The books / Raymond E Feist
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Anyone a fan of the novels? I remember adoring them as a teen, not sure how well they hold up in the year 2025. I think some of them deal directly with stuff related to the game’s plot.
I’ve also not played the game but it is my understanding that some of the established characters from the novels make appearances in the game?
I have been recommended them multiple times, but never got around to them. Maybe next month is a good excuse to finally read one!
Except I’m already reading two books and I’m notorious for taking ages to finish reading anything!
I used the club selection as an excuse to finally read one of Feist’s solo-authored books, and saw somewhere that the game was based on the same world but introduced a new story and characters. Sounded good to me to go read the inspiration first.
So I picked up Krondor: The Betrayal and finished it, only to find out from the afterword that this book was the novelization of the game and I should’ve read a different series if I wanted to avoid spoilers. Whoops!
I did enjoy the read, though, which hopefully means I’ll like the game too!
Yes, it seems that Feist decided to make the game canon and weave it into the greater lore of his works. That seems pretty unique to me, I don’t think I’ve heard of any other author do that…
Looks like the other books that are most closely related to the game are “Silverthorn” and “A Darkness at Sethanon”.
Basically, if you want to avoid spoilers the order is to read the riftwar saga and empire trilogy before playing the game.
Pretty hefty read for one month, especially if you also want to play the game. From what I recall, it should be fairly okey to leave the excellent empire trilogy until after the game (it’s co-authored by Wurts). Maybe that would even be better, since it would leave the empire being somwhat more unfamiliar, as most player characters would view it.
Feist’s Bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_E._Feist_bibliography
For anyone wondering what Feist’s novel Krondor: The Betrayal is like, imagine someone did a single run-through of the game and novelized the experience. He did some of the sidequests and mostly stuck to the main plot. He improvised dialogue where necessary but stayed very close to the story at all times.
It’s amazing to see a novel where its origins are:
role-playing group -> author -> game -> author
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