Continuing my progression through Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Cycle, this is the 11th of 31(!) books, and I'm happy to say I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Moving on from the events of the previous book, [b:Shadow of a Dark Queen|43908|Shadow of a Dark Queen (The Serpentwar Saga, #1)|Raymond E. Feist|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388212748l/43908._SY75_.jpg|1175877], Rise of a Merchant Prince shifts the focus from Erik and the war onto Roo Avery's attempts to establish himself as a rich merchant by whatever means necessary. This does seem, at the start, an odd detour, given the fact that an evil alien empire across the ocean is building an army with the goal of destroying all life on the planet, but I found it compelling nonetheless. I found myself enraptured by a scene in which Roo has to deal with a wagon, negligently driven by a drunken sailor, that's left parked in front of an important coffeehouse frequented by traders. Throw in a some well-written scenes in which Roo and his business partners decide how to best corner the futures market on grain, run-ins with the local Thieves' Guild, and a blood feud with a rival trading family, and you've got a strangely fun fantasy book.

Some readers might be put off by the fact that Roo is not an especially likeable character. He's a neglectful father and disloyal husband, with his focus entirely on his business empire. I was surprised that Feist decided to write a book with such a character as his protagonist, given that the previous 10 works were headed by pretty typical protagonists for the reader to root for. And I'm not sure if there was really anything interesting done with the fact that Roo isn't likeable. It was just an aspect of his personality, and nothing really came of it by the book's end. Maybe we'll see more character growth in the next.

I was actually quite disappointed in this book :(
The first book had Erik as the main character, with Roo being his best friend who was very ambitious. This book had Roo as the main character and he just disappointed me from about halfway through. He rose to wealth (obviously, the book is called Rise of a Merchant Prince), they way he did it though was quite sneaky, bordering on illegal, which didn't bug me as much as him cheating on a wife he married out of pity. I was extremely disappointed in Roo. Some of the new characters were cool, I liked Jason (who worked for Roo as his accountant), and I liked Dash and Jimmy (Duke James (a.k.a. Jimmy the Hand's) grandsons) they were fun. This book really picked up about 300 pages in when we jumped across the sea to where Erik and Calis (along with some other men) went to raid the underground cave they found was the Panathians lair. I look forward to the next book which will be more exciting, the next stage of the story. I wonder who will be the main character...

Overall though I was quite disappointed in this book, it was more a commerce book that an action packed fantasy adventure. Though it can be seen why this one is important for the series (as you will find out when you read it).

An enjoyable mess of a book.

It follows Roo, who is Erik's best friend, and who was part of the "Dirty Dozen" team in the first book. His main goal in life is to become a filthy rich merchant, and this book details how he goes about that. This story, for what it is, I liked very much. Roo is not a simple character, and he's a bit of a jerk.

Because of the limitations in scope of this story, there is very little in the way of high fantasy. If you pulled this story out of its setting, it could just as easily have been told in a novel by Dickens or Trollope. Roo has trouble with the local guilds. He uses his wiles, and his less than perfect ethics, to launch his career. He gets involved and marries a girl he doesn't love to advance his ambitions. Hell, there's even a long section in the book on the intricacies of the grain futures market, where Roo and his fledgling syndicate set about cornering the market on grain, based on their inside information that the upcoming crop is plagued by locusts.

I know all of this sounds dull, and not the stuff of fantasy. But it makes for a good story anyway, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Here's the problem. This is the second part of "The Serpentwar Saga", so Feist feels honor bound to advance the overall plot. The way he does this is only tangentially related to the main arc of the book. And Feist does a really poor job of integrating the two. Moreover, the main story really isn't all that interesting. Eric and Calis and Nakor go off again to the other continent to break some eggs (literally). They are the eggs of the Pantathians, and that's what it has to do with advancing the story. Then make another "shocking" discovery on their mission. And they get into a bunch of trouble and are, of course, rescued. All with an obligatory poignant and surprising death.

The pieces fit together in the way that a jigsaw puzzle does when you start forcing stuff that doesn't belong, or when you start cutting up your pieces to fit. It doesn't make for a good overall book. But the book that I think wanted to write, the one of the title, I enjoyed quite a bit. He just didn't fit it that well into his overall saga.

At least this time there was no Pug ex Machina, so that's a plus. I will get around to the third book at some point, but I'm no longer in a rush.