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Talon of the Silver Hawk (Conclave of Shadows, Book 1)

Talon of the Silver Hawk (Conclave of Shadows, Book 1)

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Dry and Contrived !
Review: Besides an interesting plot and intriguing characters, a great fantasy must have intensity, emotions and depth. Sadly these are missing in Talon of the Silver Hawk. The beginning is fine but after a quarter through the book, I know Feist is not my type of writer. His style lacks sensitivity in his characters.
I could not identify with the protagonist and do not really care what happen to him next. This story is just one of the many average and typical fantasies churned out today and definitely not for us who wish our fantasy to have a soul. I would have given 2 stars but well...the plot of the story does seem promising at first glance.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Intresting Story
Review: Feist is brilliant he knows how to write plain and simple.
He started with the Rift-War Saga and went through it keep his characters alive but everything must come to an end. his new book Talon of the silver hawk although missing some of his great characters of the series past is worth the read he brings you into a loveable character that had his life striped from him before it even really started .I couldn't put the book when i was reading it. I can't wait for king of foxes.
I would recommend that if that you are new to Feist get the Magician: Apprentice & Magician: Master first. This book is worth getting and will be a great addition to your bookshelf.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Feist is truly a master of fantasy!
Review: Feist is truly a master of fantasy! In Talon of a Silver Hawk Feist does an excellent job of keeping the story alive over the time period that has passed in the novels. I was not sure how he was going to conclude the series that began in Magician: Apprentice only because Pug has become so powerful. Feist has done a wonderful job and has brought us back to the story through a different perspective that is proving to be just as compelling.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Lacks drama, character
Review: Feist fans will want to read this book if only to see how Midkemia has rebuilt after the Serpentwar. However, the main character is quite hollow compared to the flamboyant and vibrant characters from previous stories. Conveniently, Talon is excels at everything. This makes his character unintersting to me. His mentors are much more intriguing than he is, but glimpses of their characters are fleeting.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not the best but got potential
Review: This book signifies a rather good effort (in my opinion) to bring the world to the next stage of development. All those so-called fans out there asking for familiar characters, puh-lease re-read the series from Riftwar to Serpantwar carefully.... Jimmy the Hand is DEAD. Arutha is DEAD. Sure there is room for development of plots in between the 2 great wars but to me, who has read his series time and again, I found books like Tear of the God, Krondor the Assassins etc cliche, thin in plot and seemed like an attempt to generate additional book revenue from a tried and tested formula when the ideas ran dry.

Talon is refreshing. This book carries on from the last of the Serpentwar series, which is Shards of a Broken Crown, in which Pug fell out with the royal family's successor, Prince Patrick. and the only reminders of the previous series were mentions of Pug, Miranda, Jimmy and Dash (Grandsons of Jimmy the Hand)... which I'm sure will come into the limelight in the subsequent books. Talon is a new character and though there are undertones that he is a combination of Arutha and Jimmy, the book has other pluses as Feist introduces a new culture into the series, giving the world of Midkemia a fuller third dimension. Talon also signifies a new age for Midkemia, and after Kelewan and Demons, seem to imply there are new threats to this world.

Feist has carried on his distinctive style that engages the reader from page one to the end and to fully enjoy this book, one should look at it from the point of view of reading about a new adventure, rather than trying to find remnants of nostalgia. Though I miss my favourite characters e.g. Jimmy the Hand, too, the fact that the character was killed in Serpentwar series doesn't stop me from enjoying this new beginning.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not up to expactations
Review: I am quite dissapointed in Raymond e feists latest book. After reading the riftwar saga and the serpant war saga, i had such high expactations..... But, sad to say, this book is really dissapointing. Althought the book is quite o.k, i still think that the plot of this book is too shallow. Besides that, i find the hero's view of woman quite distasteful.....He thinks them as mindless machines or tools for inflicting pleasure.Another thing i have noted lacking in this book are the elves and the dwarfs. In the whole book, we meet not a single elf. We who have followed the riftwar saga do not know what has happened to Pug's life long friend Tomas. Besides this, i also find that Pug is quite distant in this book. He seems to have changed alot from his old and cheery self into a dark and driven person who is only focused on his goal. He does not show much warmth or expression in this book. I also think that Nakor has played too minor a role in this book. In the whole book, i only see Nakor once or twice. Magnus is also not expanded much in this book. All the way throught the book we keep hearing people say 'he might be more powerful than his father.' But in the end we rarely see him display his powers. In conclusion, i find myself quite disappointed in Raymond e feist's work. I expected much more from him. I hope the second book will be better.l

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good, quick read, but plot is cliche
Review: I debated about how high to rate this book because while I had some problems with it, it was a quick, fairly enjoyable read. It was refreshing after reading some very lengthy, more dense fantasy novels recently. This book is actually a bit too short. It needed generous page margins to hit 380 pages.

The main problem I had was that Feist has written this novel before. It's an extraordinary young man coming of age story. Okay, we had that story in Magician with Pug, in book 1 of the Serpentwar with Erik, and in book 2 with Roo. Now it's Talon and once again we get page after page of an exceptional boy being trained, learning about love (or lust), etc.

I don't mind new characters, but I think I'd have rather seen more of the old cast and gotten a better understanding of what exactly the Conclave does (beyond... we have to stop the big, bad evil!). I read the Riftwar and Serpentwar many years ago and skipped the Krondor series, but if I remember right, Pug's creation of the Conclave at the end of the Serpentwar struck me as rather contrived in the first place. This new book doesn't help explain things much better. The "we can't tell you yet" wears thin after awhile.

I suppose Feist has made Pug and company too powerful so he has to give them something mysterious to do to keep them occupied while he moves less powerful, more at risk characters around his world. If done well though, a gripping story about even very high powered characters like Pug could be written.

anyway, I digress. "Talon..." makes for good light reading, but veterans of Feist's Midkemia books may feel a strong sense of deja vu.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A very nice read.
Review: It's probably not as good as the Magician series, but then that would be hard to beat. However, I like Feist doing what he does best-- coming of age stories featuring talented young men in difficult situations. In the books that I've enjoyed the most in Midkemia, there's been a character like Talon.

It's a little bit thin, and I'll reserve final judgement until I've seen where the larger series goes (I didn't really like the plot turn at the end of the book), but it was surely satisfying to read on a cold autumn day.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not bad, could be better.
Review: Raymond E. Feist is one of the classic fantasy authors, so I began with joy his latest novel about the vast world of Midkemia, "Talon of the Silver Hawk". and I read it with pleasure. In this book you can find a pretty good character development, interesting battle-scenes and, of course, a lot of magic. Still, the first two hundred pages a quite annoying (I'm not that interested in Tal's love problems), but no doubt "Talon of the Silver Hawk" is an enjoyable novel.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not as good as his early books.
Review: While this is not as good as his earlier works, "Magician's Apprentice", "Magician's Master", "Darkness at Sethenon", etc., which are some of the BEST fantasy books of all times (especially for young readers), this book is not that bad, but not great.
The American Indian depiction of blond barbarians is a bit strange and was a hindrance to the story for me. The WE will not tell you what WE plan for you, trust US anyway, gets old very quickly, and the hero of the story is way to trusting an Unbelievable.
But the narrow scope of the story is GREAT, no 'The World is in the Balance', no 'Worlds Last Hope', no 'Universes at Risk', crud that too many authors seem to be fixated with and use a plot crutch.
If you like Feist you will like this to some degree, there is a possibility that this will become a good series, lets hope!


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