Mercedes Lackey

[Adasunshine]

Hi

I've just started - and almost finished with - Joust by Mercedes Lackey. It's the first book of hers I've read and the main reason for me reading it is the beautiful dragons....

Anyway, I've seen her books quite a lot in the shops and my local library seems to have quite a few things by her also yet I've not seen her mentioned on these forums, and I was wondering if anyone out there had read anything by Mrs Lackey, and if so what did you read?, what did you think of it? Is there anything you would recommend? etc etc.

I'm enjoying Joust although I think she may need a decent proofreader for her next few books.... It's not a terribly challenging read, it seems to be good fun. I'm not too keen on her writing style though, I can't put my finger on it but there's something not quite right. Still, like I say, the story is enjoyable enough and easy enough to follow, so in that sense, it's an ok read.

Ta muchly

xx

 

[Rane Longfox]

Well, I'm gonna dissapoint you here by saying that I couldn't stand her writing, characters or plotlines (read: plotholes). One of those authors who gives the fantasy genre a bad name, to be honest. Anyone who churns books out at such a prolific rate can't be taking sufficient time or care over their writing, I don't think...

 

[Stormpirate]

I read her collaboration with James Mallory, The Obsidian Trilogy. The first two books, I thoroughly enjoyed. I was very excited for the last one to come out. The beginning I thought was very good, but I was disappointed with the ending. The humans and Elves are fighting against the Demons (The Endarkened). Most of the last third of the book takes place in a human city; we hardly get to see any of the fight, nor any of the actions that make the humans / Elves fearful of the Demons. To me, it was as if neither knew how to write a convincing fight scene, so they just skipped it. Normally I would rather read that than a poorly written scene, but the build up through three books kind of justified a great battle.

 

[the_faery_queen]

i don't like her. i LOVE her last herald mage, but that's mostly because of the characters, (they're gay and yummy) her plot is dire. i read mage winds, that was boring, her characters were crap and i couldn't finish the series, and tried another book by her, burning brightly, that was awful. with a complete overreaction to a situation, and it was just boring. and there was another i read years ago, which i read about 100 pages before quitting. i think the only reason i liked last herald mage was because of the gay characters (i like gay characters) if they were straight i doubt i'd have stuck to it. because her plots aren't all that, her characters are fairly awful a lot of the time. *shrug* last herald mage is good. her gay characters are sweet and cute, but there isn't much of a plot, and the other characters are kinda flat. she's just not all that.

 

[Cloud]

I've read many, many of her books and on the whole am quite fond of them. My favorite of her books, like The Faery Queen's, is the Last Herald Mage books. I like most of her Valdemar books; also liked some of her earlier urban magery books. Much of her most recent stuff seems rehashed to me.

 

[Aleksei]

I like her books, except for a few that I could not stand.

 

[JBI]

Only read the Heralds of Valdemar trilogy. Found it half-decent, but nothing special. I found that she goes from paradise to chaos to paradise to quickly, and once something goes good all of a sudden we are back to chaos again.

 

[Cloud]

am reading The Last Herald-Mage books. She has a very good grasp of painful teen angst.

Thank all the gods I am no longer a painfully ansgstful teen.

 

[Rosemary]

Have just found out that Mercedes Lackey & James Mallory have a new book being released sometime this year.

The Phoenix Unchained: Book 1.

I have it on my 'to get' list and hope it is as good as previous books, of which I read most of them.

 

[Aleksei]

Have just found out that Mercedes Lackey & James Mallory have a new book being released sometime this year.

The Phoenix Unchained: Book 1.

I have it on my 'to get' list and hope it is as good as previous books, of which I read most of them.

Thanks for the tip, now it's added to mine as well.

 

[Michael01]

Crap? Well, to each his/her own, I guess. I loved all the Valdemar books. And how can a character like Vanyel be considered flat?

 

[chrispenycate]

Well, I'm going to come out in favour. She's not one of my "buy unseen" authors, and some I have not liked (in particular her "Elemental masters" series); she suffers seriously from "sequelitis", and her "baddies" tend to be unbelievable. Still, I don't see that writing fast (like, say a Dickens or a Dumas?) is bad if you've got something to say, her magic systems are clear, and if at times they appear to be "just another technology" at least they aren't a "solve everything" box.
Her "save a hawk" scheme gives her genuine experience in outdoor matters, which comes through in her writing, her descriptions are clear enough that I frequently find her husbands illustrations quite annoying, since they aren't what I've visualised.
On the whole. positive, especially the urban fantasy (Bedlam's bard)

 

[digs]

I really enjoyed the Last Herald-Mage and Arrows of the Queen books. I haven't read many of her others, but I scanned a couple of her other books (like Owlknight and stuff) and they didn't interest me too much.

 

[Michael01]

Yeah, Elemental Masters didn't really do it for me either. I read the first one, thought it was okay, but had a hard time with the second. I do also like the Bedlam's Bard books, though. Shadow of the Lion was pretty cool too, although that one was collaboration with (eek!) two other authors! Very often, I don't appreciate the collaborations as much - but some are good.

 

[manephelien]

I've never read any of her solo work, although I really like her collaboration with Anne McCaffrey in The Ship Who Searched. It's my favorite Brain/Brawn book.

 

[Michael01]

Oh, yeah! I like that story very much. There was another one too. The City Who Fought, I think? That was also good.

 

[manephelien]

Yeah, but that was an Anne McCaffrey story co-written by S. M. Stirling rather than Mercedes Lackey, so it should probably be discussed in the AMC forum (there are 5 books in total, all with different co-authors, except for the first one -The Ship Who Sang- which Anne wrote on her own).