I came across R.E Feists 'Magician' on a bench in Ynysangharad Park. The next week I managed to pick up the following two, 'Silverthorn' and 'A Darkness at Sethanon', from The Green Bookshop on Market Street.
I remember 'Magician' of course, but I hadn't realised it's significance in the publishing world. I read all the original trilogy, but after that Feist's Midkemia novels wandered off to nowhere very interesting. With one exception, that is: the 'Daughter of Empire' trilogy he co-wrote with Janny Wurts I thought was a lot better than the rest, and I still have those on my bookshelf. (For now, at least, I'm threatened with downsizing and may have to make sacrifices!). Incidently, these are all 'flame and wave' Grafton's - I hadn't realised the significance of that before!
I remember the Wurtz trilogy as well, sold loads of those too. He's still in print and the initial sequence still sells, but his work is typical of the formula adopted by publishers for Fantasy since 77, which has done such harm to creativity - unnatural and unnecessary sequels! Hope you are well, mate!
What's the difference between the 1992 Revised edition of Magician and the Original 1982 version, because the older Grafton paperback has more pages than the Revised version, Great Review!😃
I can't say as I've never read the revised edition. You can't always go from pagination in terms of determining if there is more or less content. My suspicion is that he either excised or added stuff to augment/have continuity with the vastly expanded Riftwar Saga, but I'm just guessing here to be honest.
Our lives although lived in different parts of the U.K seem to have crossed many of the same paths. Magician I read in the 1990's after reading the Lord of the Rings, bought from Forbidden Planet Glasgow. In that period Magic Kingdom for Sale, all Robert Rankin books Armaggedan the Musical [ Class ] Lord Foul's Bane a really hard read the and the Shannara books did the rounds as well although once I discovered Rankin they where all binned and one simply focused on Rankin and the Terry Pratchett Disc World serious. But I did enjoy reading this 1st time around getting into the book was so easy and because of the 2 main characters at the end of each chapter you where left hanging staying up reading all night then going into work shattered was normal reading this. In 2019 I did a pannier tour from Bergen to Groningen in the Netherlands and downloaded this to read as well as Silverthorn. Enjoyed Magician to a extent but by that time Sci fi books had left the system. PS I wonder if you could help me out...round about this time I read a Sci fi book about a guy in America who' mum believed Elvis when he died went to live in the stars...this dude drove a old motorbike, he discovered something which I cannot remember { I read tons of books at this time ) so memory sketchy and was being chased around America by 2 MIB dudes with some sort of cyber doberman the same fashion as a Robert Rankin book I just cannot remember the Author and name of the book can you help
Yes, hard to get hold of in trade paperback and hardcover. As I said in the clip, Silverthorn has a totally different cover in trade and hdbk and you never see it for sale online.
I have the trilogy" lost / hidden " somewhere in my collection . All i remember is the door stop size . Difficult to read standing in a bus . And the spines take beating. Kings ' The Stand ' and 'It ' are other examples . I am a fan of the authors . Just the format can be a bit of a strain ( just my foolish opinion ) Thanks. Looking forward to more
Loved The Magician when I first read it way back then as a teenager... Thought the series (and spin-offs) that followed basically well downhill from there - didn't get past Silverthorn myself.
That's why I put that note about "When was the last time you saw a Sword & Sorcery singleton..." at the end of the video. Since Del Rey books published Brooks' first Shannara title in 77, the whole subgenre has been based on an artificial commercial construct - the idea that because Tolkien wrote a trilogy (he didn't, he wrote a big book split into 3 volumes for marketing/binding reasons) people had to have more of the same. There were some singletons still in the 80s but not many after that...
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Sorry, didn't see that as I switched to writing the comment when you started your verbal sign-off. Have to agree with you re. the multi-books rather than single books bit. However, Sword & Sorcery series have been around for a long time. Michael Moorcock - who you mention in the video - has produced several (in fact his whole Eternal Champion narrative could be called a "series" with Elric, Corum etc. being reincarnations of the same character..). I've never finished one of his series because I found various odd titles in a pile of old books in my uni halls common room when I was a first year (late '80's). Very enjoyable nevertheless!
@@douglasherron7534 -I've been a Moorcock fan since the end of the 70s, hosted him 3 times for bookshop events. There are some Moorcock clips on the channel with more to come. S&S series have been around a long time, but before 77 no-one was copying the Tolkien model, they were short, sharp books fixed-up from magazine stories (Howard, Leiber, Vance, Moore) and there were singletons like Anderson's 'Broken Sword'. If you watch my video on the artificial fantasy trilogy after 1977 where I go into the publishing history of modern and contemporary fantasy, you'll see what I mean in detail. Thanks again for your comments!
I loved the original trilogy and the daughter of empire trilogy. But the other books suffer from power creep - as the main character got more powerful more powerful adversaries were introduced, and things just got ridiculous very quickly.
Well that's the nature of the never-ending saga, which is an artificial construct designed to make money - if people keep buying the stuff, writers keep producing it as it satisfies the publishers. Watch my video 'The Artifical Fantasy Trilogy Since 1977' for a fuller look at how Fantasy stopped being imaginative and merely became formulaic. Thanks for your comment.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I actually watched 'The Artifical Fantasy Trilogy Since 1977' first, and then your 'Magician' video after I checked what else you had. 'Magician' is the second fantasy series I ever read as a kid, after Barbara Hambly's 'Darwath Trilogy' introduced me to the genre. Did you ever cover Patrick Tilley in any of your videos? His 'Amtrak Wars' books were very popular back in the day, but he seems to be largely forgotten.
I came across R.E Feists 'Magician' on a bench in Ynysangharad Park. The next week I managed to pick up the following two, 'Silverthorn' and 'A Darkness at Sethanon', from The Green Bookshop on Market Street.
Only in Ponty!
I remember 'Magician' of course, but I hadn't realised it's significance in the publishing world. I read all the original trilogy, but after that Feist's Midkemia novels wandered off to nowhere very interesting.
With one exception, that is: the 'Daughter of Empire' trilogy he co-wrote with Janny Wurts I thought was a lot better than the rest, and I still have those on my bookshelf. (For now, at least, I'm threatened with downsizing and may have to make sacrifices!). Incidently, these are all 'flame and wave' Grafton's - I hadn't realised the significance of that before!
I remember the Wurtz trilogy as well, sold loads of those too. He's still in print and the initial sequence still sells, but his work is typical of the formula adopted by publishers for Fantasy since 77, which has done such harm to creativity - unnatural and unnecessary sequels! Hope you are well, mate!
What's the difference between the 1992 Revised edition of Magician and the Original 1982 version, because the older Grafton paperback has more pages than the Revised version, Great Review!😃
I can't say as I've never read the revised edition. You can't always go from pagination in terms of determining if there is more or less content. My suspicion is that he either excised or added stuff to augment/have continuity with the vastly expanded Riftwar Saga, but I'm just guessing here to be honest.
Our lives although lived in different parts of the U.K seem to have crossed many of the same paths. Magician I read in the 1990's after reading the Lord of the Rings, bought from Forbidden Planet Glasgow. In that period Magic Kingdom for Sale, all Robert Rankin books Armaggedan the Musical [ Class ] Lord Foul's Bane a really hard read the and the Shannara books did the rounds as well although once I discovered Rankin they where all binned and one simply focused on Rankin and the Terry Pratchett Disc World serious. But I did enjoy reading this 1st time around getting into the book was so easy and because of the 2 main characters at the end of each chapter you where left hanging staying up reading all night then going into work shattered was normal reading this. In 2019 I did a pannier tour from Bergen to Groningen in the Netherlands and downloaded this to read as well as Silverthorn. Enjoyed Magician to a extent but by that time Sci fi books had left the system. PS I wonder if you could help me out...round about this time I read a Sci fi book about a guy in America who' mum believed Elvis when he died went to live in the stars...this dude drove a old motorbike, he discovered something which I cannot remember { I read tons of books at this time ) so memory sketchy and was being chased around America by 2 MIB dudes with some sort of cyber doberman the same fashion as a Robert Rankin book I just cannot remember the Author and name of the book can you help
I'll have to think about that one...but it does ring vague bells..
Hard to get hold off? Have all 3, but only darkness is the trade size
Yes, hard to get hold of in trade paperback and hardcover. As I said in the clip, Silverthorn has a totally different cover in trade and hdbk and you never see it for sale online.
I have the trilogy" lost / hidden " somewhere in my collection . All i remember is the door stop size . Difficult to read standing in a bus . And the spines take beating. Kings ' The Stand ' and 'It ' are other examples . I am a fan of the authors . Just the format can be a bit of a strain ( just my foolish opinion ) Thanks. Looking forward to more
Agreed- I think the USA 'Magician' was split into two volumes.
Loved The Magician when I first read it way back then as a teenager... Thought the series (and spin-offs) that followed basically well downhill from there - didn't get past Silverthorn myself.
That's why I put that note about "When was the last time you saw a Sword & Sorcery singleton..." at the end of the video. Since Del Rey books published Brooks' first Shannara title in 77, the whole subgenre has been based on an artificial commercial construct - the idea that because Tolkien wrote a trilogy (he didn't, he wrote a big book split into 3 volumes for marketing/binding reasons) people had to have more of the same. There were some singletons still in the 80s but not many after that...
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Sorry, didn't see that as I switched to writing the comment when you started your verbal sign-off.
Have to agree with you re. the multi-books rather than single books bit. However, Sword & Sorcery series have been around for a long time. Michael Moorcock - who you mention in the video - has produced several (in fact his whole Eternal Champion narrative could be called a "series" with Elric, Corum etc. being reincarnations of the same character..). I've never finished one of his series because I found various odd titles in a pile of old books in my uni halls common room when I was a first year (late '80's). Very enjoyable nevertheless!
@@douglasherron7534 -I've been a Moorcock fan since the end of the 70s, hosted him 3 times for bookshop events. There are some Moorcock clips on the channel with more to come. S&S series have been around a long time, but before 77 no-one was copying the Tolkien model, they were short, sharp books fixed-up from magazine stories (Howard, Leiber, Vance, Moore) and there were singletons like Anderson's 'Broken Sword'. If you watch my video on the artificial fantasy trilogy after 1977 where I go into the publishing history of modern and contemporary fantasy, you'll see what I mean in detail. Thanks again for your comments!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal And thanks for your replies! I'll look up the other videos you have mentioned. Thanks again and keep them coming.
I loved the original trilogy and the daughter of empire trilogy. But the other books suffer from power creep - as the main character got more powerful more powerful adversaries were introduced, and things just got ridiculous very quickly.
Well that's the nature of the never-ending saga, which is an artificial construct designed to make money - if people keep buying the stuff, writers keep producing it as it satisfies the publishers. Watch my video 'The Artifical Fantasy Trilogy Since 1977' for a fuller look at how Fantasy stopped being imaginative and merely became formulaic. Thanks for your comment.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I actually watched 'The Artifical Fantasy Trilogy Since 1977' first, and then your 'Magician' video after I checked what else you had.
'Magician' is the second fantasy series I ever read as a kid, after Barbara Hambly's 'Darwath Trilogy' introduced me to the genre.
Did you ever cover Patrick Tilley in any of your videos? His 'Amtrak Wars' books were very popular back in the day, but he seems to be largely forgotten.