Rise of a Merchant Prince (The Serpentwar Saga, #2)

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Rise of a Merchant Prince (The Serpentwar Saga #2)

3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 · rating details · 10,043 ratings · 80 reviews

A TALE OF WEALTH AND AMBITION IN A WORLD OF MURDER, MAGIC AND INTRIGUE.

Roo Avery, recently returned from a harrowing brush with the armies of the Emerald Queen, is now free to choose his own destiny and his ultimate ambition is to become one of the richest and most powerful merchants in Midkemia.

But nothing can prepare him for the dangers of the new life he has chosen wher...more

Paperback, Special Overseas Edition, 479 pages

Published October 1st 1996 by Voyager (first published 1995)

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Aug 24, 2009 Jamie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

I read this book and continued the series to give it one more chance. I wasn't a fan of Shadow of a Dark Queen, and I was even less interested in this book.

The story focuses on a character who was extremely wimpy and boring in the first book, and all this one does in its 400+ pages is show us how despicable a person he really is as he becomes the city's richest man--marrying for money and power, cheating on his wife, neglecting his children, killing rival business men--anything for power and mon...more

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Mar 13, 2011 Peter added it

Gripping. A great book!: In this sequel to Shadow of a Dark Queen, author Raymond Feist takes us back to his magical world of Midkemia. Now that they have returned to the Kingdom of the Isles, Erik von Darkmoor has decided to reenlist in the fight against the dark powers that threaten his world, while Rupert Avery has decided to follow his original plan of marrying a rich merchant's ugly daughter and building a mercantile empire. But, life is going to prove interesting to both. Becoming a mercha...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Nina Schmitt rated it 3 of 5 stars

...more

The second book in Raymond Feist's super-selling quartet: The Serpentwar Saga. Triumphant but overconfident after his defeat of the reptilian Sauur army, Roo must resist a beguiling seductress who threatens to undo him and all of Midkemia. Roo Avery, recently returned from a harrowing brush with the armies of the Emerald Queen, is now free to choose his own destiny and his ultimate ambition is to become one of the richest and most powerful merchants in Midkemia. But nothing can prepare him for the dangers of the new life he has chosen, where the repayment of a debt can be as deadly as a knife in the shadows. Even those closest to him are suspect and as Roo struggles to build his financial empire, betrayal is always close at hand. But while Roo works towards achieving his goal, memories of the invasion haunt him still. For the war with the Emerald Queen is far from over and the inevitable confrontation will pose the biggest threat yet to his new found wealth and power.

From Publishers Weekly

A usual problem with sequels?that they don't measure up to the original?applies to this follow-up to Shadow of a Dark Queen, which also suffers from unexpectedly stodgy prose and a paucity of action. Focusing on Rupert Avery's rise to power and influence in the mercantile class of the City of Krondor, the narrative follows "Roo" as he forms a business alliance with a merchant, Helmut Grindle, whose daughter, Karli, he marries for a multitude of reasons, none of which is love. Roo begins an affair of sorts with the nasty and calculating Sylvia Easterbrook but also manages to have two children with Karli. Meanwhile, his friend and compatriot Erik von Darkmoor travels back down to the land of Novindus to battle the Pantathians (the serpents referred to in the subtitle). Throughout, the pacing is slow and the characters less than persuasive. While Feist sows enough interesting seeds here to redeem this series in its next (and final) installment, this volume is up to neither snuff nor par.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Feist's new saga has a freshness of vision." -- --Publishers Weekly

"Has a natural talent for keeping the reader turning pages." -- --Chicago Sun-Times

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Jul 15, 2012 Jo rated it 5 of 5 stars

Finally, a genre novel that -- at least partially -- pays homage to the more mundane.

Do you every get tired of fantasy novels that lean completely on the crutch of cliche? Tired of the newest batch of wizards and swordsmen? Do you ever long for a novel that exists in a fantasy world, but explores the life of a relatively normal fellow?

No? Well, feel free to move along then. I, on the other hand, long to see the daily life of someone who has a real job and normal set of responsibilities in an oth...more

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Jan 12, 2011 Majanka rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, high-fantasy

Rise of a Merchant Prince, in all honesty, is somewhat of an “awkward” novel, compared to the other works written by Feist, and in the fantasy genre in general, but as an outcast-book there are actually two ways you can look at it: either you think it is the best thing that ever happened to the genre in terms of leading character and plot development, or you wish you had never even picked it up to begin with. Although the story of Rupert Avery’s rise from a commoner to one of the richest men in...more Rise of a Merchant Prince, in all honesty, is somewhat of an “awkward” novel, compared to the other works written by Feist, and in the fantasy genre in general, but as an outcast-book there are actually two ways you can look at it: either you think it is the best thing that ever happened to the genre in terms of leading character and plot development, or you wish you had never even picked it up to begin with. Although the story of Rupert Avery’s rise from a commoner to one of the richest men in the Kingdom hasn’t entirely convinced me, I wouldn’t call it a complete failure either. From what I’ve read people are either entirely in love with this book, or they hate it with a passion. I guess I’m somewhere inbetween, as I do see some remarkable strengths in this book, along with some surprisingly obvious weaknesses. Not Feist’s best, but perhaps one of his most original works up to date.

In this novel, Feist shifts the focus from Erik Von Blackmoor to his best friend, Rupert Avery. Roo’s personality is a welcome change from the flawless Erik, who manages to be so amazing it gets annoying after a while. Rupert may not be the prettiest person alive – which actually works in his advantage, as it turns him into a much more believable character readers can actually relate to – but he has more personality and wit in his one hand than Erik has in his entire, utterly gigantic body. Roo starts out as a virtual nobody in the world of business, with one good idea gone completely wrong when he gets robbed from his well-earned money, but on sheer determination and a clever mind alone, he manages to make a fortune in an amazingly short amount of time. Feist really focuses on the more down-to-earth, business side of Midkemia here, a welcome change from all the warfare, epic battles and high-end magic. There is no better character he could have chosen as protagonist of this story than Rupert Avery: a man with flaws, but with a sparky and entertaining personality.

I really had trouble putting down Rise of a Merchant Prince once I really got into it, which is always a good sign. The intrigue, the drama, really showed how tough the world of business is, even in a fantasy middle-age world like Midkemia. It really portrayed the struggles of ordinary people just trying to get by, and Roo had to use all his intelligence and wit not to drown in that overwhelming ocean of intrigue here. Entertaining, sometimes even fascinating, but I can imagine that this book isn’t for everyone out there. If you’re really into the old fantasy clichés with epic quests, magicians and dragons, then Rise of a Merchant Prince really isn’t your deal. If you’re somewhat like me, and you’ve been eager for a fresh wind in the fantasy realm for a while now, then you will find this book to fulfill that wish.

Also, Feist deserves a thumbs up as in this book he finally steps away from his medieval perspective on women: either they’re unreachable statues of virtue and spoiled brattiness (princess Carlina and princess Anita from The Riftwar Series) or they’re hookers, or sort of hookers, and don’t seem to have even a spark of intelligence or a mind of their own. Luckily, in the midst of this series, Feist introduces interesting female characters who put some of the male characters to shame when it comes to intelligence and personality. Sylvia Easterbrook, a beautiful young woman and love interest of Roo, is the most well-developed female character created by Feist up to date. She is cunning, ambitious, determined, and isn’t afraid to do whatever it takes to increase her own fortune and wealth. So perhaps she’s not the most likeable person on this planet, but atleast she has personality. Now I can only hope Feist keeps on introducing female characters who are more than little puppets, and then he’ll score even higher on my list.

Read the review on my booklog.(less)

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Feb 19, 2013 Mark Oliver rated it 4 of 5 stars

A great second helping in the appropriately named Serpent War Saga though Feists sagas generally interrelate sharing common characters, themes and locations. This I see as a positive giving all his stories common ground and favoured characters such as Nakor, Pug, Macros and Thomas.

In 'Rise' the motley crew have returned from their mission to Novindus after escaping the clutches of the Emerald Queen, Roo and Erik go their separate ways as Erik remains in the army to train a new force capable of...more

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Jun 02, 2011 Em rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In the early Riftwar books, I liked Pug and Tomas as children. I liked Martin in the first 4 books. I liked Arutha, Laurie, Kasumi and Roland, no matter their ages. But my favorite character, by far, was Jimmy the Hand. In this book we get Duke James, the most like Jimmy was as a boy and a teenager. I loved that. We also get a lot of Roo. Sneaky as can be, when it comes to money, he actually reminds me a lot of Jimmy from those early books.

Roo's handling of his wife confused me a lot. He'd get t...more

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Jul 11, 2007 Tyler rated it 3 of 5 stars

Far more complex in terms of character personality and plot, this book oddly lacks the charm of Rise of the Dark Queen. Roo is shown to be a disgusting character even more than could have been guessed at previously. I found myself wishing for greater exposition of Erik's story line and less on the business deals conducted by Roo. However, I will say that the jargon was fairly limited in terms of business as even I was able to grasp most of what was going on.

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May 29, 2012 Michael rated it 1 of 5 stars

Well shucks, Mr. Feist, you've bamboozled me again. Yet again I found myself unable to put the book down and once again I was pretty disappointed when I did. Some small steps were taken to resolving the huge conflict previously mentioned, but even the huge triumphs were skipped over in a pretty unsatisfactory way. "Okay, we're about to do that super-mega-ultra-important life-threatening task...Okay, we did it. It was cool. Some people died. Now we're making some food." If that were the only shor...more

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May 09, 2013 Jacquelynn rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was tossing between 4 and 5 stars for this book, though eventually decided on 5 as the only reason I was going to give it 4 was because it was obviously a filler book in what would otherwise be a trilogy. Despite this I enjoyed it a lot, probably even more than Magician which has generally remained my favourite of Feist's books. It's not as beautifully and eloquently written as Magician was but there's something captivating about it nonetheless. Perhaps it's just my love of the medieval (esque...more I was tossing between 4 and 5 stars for this book, though eventually decided on 5 as the only reason I was going to give it 4 was because it was obviously a filler book in what would otherwise be a trilogy. Despite this I enjoyed it a lot, probably even more than Magician which has generally remained my favourite of Feist's books. It's not as beautifully and eloquently written as Magician was but there's something captivating about it nonetheless. Perhaps it's just my love of the medieval (esque) merchant class, or maybe the fact that nearly the entire book is character driven rather than plot driven (I generally prefer character driven stories), but I simply flew through this book.

Following Roo's rise to wealth and his subsequent less-than-perfect family life was interesting of itself and Feist was able to craft what was otherwise mostly a side character into someone I both disliked but cared about and wanted to succeed despite his faults.

The little bit of actual plot the book does have (besides how Roo rose to wealth) is mostly clustered in the last fifth or so of the book, to wind up for the following one I would imagine. It's intriguing but I generally found the plot interruptions a little annoying as it broke away from what Roo was doing. Strange for me to say that but that's how it felt.

Finally, what annoyed me most about this book wasn't actually what was in the book at all. It was the fact that it was obviously a filler book. Based on what Feist has already written, normally what was written in this book would be summed up in a prologue not stretched out to an entire book. It made me want to read more filler books to fill in some of the huge gaps in the story of Midkemia instead of jumping 25 years every series. I want to see how Pug got used to his slavery and Tomas dealt with his unusual memories in Magician, I want to see how Kevin grew to know his son in the Empire series, I want to see Nicholas grow and become the King's Admiral after The King's Buccaneer. I REALLY want to see some of Callis's history and how he grew up among elvankind even though he's obviously so different from his peers. What annoyed me about this book was the fact that if Feist is willing to do filler books like this one, these stories don't exist.

So what was wrong with this book wasn't actually wrong with it at all, what was wrong with it was that it was so good I wanted more and book hangover absolutely existed with this. (less)

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Oct 14, 2012 Fredrik rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Apr 18, 2011 Marko rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this book years ago, but deemed it worth my time to write a few words about it, nevertheless.

In short, Rise of the Merchant Prince was Feist's most ambitious outing since the original Magician and, imho, it was the peak of Feist's writing in general - after the Rise, Feist soon started to write faster and settled on targeting his books to young adults with no further attempts to improve his storytelling skills. I've often wondered how much this had to do with the developments in Feist's p...more

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Aug 29, 2010 Louis rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fict-fantasy, fiction

This is the second of the stories with Eric Von Darkmoore and Rupert Avery (Roo) as Rupert decides that he will seek his fortune in commerce. At the same time, Eric has been promoted and will be going back to Novindus with Calis. They need to see if they can get more information on what is happening on that Continent.

This is a tough read because the main focus of the book (Roo) is really not a very good man. You can see that he is faithful to his friends, but he flip-flops on several items. He m...more

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Sep 11, 2012 Whitney rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, fiction, own, read-in-2012

Once I got to the end of it all, this book felt kind of pointless. During the book I kept wondering where it was going and what was the point of it all in describing Roo's rise to power in the merchant world. The end was kind of a let down in that sense. Instead of wasting an entire book at 400+ pages to tell of Roo's rise, just so that he could use his resources, for a mere second at the end of the book, Roo's rise could have instead been detailed in a few chapters of another book.

Plus Roo's r...more

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Feb 06, 2012 John Hill rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another great novel by Feist, although this one takes a turn of action to drama with the rise of Roo Avery in the finacial world. Still, it loses none of it readability and manages to stay engaging even while giving a brief lesson on trading. Including words we still hear tossed around on CNBC like "options".

Towards the end of the novel, we start to see more action as Calis and his company return to the land down under to take on the Emerald Queen's army once again.

I also like how Feist expands...more

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Aug 04, 2010 Victoria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-in-a-series, fantasy-science-fiction

Picking up right where Shadow of a Dark Queen ended, this book shared none of the slow introduction of that book. The action began immediately. It focused on Rupert Avery, or "Roo", though in typical Feist-fashion, the other main players' P.O.V.s were still touched upon through the book. Roo is one of the least likable of Feist's characters and this book's business focus set it apart from the others. It is a unique fantasy book that introduces a stock market and options! Still, the book stayed e...more

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May 11, 2011 Andreas rated it 2 of 5 stars

Another epic tale from Feist, but this one falls far short of the mark. The characters are not as interesting as in previous novels, and the story does not feel nearly as epic as the Riftwar Saga. The antagonist is too simple and stylized. Feists style seems to have suffered. Having said that, if you loved Riftwar, you will probably enjoy this series as well. The series consists of:

Shadow of a Dark Queen
Rise of a Merchant Prince
Rage of a Demon King
Shards of a Broken Crown

http://www.books.ros ...more

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Sep 18, 2012 Lydia Perversius rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. So,here we have the continuation of Erik's story - with some more additions now,seeing as the main characters increased and the plot had to somehow "split" to many different paths.While Erik with Calis,De Loungville and Mirada, with a force of 60 or so of soldiers,goes back to Novindus,to reenter the Pantathian nest the Crimson Eagles found somewhere near the end of the first book and destroy as many of them and their eggs as they can,Roo stays back in Krondor to finally accomplish his dream of...more So,here we have the continuation of Erik's story - with some more additions now,seeing as the main characters increased and the plot had to somehow "split" to many different paths.While Erik with Calis,De Loungville and Mirada, with a force of 60 or so of soldiers,goes back to Novindus,to reenter the Pantathian nest the Crimson Eagles found somewhere near the end of the first book and destroy as many of them and their eggs as they can,Roo stays back in Krondor to finally accomplish his dream of becoming the Kingdom's wealthiest man,and Nakor(along with Sho Pi,who acts as his self-proclaimed student)travel to Stardock in search for Pug,spending his time teaching the students of the magic academy built there.

This book is clearly more focused on Roo's path,though(as the title indicates),showing his almost-daily life as he begins from scratch and indeed reaches the top,the way he always dreamed.He marries Helmut Grindle's daughter,and starts a little partnership with the old man,only to end up inheriting all of the company,as Timothy Jacoby,a business rival,kills Helmut.This triggers a row of events that have both young men fighting for revenge back and forth,only for Timothy to die near the end of the book,when he went a little too far,concerning Roo's money.The readers are also introduced to Kitty,a young female thief that De Loungville imprisons and then sets free under the condition that she acts as a spy,Dankan,a hopeless womanizer who is also Roo's cousin and acts - more or less - as his right-hand man with Luis,Dash,a mischievous guy that James introduces as his troublemaker grandson and who is "forced" to work on Roo's side,and Sylvia Easterbrook,a woman who at first is supposed to just be the daughter of a successful businessman,but is shown to play a more important role in Roo's life.

All in all,the book was excellent - as expected of something Feist wrote,of course - but I just couldn't give it five stars.Roo's ways as a merchant were indeed interesting,but also boring in some parts,to the point where I was praying for his part of the plot to finish,so that I could finally see what was going on with the Eagles and Nakor.Erik's path was of course much more interesting,and had me on the edge of my seat every time I had an encounter with it on the pages.Nakor was the ol' good Nakor we all know,and his path really helped lighten some of the plot with his humor and his seemingly childish ways.Bobby's death really hit the spot,though,cause I just couldn't believe that such a nice(even if he was grumpy) and somewhat fatherly man had to go - especially in front of Erik.Feist is really cruel with his characters,but I guess that's what makes his books less of the fairy tale kind,and more of the "medieval reality with a twist of magic and imaginary creatures" type.Besides,we all know this is what makes us love him and his work so much and be charmed by every single word he writes,no matter its importance.

I will,however,admit that Roo's affair with Sylvia was kinda gross and I had trouble accepting it on terms of my own personal morals.I can only imagine what will happen when Sylvia will make the mistake of mixing the two cousins - I seriously hate this woman,her ways are not even a boost in one's feministic ideals,it's just downright similar to an ambitious whore's(pardon the language). Again,though,I reminded myself that everything is part of the plan,and that her affair with Roo HAS to mean something,otherwise the author wouldn't have included it.I think I'm more pissed off with Roo than her,though.And this is another thing that cost this book my 5th star.

Anyway,I'm looking forward to reading the 3rd book,seeing as we will finally see Erik in more action,what with the war approaching and all that...(less)

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Mar 05, 2009 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

I won't say Feist is a brilliant or visionary writer, but I really enjoy his books. He excels as bildungsroman, stories about the growth of a young protagonist, and fantasy set in urban areas of yore. In particular I enjoy his somewhat broad characterisation, though his villains can be hopelessly one-dimensional.

This novel charts Rupert's business and romantic dealings in the shadow of bad guys coming to attack the continent. I'm sympathetic to the plucky life lessons and view of human nature.

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Oct 02, 2008 Shivesh rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: feist fans, prisoners, money grubbing sycophantic adulterers

Shelves: fantastical

The Midkemia train chugs along... Raymond Feist wrote a set of hugely entertaining novels back in the 80's concerning magicians and whatnot: the Riftwar Saga ended up becoming a million copy bestseller and spawned new stories. Since then, the writing has actually degenerated in quality and things are not looking good for either the storylines or for Feist's writing career. Actually that last bit is an overstatement, since he is still a bestseller and going strong. In the early 90's he set out wi...more The Midkemia train chugs along... Raymond Feist wrote a set of hugely entertaining novels back in the 80's concerning magicians and whatnot: the Riftwar Saga ended up becoming a million copy bestseller and spawned new stories. Since then, the writing has actually degenerated in quality and things are not looking good for either the storylines or for Feist's writing career. Actually that last bit is an overstatement, since he is still a bestseller and going strong. In the early 90's he set out with the Serpentwar Saga, of which Shadow of a Dark Queen was an inauspicious but quite readable entry. 'The Rise of a Merchant Prince' is the second volume of the tale, and thankfully it is significantly better that the first volume.

A cursory search online for reviews for the Serpentwar Saga will actually net you reviews that are contrary to what I am writing here. People seem to be sharply divided over this volume, because Feist persists on a storyline of greed, mercantilism and political shenanigans with an undercurrent of a serious war brewing. The usual fantasy cliches are here: there is a mysterious and shadowed force rising in the west over the seas, some evil being wants to take over everything, multiple storylines converge into one narrative, etc. As a feat of narrative technique, Feist does a remarkable job - he welds together multiple character arcs as the story moves along. The problem really has to do with the pace of the storyline: it is much too glacial in some parts, disorientingly fast in others. It suffers from the same malady that a lot of Feist's stories have since the end of the Riftwar. Who knows what happened to that guy who wrote the original series? I want him back.

Anyway, this book takes up the story of our boyhood chums from the end of 'Dark Queen'. Rupert has embarked on an ambitious scheme to be the richest man in Krondor while Erik has moved on to become a Knight-Captain of the King's Guard. Pretty good prospects for a couple of punks from Darkmoor. Inevitably, it becomes known through the occassional appearances of Pug, Miranda, Tomas and others that the Emerald Queen is raising an armada to invade the Kingdom within a couple of years. 'Rise of a Merchant Prince', however, deals almost exclusively with Rupert's rise in the business world of Krondor and the Kingdom.

Feist actually kept me close to this book with his slow build. Although the pace is very uneven, he draws in the reader with well constructed tension from the very beginning. Perhaps that is his real draw as a writer, this reader can only speculate. But do not confuse that plot-driven writing with memorable characters: Rupert is an utterly deplorable protagonist in this volume. He cheats, steals, manipulates the marketplace, impregnates his boss' daughter, marries her without love, cheats on her shortly thereafter (and justifies it), buys and trades weaponry, and even dips his toe into drug dealing for a while. Nice! All in the name of profit, eh Rupert? Needless to say, he becomes the Merchant Prince of the title, and rises to become the richest man in Krondor. Feist nicely dovetails this into the main narrative, which will be picked up in the 'Demon King' as the unholy army approaches the Kingdom and Rupert's wealth will have to be called upon.

Erik is barely present after the first 50 pages, so we do not get to know him very well. Feist gets a little lazy in promoting him so quickly. This is such a common problem I have increasingly noticed as I've grown older but persist in reading the fantasy genre that I so loved as a kid: the tendency for writers to tell you about a character instead of showing you. Erik's superlative leadership is not questioned by anyone, it is just accepted that he is the leader of his fighting force. But why? How? What things did he do better than anyone else to deserve such a honor? I dislike having to accept a character's development just because the writer says so - I need to see it happen in order to believe it. Thus, Erik remains a forgettable creation to me. Rupert's development as a businessman is extremly well done in this book, but as much as he is seen as an honorable man, his actions do not bear this out. The author has done the rare deed of drawing an extremely poor character very well.

I don't compare him with other authors, only himself. Feist still has not yet equalled the invention of Pug or even Arutha, who were much more likeable and believable during the Riftwar. But for the story, which includes several politcal machinations and business asides, I was hooked. As a personal preference I do tend to like slower paced, deeper tales such as this over exclusively fast narrative. So Feist does a notch better than his last outing, and this volume gets 3 stars.

Once I've started a saga I almost never stop. So, on to volume 3 it is!

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Jul 23, 2011 Ruth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Published 1995. My tuppence worth is that this was a bit of a slog to get through - almost like a hiatus before the next real instalment. Nice development of Roo. Still loved Erik and my new favourite Boldar Blood. Too much mercantile information for my liking. Spoiler alert - the death of Robert De Loungville was briefly described but heart wrenching. I hate it when a character dies. "A great and terrible storm is coming, Pug. It is black and deadly and we don't understand yet what is behind it...more

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Feb 14, 2013 Judith rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: f, ebooks

Leuke karakters, vooral Ru en Eric, maar de plot is echt minder dan die van de Keizerrijkserie en die van De Oorlog van de grote Scheuring. Het is me allemaal net te toevallig en sommige zaken zijn echt ongeloofwaardig. (Hoewel ik niet echt een voorbeeld kan noemen. Het is meer een algemeen gevoel) Maar ik heb wel erg van de boeken genoten. Het blijft heerlijk leesbare fantasy. En ik haat Sylvia. Wat een bitch.

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Apr 02, 2013 Benjamin rated it 3 of 5 stars

What a trudge-fest. This book is all filler and no killer. Granted, there are some interesting parts, but none of the action of the first book in the saga. I ploughed through to get to the third book.
This book is all about one man and his affairs. It is so concentrated on his fall into corruption, that it is a breath of fresh air to see him "fail" at the end.

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Apr 22, 2013 Tre Pryor rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

Another strong showing by Feist but it really could have ended with the third book, Rage of a Demon King, which was really the climax of this series. It seemed to me that the 4th book was an afterthought. Even still, the series is great because we're now working with a new generation of characters from the land of Midkemia. Fun stuff.

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May 17, 2012 Skip rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

The second book in the Serpentwars Saga wasn't nearly as good as the first. Way too much focus on Roo, who was one of my less-liked characters from the first book. This is a setup book in the series and it shows. The whole thing could have been replaced by about a 10 page summary at the start of book 3, and I wouldn't have missed it.

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Aug 04, 2011 John Montagne rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Serpentwar Saga - though it starts a new series, is so closely entwined with the previous Riftwar saga that one can refer to my original Riftwar saga review. Feist upholds the fantasy tropes well, keeping them in tune with the genre yet with a writing style that kept me reading despite the expected traits of a typical fantasy world.

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Mar 07, 2013 Jonathan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Focuses almost entirely on a not particularly interesting side story, doesn't cover much ground at all concerning the overall story arc of the serpentwar.

Unless a huge fan of the roo avery character, id suggest skipping onto rage of a mad king, which is possible without missing a beat.

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Mar 24, 2013 Martyn F rated it 4 of 5 stars

Skip the prologue. It would give you the wrong start. The rest of the story is good. Why it is positioned in a fantasy world I do not really know. But I really liked the little rat Rupert rising in the merchant ranks. Sometimes funny. Sometimes exciting. Almost always interesting.

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Aug 11, 2011 Longanlon rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Цялото ревю: http://kaka-cuuka.com/knigi/vazhodat-...

Не е съвсем зле и става за убиване на времето, но нищо повече и нищо общо с най-доброто от Реймънд Фийст...

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Sep 04, 2009 Grimward rated it 5 of 5 stars

Feist's introduction of the Rupert Avery character was a masterstroke, in my opinion, and gave a granularity and flavor to the commerce of Midkemia which was missing in the previous books. One of my favorite characters in Feist's world, to be sure.

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About Raymond E. Feist

Raymond E. Feist was born Raymond E. Gonzales III, but took his adoptive step-fathers surname when his mother remarried Felix E. Feist. He graduated with a B.A. in Communication Arts with Honors in 1977 from the University of California at San Diego. During that year Feist had some ideas for a novel about a boy who would be a magician. He wrote the novel two years later, and it was published in 19...more

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Books by Raymond E. Feist

Magician: Apprentice (The Riftwar Saga, #1)

A Darkness At Sethanon (The Riftwar Saga, #4)

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Quotes from Rise Of A Merchant Prince

“Every person you encounter, whom you interact with, is there to teach you something. Sometimes it may be years before you realize what each had to show you.” — 67 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43917.Rise_of_a_Merchant_Prince?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1360282060l/43917.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43917.Rise_of_a_Merchant_Prince?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Rise of a Merchant Prince by Raymond E. Feist[/url]

Rise of a Merchant Prince (The Serpentwar Saga #2)

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