Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts' RIFTWAR SAGA and EMPIRE TRILOGY optioned for television

The first six books in the enormous Riftwar Cycle of fantasy novels have been optioned for television by new production company Six Studios. The startup has already brought together an impressive array of talent to work on the project.

The Riftwar Cycle is a series of 29 epic fantasy novels, mostly written by Raymond E. Feist, unfolding over a period of some 300 years and charting the conflicts between the world of Midkemia and various other worlds which it becomes linked to via rifts in space and time. The series has sold over 20 million copies and was one of the biggest-selling epic fantasy series of the 1980s and 1990s. The series is divided into ten distinct sub-series, each with its own story arc and cast of characters. The series was originally written to provide backstory for a tabletop roleplaying campaign that Feist was playing in at university, with the world of Midkemia originally created by Steve Abrams.

The deal includes the rights to the three novels in Feist's Riftwar Saga trilogy - Magician (1982), Silverthorn (1985) and A Darkness at Sethanon (1986) - and the three books in The Empire Trilogy, co-written by Feist and Janny Wurts - Daughter of the Empire (1987), Servant of the Empire (1990) and Mistress of the Empire (1992). These two series take place simultaneously alongside one another.

The story begins by focusing on the adventures of Pug and Tomas, two young boys growing up in and around the frontier town of Crydee, located in the far west of the vast, sprawling Kingdom of the Isles, which has expanded beyond its island homeland to conquer most of the northern third of the continent of Triagia (on the planet Midkemia). It is opposed to the south by the far larger Empire of Great Kesh. Crydee, wild but tranquil, abruptly finds itself on the front lines of an unexpected war when a magical rift in time and space opens, linking the territory with the Tsurani Empire on the planet Kelewan. Kelewan is poor in metals, whilst Midkemia is rich with them, and the Tsurani embark on a military campaign to seize and hold territory and mine metals to ship home. Pug and Tomas, now an apprentice magician and warrior respectively, find their fates bound up in that of the ruling conDoin family as they seek to rally support from the rest of the Kingdom to oppose the invaders.

The Riftwar Saga tells the story of the war from the Kingdom's perspective, and subsequent events as the moredhel or dark elves of the far north take advantage of events to plot their own invasion of the Kingdom in search of a magical artefact of tremendous power. The Empire Trilogy tells the story of the war from the Tsurani perspective, in particular focusing on the adventures of Mara of the Acoma, a noblewoman who takes control of her family after the death of her father in battle on Midkemia. Mara has to navigate the labyrinth politics of the Empire to retain her position and improve the fortunes of her weakened house.

The Riftwar Saga and especially the Empire Trilogy are both critically-acclaimed, the latter in particular for its rich, compelling political intrigue as well as its focus on female characters at a time when the genre was not known for them.

The new project will be produced by entrepreneurs Jeff Huang and Carl Choi and written by Hannah Friedman (Willow, Obi-Wan Kenobi), Jacob Pinion (Fear the Walking Dead) and Nick Bernardone (Fear the Walking Dead, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). Kiri Hart (Soul, Rogue One) and Stephen Feder (Solo: A Star Wars Story) will co-produce and serve as consultants. Feist and Wurts - who just wrapped up her own, massive Wars of Light and Shadow saga - are expected to consult.

Six Studios are looking for a network or streamer to collaborate with on the project.