Scan barcode
A review by kaboomcju
Rise of a Merchant Prince by Raymond E. Feist
2.0
I fairly enjoyed the first book of this series. This one, however, was horrible. Let's put aside the pacing problems (something I can handle) and get to the two issues that bugged me. The lesser issue is the fact that Feist cannot write women characters. Seriously, every female character is either a sexual instrument or a pathetic weakling. They are only there to support the male characters. Even Roo's wife (a character who I started out really liking) turns out to be nothing more than a plot device. And the one possibly strong woman in the book is sleeping with at least two men; because, you know, sex makes them feel special.
The biggest problem I have with this is the main character: Roo Avery. He is not a strong protagonist. He is unsympathetic to say the least, and I found myself hating him more and more as the book progresses. He starts out well enough: deciding he needs to marry Karli. He doesn't really care about her, but he begins to see she's interesting and fairly intelligent (the author goes nowhere with Karli's knowledge about trading). After the wedding, however, Roo is so infatuated with making money that he could really care less what happens to his wife and his children (oh, don't get me started on how childish he acts when he finds out his firstborn is a girl). He later on has a mistress and decides he doesn't love his wife. He does multiple despicable things, and then at the end he has some immediate breakthrough and all of a sudden he's a doting husband and father. What?! The fact that Roo's overall story could have been told in 100 pages didn't help. I couldn't care less about the trading practices going on in Krondor (again, pacing issues). And now I'm supposed to CARE about Roo because suddenly he feels bad? Nope. Sorry. I found myself liking Roo's employees much more than liking him.
The biggest problem I have with this is the main character: Roo Avery. He is not a strong protagonist. He is unsympathetic to say the least, and I found myself hating him more and more as the book progresses. He starts out well enough: deciding he needs to marry Karli. He doesn't really care about her, but he begins to see she's interesting and fairly intelligent (the author goes nowhere with Karli's knowledge about trading). After the wedding, however, Roo is so infatuated with making money that he could really care less what happens to his wife and his children (oh, don't get me started on how childish he acts when he finds out his firstborn is a girl). He later on has a mistress and decides he doesn't love his wife. He does multiple despicable things, and then at the end he has some immediate breakthrough and all of a sudden he's a doting husband and father. What?! The fact that Roo's overall story could have been told in 100 pages didn't help. I couldn't care less about the trading practices going on in Krondor (again, pacing issues). And now I'm supposed to CARE about Roo because suddenly he feels bad? Nope. Sorry. I found myself liking Roo's employees much more than liking him.