| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: High Violence level: Medium-High Back Cover: “High magic had been lost to Valdemar centuries ago when the last Herald-Mage gave his life to save the kingdom from destruction by dark sorceries. Yet now the realm is at risk again. And Elspeth, Herald and heir to the throne, must take up the challenge, abandoning her home to find a mentor who can awaken her untrained mage abilities. But others too, are being caught up in a war against sorcerous evil. The Tayledras scout Darkwind is the first to stumble across the menace creeping forth from the 'Uncleansed Lands.' And as sorcery begins to take its toll, Darkwind may be forced to call upon powers he has sworn never to use again if he and his people are to survive an enemy able to wreak greater devastation with spells of destruction than with swords....” |
In any case, going back to talking about this particular book rather than the layout of the entire series…
Here we find that Princess Elspeth has only partially been cured of her Royal Brat behavior, although she does use it very differently as an adult. She may not be throwing tantrums and abusing people--in fact, she’s really quite patient and wants to do things to help people--but she still has a habit of getting her own way, which causes her to ride rough-shod over other people at times. I found her behavior toward Skif in particular unnecessarily harsh, if highly amusing in places. But really her whole storyline here is rebelling against other people’s plans (which probably would have worked just as well) and insisting on doing things her way, even if it means making her way up as she goes along. Which does make for a more interesting story, of course, and also pretty much saves the day for our other main character (and eventual love interest, but they don’t get quite that far in this book).
For sheer exotic description, the Tayledras are brilliant. They’re the closest Mercedes Lackey comes to inventing elves in the Valdemar world, and I suspect are related in spirit to the elves found in the Obsidian Trilogy. Yes, they have magic and they use it flamboyantly at times, but they’re also just really skilled at things like camouflage and forestry, and they live in tree houses and are obsessed with hot springs so much that they create them if they don’t appear naturally. Add to that the fact that this particular group is in serious trouble both from within and from without (the destruction of Starblade’s crow is one of my favorite parts, by the way), and things begin to get highly interesting. I have to say that Mornelithe Falconsbane is probably one of the most compelling villains I’ve ever read from this author. Utterly psychotic, highly charismatic cat-man.
The story does a good job of setting up for the rest of the trilogy, without losing its own individual story arc, and it has an appropriately exciting climax. However, I can’t really recommend that anyone should read this, unless you’re really good at skipping over certain descriptive passages, because there are two or three full pages of full-on porn right in the middle.