Riftwar Legacy

About the Riftwar Legacy series

Set between the Riftwar Saga and the events of Krondor's Sons, the Riftwar Legacy follows Squire James -- better known as Jimmy the Hand, the former street thief introduced in the original trilogy -- as he's drawn into palace intrigue, a citywide conspiracy, and a hunt for a lost artifact. The trilogy began life as a direct novelization of the bestselling Krondor video games (Betrayal at Krondor and Return to Krondor), giving it a more plot-driven, puzzle-adventure feel than Feist's other Riftwar books, before Feist later closed out unresolved plot threads from that video-game connection with the standalone novella Jimmy and the Crawler.

Published across two distinct bursts -- the trilogy in 1998-2000, then the closing novella more than a decade later in 2013 -- the Riftwar Legacy sits slightly outside the Cycle's main line, functioning more as a Jimmy the Hand spotlight than a chapter in the war between worlds. It rewards readers who already enjoyed Jimmy as a supporting character in the Riftwar Saga and want to follow him into his own adventures, and the closing novella specifically resolves a plot hole that had been left dangling since two further planned Krondor novels were quietly shelved.

How to read this series

Read in publication order: Krondor: The Betrayal, Krondor: The Assassins, Krondor: Tear of the Gods, then the closing novella Jimmy and the Crawler, published years later to wrap up loose ends. The trilogy works best after the Riftwar Saga, since it follows Jimmy the Hand from that trilogy into his own story, but doesn't require having read Krondor's Sons or later series. Jimmy and the Crawler specifically assumes you've read the preceding trilogy -- it's a coda, not a fresh entry point.