I read "Magician" a very long time ago - back in 1990 I believe. Since it's one of the rare books that I've read, liked but don't own yet (because I keep wanting the combined edition with the pages that were cut from the original printing or something), there's no source material for me to go to and refer at the moment. When I read the book, I believe I was transformed
I loved it so much that I had to hunt high and low till I got the other books in the series. If I recall correctly, I enjoyed all of them - especially the humour and some of the characters like Arutha and Jimmy that I found totally memorable.
I then continued to buy any Raymond E. Feist that I could get my hands on and I believe I have everything up to the Conclave of Shadows except for the Empire series (which I haven't read) and the original "Magician". However, I don't remember much anymore of the actual book
What I do recall (since I read that fairly recently - about 2-3 years ago) is the ending to the Serpentwar Saga - everybody dies. I guess that's usual for Feist but it just turned me off wanting to read more Feist. So the Conclave of Shadows books sit there waiting to be read when one day I get back into Feist.
What I do remember is that he had characters I cared about and that's basically what got me going with the Serpentwar Saga - the later generations are not as good as the first ones. Arutha's sons are a bit more watered down and his grandsons are plain ineffectual - compared to Arutha that is. So it seems fitting that everybody should die by the end of the series. However, it also is a testimony to how good the original series must have been for me - I can't remember it all, but I still love it