Magician: Apprentice

I was immediately hooked from the onset. At the start of the first book we are introduced to the main character ‘Pug' who is a local teen-aged orphan boy of limited prospects. He is shortly chosen for an apprenticeship to the local magician Kulgan, much to Pug's surprise as he isn't even aware that he has any magical skills at this point.

Some other notable characters introduced are Pug's best friend Tomas, and also the Princess Carline whom Pug has a slight ‘crush' on. The characters themselves at this point seem a little... flat. It's quite difficult to connect with them or get too emotionally attached to them or the story. Kulgan is a fairly stereotypical wizard, he wears robes and a pointy hat, he has a beard and smokes a pipe, he is mysterious, he has a weird pet creature thing (a sort of small dragon) etc.

Not much happens for a fair chunk of the book. Pug chills out with his buddy, has awkward meetings with the princess, reads a lot of magic books etc. It isn't until the characters become aware of the upcoming invasion that the plot really starts to develop. The plot itself was very promising at first. The invasion via ‘Rift' from an otherworldly race was genius but poorly presented. Feist could have done a lot more with the plot than he did. The plot kept jumping ahead by years and missing out a lot of the action. We didn't even really see the start of the war. They were about to be invaded and then suddenly it was years later and they were tired of fighting? Also the supposedly main character Pug disappears for quite a large chunk of the book.