Owlsight, by Mercedes Lackey

  

Read
In small chunks as breaks between homework.

Bottom Line
As with Owlflight, not her best work.  Worth reading if you've gotten through Owlflight and are curious to find out what happened to Darian.


Full Review
This books picks up about four years after Owlflight ends.  Darian has spend the intervening years with the Hawkbrothers, learning a bit more about controlling his mage gift and growing from a constantly whining teenager into an only sometimes whining adult.  Meanwhile, as Darian's been traipsing about the countryside, Keisha has stepped into the role of village healer.  She's got the healing gift, but without training she's in danger of going nuts.

The main problem with this book is that it doesn't get going until about two-thirds of the way through.  That's right.  Most of this book is exposition - interesting exposition, to be sure, but nothing really happens until the same barbarian tribes that trashed the village the first time around are spotted coming back.  Once Darian, Keisha, and the Hawkbrothers meet the barbarians, the story really starts to pick up.  Unfortunately, all the action takes place in a few chapters at the end of the book.

At the end of the day, I find myself hoping that the last book in the trilogy is going to focus in on the interaction between these two different cultures.  Otherwise, I'm afraid I may be in for another disappointment.

Arrows Fall, by Mercedes Lackey

  


Read
Half-Price.  A late Monday and Tuesday combo kept me in the store until they kicked me out at close.

Bottom Line
Enjoyable, if not intellectually stimulating.

Full Review
This wraps up Talia's adventures, neatly tying up all the loose ends left dangling by the previous two books.  The proverbial gun placed on the table in the first act was duly fired, lingering suspicions were resolved, and the star-crossed lovers finally found happiness in each other's arms.

The YA label, which you will remember I had my doubts about in the first Arrows book, has been removed due to a significant escalation in violence.  I've also skipped a book - look for the middle in the series whenever Half Price gets it back on the shelf.


I won't rehash the previous Arrows review.  Suffice it to say, that Lackey at her earliest gives a frolicking read.

Owlflight, by Mercedes Lackey

  

 Read
Mostly on BART

Bottom Line
Quite frankly, not one of her best.  I'll probably end up reading the rest of the series simply to finish it up, but as of right now I'd advise you to skip it.

Full Review
Chronologically, it follows the events in the Mage Storms series.  It's billed as a stand alone, but I think that without having read some of the other Valdemar books it would be a bit confusing.  The story is classic Lackey and follows a teenage protagonist on a journey of self discovery.  That's pretty much it in terms of plot - definitely not as much of a page turner as some of her earlier novels.

The first half of the book is spent in teenage misery, which tends to be reflected in long rants and whines by the main character.  It's a rather long set up for what happens in the rest of the book (and in the following two books) that could probably been cut to a rather short chapter or prologue.  Once Darian's village is burned and he's rescued by the Hawkbrothers things get a bit more interesting, although the whining continues.  All of which means that the readable parts of the book are rather slim, especially if you do like me and start flipping pages when Darian starts in on one of his self pitying inner monologues.

My guess is that she's simply running out of material for the Valdemar novels.  I think this is borne out by the fact that she hasn't written a Valdemar book in a while - the newest ones have focused on the Elemental Mages series as well as the rather fun Obsidian Trillogy with James Mallory.

Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey

Read
Another Half Price Special (although I have vague recollections of having read it several years ago).

Bottom Line
A great deal of fun, even if there's not much substantive weight to it.  A great book for an airplane ride.  I'm labeling it YA with some hesitation, because it was obviously meant for an adult audience.  The protagonist, however, is someone that the YA audience will identify and sympathize with.

Full Review
Mercedes Lackey has created the quintessential fantasy novel universe in the imagined kingdom of Valdemar.  Complete with magic, a kingdom perpetually on the edge of disaster, and an intrepid band of (sometimes) unlikely heroes, the Valdemar novels draw the reader in with their fast paced plots and strongly determined characters.

Arrows of the Queen is, I believe, one of the earlier novels.  As such, it not only makes a great introductory read to the world of the author but also provides a stand-alone experience that the later novels lack.  [Note that this is the first of a three-part series, and while the other novels in the series have prologues that attempt to catch the reader up on the action, the entire series is best read in order.]

The main character of Arrows is Talia, a plucky thirteen year old girl who'd rather be reading or running around outdoors than staying inside and behaving like a properly subordinate female.  This attitude gets her in frequent trouble with her family; luckily for Talia (and in the deus ex machina fashion so common to novels of the genre) she is whisked away in an unlikely rescue and brought to the capital of Valdemar.  There, she is surprised and somewhat shocked to find her curiosity and intelligence are considered a boon rather than a problem.

Of course, it's a good thing that she's a bright child, because she's soon thrown into all sorts of problems that, quite frankly, a thirteen year old, even this precocious thirteen year old, would be rather ill-equipped to handle.  The brilliance of the book is that the character is so well written that most readers won't stop to question how Talia is managing all these problems because they're frantically flipping pages to discover what happens.

The ability to tell a compelling story is what really sets a Mercedes Lackey book apart from much of the fantasy fiction currently on the shelves.  I'll admit that sometimes the teenage angst/self reflection got to be a bit much at times (another reason I'm giving this the YA label), but the well written plot more than makes up for it.