Fat fantasy with maps

[sholio]

When I was accumulating reading material for my anticipated downtime this winter, I came across the Riftwar series (Raymond Feist) in a box of books from my teenagehood in the attic. I've now reread the first one and part of the next, and I just gotta say that while some of my childhood book loves have transferred over well to adulthood, I seem to have had a way higher tolerance for blatantly Tolkein-inspired Fat Fantasy when I was a teenager than I do now. A lot of this is grindingly dull for me now.

I also wonder if this would be marketed as YA now, with the first book's focus on the teenage protagonists' coming of age and first loves.

However, I'm enjoying it enough to keep going, and I still remember my favorite character in these books: Arutha, the brooding prince with the crooked smile. And he's still my favorite, so clearly that much about my tastes hasn't changed in the 30+ years since I last reread these! In fact, while I remember nothing else about the books, I still remember what part of which book in which Terrible Things Happen To Arutha because evidently I reread those parts a lot.

Comments

[sholio]

We know what we like! :D

[philomytha]

Come to think of it, my copy of Biggles Flies East from my childhood reliably falls open to the bit where Biggles is hallucinating while dragging Mayer across the desert with no water. And the bit where he thinks he shot Algy.

[sholio]

Those books are astonishingly good for h/c. I expect I would've been all over them if I had read them as a kid. (.... I mean, clearly I'm all over them reading them as an adult, so ...)

[sheron]

I don't know how many times I've re-read the Sweeps the Desert and the Malaria bits of h/c. A LOT.

[sheron]

By now I feel like the bit where he thinks Biggles shot Algy and walks away (while EvS stares at him realizing he's very upset but not knowing why!) is practically burned into my brain XD