Book 2: Milamber and the Valheru
Chapter Twenty-One: Changeling
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Emissary
Chapter Thirty-One: Deceptions
Chapter Thirty-Four: Renaissance
Acknowledgement to the Revised Edition
Foreword to the Revised Edition
It is with some hesitation and a great deal of trepidation that an author approaches the task of revising an earlier edition of fiction. This is especially true if the book was his first effort, judged successful by most standards, and continuously in print for a decade.
Magician was all this, and more. In late 1977 I decided to try my hand at writing, part-time, while I was an employee of the University of California, San Diego. It is now some fifteen years later, and I have been a full-time writer for the last fourteen years, successful in this craft beyond my wildest dreams. Magician, the first novel in what became known as The Riftwar Saga, was a book that quickly took on a life of its own. I hesitate to admit this publicly, but the truth is that part of the success of the book was my ignorance of what makes a commercially successful novel. My willingness to plunge blindly forward into a tale spanning two dissimilar worlds, covering twelve years in the lives of several major and dozens of minor characters, breaking numerous rules of plotting along the way, seemed to find kindred souls among readers the world over. After a decade in print, my best judgment is that the appeal of the book is based upon its being what was known once as a ‘ripping yarn.’ I had little ambition beyond spinning a good story, one that satisfied my sense of wonder, adventure, and whimsy. It turned out that several million readers – many of whom read translations in languages I can’t even begin to comprehend – found it one that satisfied their tastes for such a yarn as well.
But insofar as it was a first effort, some pressures of the marketplace did manifest themselves during the creation of the final book. Magician is by anyone’s measure a large book. When the penultimate manuscript version sat upon my editor’s desk, I was informed that some fifty thousand words would have to be cut. And cut I did. Mostly line by line, but a few scenes were either truncated or excised.
While I could live out my life with the original manuscript as published being the only edition ever read, I have always felt that some of the material cut added a certain resonance, a counterpoint if you will, to key elements of the tale. The relationships between characters, the additional details of an alien world, the minor moments of reflection and mirth that act to balance the more frenetic activity of conflict and adventure, all these things were ‘close but not quite what I had in mind.’
In any event, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the original publication of Magician, I have been permitted to return to this work, to reconstruct and change, to add and cut as I see fit, to bring forth what is known in publishing as the ‘Author’s Preferred Edition’ of the work. So, with the old admonition, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ ringing in my ears, I return to the first work I undertook, back when I had no pretensions of craft, no stature as a bestselling author, and basically no idea of what I was doing. My desire is to restore some of those excised bits, some of the minor detail that I felt added to the heft of the narrative, as well as the weight of the book. Other material was more directly related to the books that follow, setting some of the background for the mythic underpinning of the Riftwar. The slightly lengthy discussion of lore between Tully and Kulgan in Chapter Three, as well as some of the things revealed to Pug on the Tower of Testing were clearly in this area. My editor wasn’t sold on the idea of a sequel, then, so some of this was cut. Returning it may be self-indulgent, but as this was material I felt belonged in the original book, it has been restored.
To those readers who have already discovered Magician, who wonder if it’s in their interests to purchase this edition, I would like to reassure them that nothing profound has been changed. No characters previously dead are now alive, no battles lost are now won, and two boys still find the same destiny. I ask you to feel no compulsion to read this new volume, for your memory of the original work is as valid, perhaps more so, than mine. But if you wish to return to the world of Pug and Tomas, to rediscover old friends and forgotten adventure, then consider this edition your opportunity to see a bit more than the last time. And to the new reader, welcome. I trust you’ll find this work to your satisfaction.
It is with profound gratitude I wish to thank you all, new readers and old acquaintances, for without your support and encouragement, ten years of ‘ripping yarns’ could not have been possible. If I have the opportunity to provide you with a small part of the pleasure I feel in being able to share my fanciful adventures with you, we are equally rewarded, for by your embracing my works you have allowed me to fashion more. Without you there would have been no Silverthorn, A Darkness at Sethanon, Faerie Tale, and no Empire Trilogy. The letters get read, if not answered – even if they sometimes take months to reach me – and the kind remarks, in passing at public appearances, have enriched me beyond measure. But most of all, you gave me the freedom to practice a craft that was begun to ‘see if I could do it,’ while working at the Residence Halls of John Muir College at UCSD.
So, thank you. I guess ‘I did it.’ And with this work, I hope you’ll agree that this time I did it a little more elegantly, with a little more color, weight, and resonance.
RAYMOND E. FEIST
San Diego, California