In Jimmy the Hand, beloved fantasy master Raymond E. Feist returns readers to the world that made him famous: Midkemia. Spanning over twenty years, the Riftwar Saga continues to add depth and complexity to a highly imaginative series. Feist’s collaboration with a co-author, however, places the series at a turning point.

In this most recent outing, the focus is on the early beginnings of Jimmy the Hand, a talented 13-year-old pickpocket. As longtime fans already know, Jimmy will venture far from his humble beginnings in a rural village to face an unimaginable future, but in this book, that still looms on the horizon. This novel is about young Jimmy perfecting his con artist and thieving skills and the characters he meets along the way.

For the Legends of the Riftwar series, Feist has chosen to collaborate with co-authors he hand-selected. While the idea of allowing a fellow author’s perspective on a character you created can be exciting, it can also misfire, and that is the case with Jimmy the Hand. Jimmy is one of the favorite original characters in the series, so expectations would be high that high adventure and some humor would ensue. However, that is not the case, so longtime fans might feel a little let down. The pace of the novel is very slow and thin on humor.

The novel does contain the trademark highly-descriptive scenes of a Feist novel. The workings of the underworld of "Mockers" and assassins that Jimmy and the other characters contend with are intriguing. However, the new characters feel somewhat distant.

All in all, this particular collaboration may have placed an unexpected halt in the momentum of this longstanding series. New readers not deeply engrained in the original series, however, will enjoy the tale, including young adults. For old and new readers alike, though, the escapades of Jimmy the Hand are well worth visiting the world of Midkemia.