I quite enjoyed the second part of this trilogy. I like the world-building and the relationships that were portrayed.

Mara of Acoma, having vanquished a blood enemy previously, finds the son of the enemy a much more bitter enemy who wont rest until the House of Acoma is vanquished. With considerable upheaval in the High council, Mara has to play the game not just to ensure the existence of her house but of the empire also. Amidst all this, Mara falls in love passionately with a slave while at the same time harboring feelings for another Lord. How Mara manages all this is brilliantly captured in this book.

As with Daughter of the Empire, Feist brings out his massive imagination at play in this book as well as contrasting the Midkemian and Tsuranian cultures. While a tad on the lengthier side and suffering from some uneven pacing in the middle, it is nevertheless a pulsating read and quite gripping.

Boy. What a difference 20 years makes. I wonder what this book would have been like had it been written today? I give it 3 slightly guilty stars because the story as a whole is compelling and I really like Mara as a character. However. And it's a big however: this time reading it I found myself very discomfited by what comes across today as a racist, Eurocentric pov, not to mention the extremely het-centric gender and sexual mores. None of this is apparent in the first volume, because the point-of-view is entirely immersed in the culture of the Tsurani world. What changes in this one is the introduction of Kevin, the slave captured from the war with Midkemia, who allows an outsider's critical view of Tsurani culture. So far, okay, except that Tsurani culture is clearly Asian and Midkemian is a fairly conventional fantasy variant on medieval Europe. Kevin and his fellow slaves use derogative language to describe the Tsuranis, which again might be ok (captured slaves, hating their captors) except that they are effectively racial slurs, and that overall we are shown how much BETTER the European culture, laws, customs etc etc, are, and that ultimately Mara, the Tsurani, is able to succeed in her political machinations because she learns BETTER ways of thinking from her Midkemian lover. And don't get me started on the fat-shaming. Or the rather squicky sexual politics. And the complete lack of anything even hinting at sexual diversity. Also, although there were several extremely exciting sequences there was an awful lot of wheel spinning in the plot and the final confrontation with Mara's arch-enemy seemed too easily resolved.

I am going to read the third one, because I can't really remember it and I do want to know how everything turns out, but I don't know if I'll ever bother reading the whole trilogy again.

Love this book!

fuck yeah, this is a kevin of zun fan account and if you dont like it then fuck off

Great book.

I couldn't finish this book, I just never connected to the characters despite reading it 60% of the way through. I love the world that was created, and there is very interesting stuff in there, but I think the first book of this trilogy was enough.

More intrigue, politics, fraught romance, machinations of the powerful families striving to rule. While there is an Asian slant with the honor theme that ruled early China and Japan, the "families" are reminiscent of the City States that once ruled Italy.

Feist and Wurts make a good writing pair. Onto the last of this trilogy based upon "The Riftwar" sagas.

I enjoyed this book. It was similar to the first in this trilogy in that there was more political intrigue than a traditional quest or adventure like in the Riftwar saga. It was interesting because it approached some of the storyline from book II of the Riftwar Saga from the Tsurani side of things. I did think that the "Kevin" storyline was a little overdone, but its inclusion was definitely necessary for the plot to progress. I probably would have just preferred a toned down version... a little less of a lovesick puppy. I will make one comment on reading order. I had followed the reading order suggested by the RE Feist website (ie. books are read in order they are published) which meant that this trilogy was interrupted by Prince of the Blood. In retrospect, this interruption was not necessary and I think I would have preferred starting the next set of books after finishing the empire trilogy.