Talon of the Silver Hawk

Raymond E. Feist

Well I finished Talon of the Silver Hawk and am not quite sure what I felt upon closing the cover on this one. It's the first novel I've read by Feist and though I can't honestly say I walked away disappointed, I can't say I'll pick up the next book in the trilogy either. It was a rather odd reading experience, in that I couldn't find enough to dislike about the book that I fed it down the dustbunny tunnel, but several times during reading it, I would stop and ask myself "why" I was continuing to read it. It just kept feeling as though something was missing. That it "could" have been better had Feist had more involvement with his main character. It just didn't have enough grip, or talon :), to it to keep me interested enough to pursue the entire trilogy. It's a plot line which is well worn in the fantasy genre, boy loses home and family to a massacre, is found and revived, then adopted by strangers, who find something in him which makes them wish to mold him into an instrument they can use in their cause. Thus they begin years of training, in multiple skills, and hone this young boy into a highly skilled assassin. There seemed to be so many pages in this story which just didn't move at all, and perhaps that was my problem with it. Much of the learning phases the boy is put through are revealed only at a superficial level and thus you never get a true feel for the depth of his learning. One page he can't use a sword, and two pages later, he's deadly with one. I may at some point pick up the next book, but it's not one of those which went immediately onto my next book order list.