's conversations with Pug with great excitement. Overall, a great book of world-building, dragged down by the Tad and Zane storyline.

What can I say he is one of the best, keep you interested all through the books. would recommend his books to all.

Feist has developed a habit, in the books leading up to Into a Dark Realm, of sliding into sloppiness in the last few chapters, and this is no exception. Before I get to that, however, let me note what worked.

Feist's depiction of Pug and the others' learning what the Dasati world would be like and how they must come to acclimate to it was fairly well written and an interesting piece of fiction. The introduction of Valkor's training and rise to lordship complemented this well, giving a sense of the culture and world in ways that Pug's education couldn't describe effectively.

However, characterizing the Dasati world as overrun by evil, which is continually equated with madness, didn't seem to quite work as there was a great deal of order despite the murderousness, violence, lust, and chaos. Madness should not reasonably produce that much order, which made the tale of the rule of the Dasati dark god far fetched. This may be something that Feist deals with later, showing that what has been revealed isn't the real truth, but that can't be determined yet.

While the narrative of Pug and his companions worked well, as did Valkor's ascendancy, none of the other narratives held up. Feist seemed to try to pair off Valkor's training with the boys', which would have worked except that Tad, Zane, and Jommy's education, training, and battle never seemed to carry much purpose. It's intimated that they're preparing for the war with the Dasati, but it just came off feeling haphazard.

Miranda's narrative, tied closely to what was happening on Kelewan, seemed almost utterly superfluous. Where it landed finally made for a decent plot, but the rest of it just seemed like a need to keep the thread going just enough to not let the reader forget that it was happening and that Miranda is temperamental. In many respects, it would have been better to have dropped the boys' plot and bolster Miranda's, but this was not Feist's choice.

Finally, the last few chapters accelerated what was already a problem in the text. Because there were multiple narratives happening, the book kept swapping between them, which was not all bad, though depending on which plots felt interesting, it was occasionally tiresome. The end, however, gave me literary whiplash with two pages of one narrative, switch to two pages of a different narrative, switch to two pages of yet another narrative, and so on. If Feist were attempting to build tension as per an audio-visual medium such as film, this might have worked, but as a book, it lost any sense of continuity. I just found myself frustrated and waiting for the resolution.
2.5/5

This addition the series provided a lot of answers and information! The Second Circle is fascinating and though overall rather horrific, the new characters make for an interesting change of pace. Enough old characters balance out the new, making them more of the focus. Unfortunately, some of the plot devices were a bit predictable. Still the overall sense of buildup is rising and the absolute cliffhanger of an ending makes it nearly impossible to stop reading. I can't imagine being one of the readers who waited a whole year for the next installment! I wouldn't have the patience!