Read Recently -- June -- Other Worlds
Moving Targets and other tales of Valdemar edited by Mercedes Lackey
Lately, I find I can tolerate Valdemar in small doses. This makes these anthologies almost perfect--especially since most of the stories are by writers other than Lackey. Don't get me wrong, I like Lackey--but, like the world she created, she's at her best in small doses.
This volume has 14 stories. The first, "Moving Targets", by Lackey and Larry Dixon, presents us with Herald Elyn and her four trainees, and one of the more amusing Scooby Doo fanfics ever. And yes, he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling Heralds.
"An Unexpected Guest" by Nancy Asire and "What Fire Is" by Janni Lee Simner both take place in a neighbouring kingdom--from internal hints, the same one, but it's really impossible to tell. Also, there is no reason to care. In "Guest", a young woman finds an injured man outside her small village. She and the local Priest conspire to hide him from the hunters who come after him. It's a short story and, given the subject matter, surprisingly bereft of tension. It's also, it seems, the prequel to a story in one of the earlier anthologies. "Fire" is about a youth who has a weird power; Priests publicly disapprove of weird powers and take away people who have them. Those that they cannot break and make into members of their hierarchy, they burn to death. So what happens to a kid who has control over fire itself? Not what you're probably thinking. I'm neutral on this one.
"The Power of Three" is about a pair of young female twins who are studying at Haven in Valdemar to master their own talents--one a bard, one a healer. They have the standard twin powers--empathy with each other kicked up to a ludicrous degree--and are good together but miserable apart. Naturally, their superiors have to separate them--I don't quite follow the arguments for it; it seems like the senior bards and healers just can't stand to see people happy, or something. Anyway, they send the healer north and the bard south (the healer goes with a bard and the bard goes with a healer--hmmm). Both are terrible at their jobs separately. Then the bard is kidnapped by an unrealistically crazy wizard from over the southern border and I stopped caring what happened next. This story suffers from a common problem in this volume: no tension. And since it's about twins, I still don't get the title.
In Mickey Zucker Reichart's "Dreams of Mountain Clover", the servant of an elderly herald dreams of the titular flower and believes that it can heal her patient. What she learns is that Companions can be dicks, just like people.
"The Cheat" by Richard Lee Byers takes place in a city somewhere in the same world as the rest of the stories, but I couldn't spot a single clue that said where. Basically, a swordsmaster whose students consistently lose to the students of another master is convinced the other guy is somehow cheating. But can he find out how and figure out how to beat it before he winds up facing the other guy in a duel? This one had tension. Also wit.
In "A Dream Deferred" by Kristin Schwengel, a horse trader encounters a kyree (kind of a telepathic wolf, probably first met in Lackey's "Vows and Honour" duology) whose cubs have been taken by poachers. Our heroine is aging, and has never been the action hero type, but she can't turn down a mother's plea. This one was pretty good, and at least it went other directions than the usual.
"The Sword Dancer" by Michael Z. Williamson features a mongol-horde-like nation whose people are hired to escort some other people across the wide plains they live on. Tenuously connected to Valdemar by the fact that the person hiring them is a Herald. Well-written, but I neither had trouble caring about the plot. I think it really needs more room.
In "Broken Bones" by Stephanie Shaver, a bard gets stuck in a small town when she breaks her hand and can't move on until it heals. She gets to know the local people and begins to suspect that the local crazy woman may have something horrible in her barn. Not bad, and I'd be willing to look at more by this author about this character.
In "Live On" by Tanya Huff, Herald Jors has to deal with an elderly herald who meanders and tells embarrassing stories, but turns out to have unexpected depths. Huff's usual excellent characterization and a story with some tension are marred only by a twist ending that should be visible from pages away.
"Passage at Arms" by Rosemary Edgehill is a slice-of-life bit with a young girl who is Chosen and brought to Haven to learn to be a Herald and comes to doubt her suitability for the job. Not tense, but kinda touching.
"Heart, Home and Hearth" by Sarah Hoyt and Kate Paulk might as well not be set in the Valdemar-verse as far as I can tell. Two young orphans find a home. Not very interesting, considering.
In "Haven's Own" by Fiona Patton, we spend a couple of tense days with the Dann family, the heart of the Iron Street branch of the Haven City Guard. Tension between Iron Street and Candler's Row is at an all-time high, and the question is whether the Danns will make things better or worse. Fun, and a look at part of the City that the novels rarely show us.
Finally, "Widdershins" by Judith Tarr gives us a herald who's so boring he never goes anywhere or does anything finally being forced to go somewhere and do something. It is as exciting as you might expect. It does feature dancing horses, which makes sense because Tarr raises and trains Lipizzans.
So, is the book worth your $7.99 US? Really has to be up to you.
Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart by Jane Lindskold
So, after the men running the other kingdoms stole her kingdom from her at the end of the last book, Queen Valora took the small cache (3) of magic items that the kingdom wasn't supposed to have in the first place with her when she fled to the Isles off the coast. Realizing that the assholes who would steal one kingdom won't hesitate to steal another, she decides that she needs to figure out what the items do and how to use them. For aid with this, she turns to the Kingdom of New Kelvin, the only kingdom on this continent that didn't give up on magic long ago. The New Kelvinites, however, refuse to deal with her ambassador unless he brings along someone who knows something about magic themselves. Of course, since the other kingdoms, as noted above, don't know anything about magic, he has to borrow someone from Hawk Haven: Melina Shield, whose minor magics were a danger in the first book.
To complicate things, the Royal Beasts (not just wolves anymore!) call Firekeeper to a conclave, where they charge her (and Blind Seer, by implication) with retrieving the magic items for them. They have a long history with mages and magic items on this continent, and want to make sure there are no more of them. This means that Firekeeper and her friends are going to have to invade New Kelvin, a tricky proposition at the best of times.
From the opening above, you might think that I didn't like this book, or this series. But I do. Firekeeper is a great character, and most of the people she associates with are also good. It's just that some of the Kings are, you know, assholes. In most series, they'd be the bad guys, the usurpers who the hero has to hunt down and kill to regain his/her rightful kingdom (we'll leave the issues of the morality of kingship as a form of government for another time). Here, they're the good guys. I am looking forward to the future of the series when, it seems, things will change.
Mildly recommended.
City of Night: a House War novel by Michelle West
Picks up where the last book left off. We see more of Jewel's youth, and another view of the events that led her to House Terafin. Highly recommended.
Lately, I find I can tolerate Valdemar in small doses. This makes these anthologies almost perfect--especially since most of the stories are by writers other than Lackey. Don't get me wrong, I like Lackey--but, like the world she created, she's at her best in small doses.
This volume has 14 stories. The first, "Moving Targets", by Lackey and Larry Dixon, presents us with Herald Elyn and her four trainees, and one of the more amusing Scooby Doo fanfics ever. And yes, he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling Heralds.
"An Unexpected Guest" by Nancy Asire and "What Fire Is" by Janni Lee Simner both take place in a neighbouring kingdom--from internal hints, the same one, but it's really impossible to tell. Also, there is no reason to care. In "Guest", a young woman finds an injured man outside her small village. She and the local Priest conspire to hide him from the hunters who come after him. It's a short story and, given the subject matter, surprisingly bereft of tension. It's also, it seems, the prequel to a story in one of the earlier anthologies. "Fire" is about a youth who has a weird power; Priests publicly disapprove of weird powers and take away people who have them. Those that they cannot break and make into members of their hierarchy, they burn to death. So what happens to a kid who has control over fire itself? Not what you're probably thinking. I'm neutral on this one.
"The Power of Three" is about a pair of young female twins who are studying at Haven in Valdemar to master their own talents--one a bard, one a healer. They have the standard twin powers--empathy with each other kicked up to a ludicrous degree--and are good together but miserable apart. Naturally, their superiors have to separate them--I don't quite follow the arguments for it; it seems like the senior bards and healers just can't stand to see people happy, or something. Anyway, they send the healer north and the bard south (the healer goes with a bard and the bard goes with a healer--hmmm). Both are terrible at their jobs separately. Then the bard is kidnapped by an unrealistically crazy wizard from over the southern border and I stopped caring what happened next. This story suffers from a common problem in this volume: no tension. And since it's about twins, I still don't get the title.
In Mickey Zucker Reichart's "Dreams of Mountain Clover", the servant of an elderly herald dreams of the titular flower and believes that it can heal her patient. What she learns is that Companions can be dicks, just like people.
"The Cheat" by Richard Lee Byers takes place in a city somewhere in the same world as the rest of the stories, but I couldn't spot a single clue that said where. Basically, a swordsmaster whose students consistently lose to the students of another master is convinced the other guy is somehow cheating. But can he find out how and figure out how to beat it before he winds up facing the other guy in a duel? This one had tension. Also wit.
In "A Dream Deferred" by Kristin Schwengel, a horse trader encounters a kyree (kind of a telepathic wolf, probably first met in Lackey's "Vows and Honour" duology) whose cubs have been taken by poachers. Our heroine is aging, and has never been the action hero type, but she can't turn down a mother's plea. This one was pretty good, and at least it went other directions than the usual.
"The Sword Dancer" by Michael Z. Williamson features a mongol-horde-like nation whose people are hired to escort some other people across the wide plains they live on. Tenuously connected to Valdemar by the fact that the person hiring them is a Herald. Well-written, but I neither had trouble caring about the plot. I think it really needs more room.
In "Broken Bones" by Stephanie Shaver, a bard gets stuck in a small town when she breaks her hand and can't move on until it heals. She gets to know the local people and begins to suspect that the local crazy woman may have something horrible in her barn. Not bad, and I'd be willing to look at more by this author about this character.
In "Live On" by Tanya Huff, Herald Jors has to deal with an elderly herald who meanders and tells embarrassing stories, but turns out to have unexpected depths. Huff's usual excellent characterization and a story with some tension are marred only by a twist ending that should be visible from pages away.
"Passage at Arms" by Rosemary Edgehill is a slice-of-life bit with a young girl who is Chosen and brought to Haven to learn to be a Herald and comes to doubt her suitability for the job. Not tense, but kinda touching.
"Heart, Home and Hearth" by Sarah Hoyt and Kate Paulk might as well not be set in the Valdemar-verse as far as I can tell. Two young orphans find a home. Not very interesting, considering.
In "Haven's Own" by Fiona Patton, we spend a couple of tense days with the Dann family, the heart of the Iron Street branch of the Haven City Guard. Tension between Iron Street and Candler's Row is at an all-time high, and the question is whether the Danns will make things better or worse. Fun, and a look at part of the City that the novels rarely show us.
Finally, "Widdershins" by Judith Tarr gives us a herald who's so boring he never goes anywhere or does anything finally being forced to go somewhere and do something. It is as exciting as you might expect. It does feature dancing horses, which makes sense because Tarr raises and trains Lipizzans.
So, is the book worth your $7.99 US? Really has to be up to you.
Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart by Jane Lindskold
So, after the men running the other kingdoms stole her kingdom from her at the end of the last book, Queen Valora took the small cache (3) of magic items that the kingdom wasn't supposed to have in the first place with her when she fled to the Isles off the coast. Realizing that the assholes who would steal one kingdom won't hesitate to steal another, she decides that she needs to figure out what the items do and how to use them. For aid with this, she turns to the Kingdom of New Kelvin, the only kingdom on this continent that didn't give up on magic long ago. The New Kelvinites, however, refuse to deal with her ambassador unless he brings along someone who knows something about magic themselves. Of course, since the other kingdoms, as noted above, don't know anything about magic, he has to borrow someone from Hawk Haven: Melina Shield, whose minor magics were a danger in the first book.
To complicate things, the Royal Beasts (not just wolves anymore!) call Firekeeper to a conclave, where they charge her (and Blind Seer, by implication) with retrieving the magic items for them. They have a long history with mages and magic items on this continent, and want to make sure there are no more of them. This means that Firekeeper and her friends are going to have to invade New Kelvin, a tricky proposition at the best of times.
From the opening above, you might think that I didn't like this book, or this series. But I do. Firekeeper is a great character, and most of the people she associates with are also good. It's just that some of the Kings are, you know, assholes. In most series, they'd be the bad guys, the usurpers who the hero has to hunt down and kill to regain his/her rightful kingdom (we'll leave the issues of the morality of kingship as a form of government for another time). Here, they're the good guys. I am looking forward to the future of the series when, it seems, things will change.
Mildly recommended.
City of Night: a House War novel by Michelle West
Picks up where the last book left off. We see more of Jewel's youth, and another view of the events that led her to House Terafin. Highly recommended.