The characters of the Magician Books battle a new enemy in this book. The book centers around Prince Arthura’s poisoned wife and the quest to find the cure. There seems to have been some criticism of this book for being a fantasy cliche (something which people seem to say about a lot of Feist’s books), but that’s a pretty easy accusation to make with fantasy works — they all seem to have the same basic them. I guess that’s what a genre is — a shared theme. The book is well written and quite readable.
Wikipedia page on Silverthorn has this rather startling accusation to make:
Since its release, the term ‘Silverthorn’ has been adopted to describe any book in a series (although typically the middle book of a trilogy) that has served little purpose other than to set up a climax in the final book. This term can also be applied to a similar phenomenon in film or television series. This style of book typically has little overall substance, and is often quite poor when compared to the other books in the series.
That’s a pretty unfair thing to say. This book has a story that stands on its own, and progresses the plot of the overall series as well. If I was to make the “does little but setup the next book in the series” accusation, I would point the finger at Tilley’s First Family, which does nothing apart from setup Iron Master.
[isbn: 0553270540]