From the depths of my drafts folder arises a new post of mini-reviews that I’d forgotten about. These books share a sort of old-timey fairytale and comforting style.
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
This is the story of Corlath, golden-eyed king of the Free Hillfolk, son of the sons of the Lady Aerin.
And this is the story of Harry Crewe, the Homelander orphan girl who became Harimad-sol, King’s Rider, and heir to the Blue Sword, Gonturan, that no woman had wielded since the Lady Aerin herself bore it into battle.
And this is the song of the kelar of the Hillfolk, the magic of the blood, the weaver of destinies…
Read this for a book club a million years ago (=this May) but never got round to organizing my scrambled notes into a coherent review.
I really liked the beginning of this book and how it set the scene and described the world. The focus shifts between past and present to give us context. The audiobook narration and prose style also gave it an old-timey story-telling vibe, it worked very well read out loud, so would rec the audio here.
We read this for HEA bookclub on r/fantasy, so I was expecting it to be pretty romance heavy, turns out it was more a case of “book by a woman” marketed/shelved as romance, than anything to do with the book. There was a bit sure, but pretty understated, wouldn’t have called it the focus of the book.
I can see plenty of criticism for this book, the portrayal of colonialism is sketchy, with a helping of the white savior, is pretty yikes, but overall I enjoyed it, somewhere around 3 – 3.5 /5.
It’s got the restless young girl discovered powerful magic in her blood trope that is basically Dia bait, and I really wished this has been recced to me when I was younger as I would have loved it a lot more.
The Last Herald-Mage by Mercedes Lackey
Vanyel has been born with near-legendary abilities that, if left untrained, may prove a menace not only to Vanyel but to others as well. So he is sent to his aunt, Savil, one of the fame Herald-Mages of Valdemar. Soon he will become the focus of frightening forces and raw magic. And by the time Savil seeks the assistance of a Shin’a’in Adept, Vanyel’s wild talent may have already grown beyond anyone’s ability to contain, placing Valdemar in desperate peril.
This trilogy is super intense, a lot about personal change, a lot about being very tired. Really, most of my comments as I was reading come down to “please won’t somebody let this man rest? he needs a two-week nap”. There’s also an ominous feeling all along if you’ve read The Heralds of Valdemar trilogy before this, because that story opens with the legend of Vanyel, so we know from the start where this is going. There’s also a lot of in-book prophecy and foreshadowing. Overall I found it very easy to read and hard to put down.
This trilogy is set some hundred years before Talia’s books, and I really liked getting all that historical background, and especially the parts over what was forgotten and what passed into myth.
Book 1 starts with Vanyel, a little lordling boy who everyone picks on at home, doesn’t really have any friends and few allies. So he puts on this persona of not caring and being a bit of an ass. I thought it would follow the same sort of pattern as the previous trilogy I’d read in this series, especially as it starts with a kid with a tough family life, so I was surprised at how different the first book ended up being, compared to The Arrows of the Queen. It was great seeing him slowly come out of the shell he’d constructed for himself and how much Vanyel changed. It was also a very emotional first book.
I want to say that book 2 is mostly about Vanyel settling into his role as herald, I really do. Unfortunately for him, book 2 is really about Vanyel getting more and tired and very few chances for a rest. Shit keeps hitting multiple fans and often it seems Vanyel’s the only one who can clean up the mess. When we reach book 3, Vanyel is pretty a one-man country defense system, a very very exhausted one, almost always running on fumes.
I don’t want to give away too much of the book, but if you were shipping Geralt and Jaskier in the Witcher TV show, Mercedes Lackey’s got you covered.
By the time I got to the ending, I had spent 3 whole books bracing myself. And still, I don’t think I’d had such an ugly cry at a book in over 10 years, even remembering the final parts of this trilogy is making me tear up. It was so emotional. I really liked how things came together, and beside the big objectives, there were some really nice personal payoffs too.
Od Magic by Patricia McKillip
Brenden Vetch has a gift. With an innate sense he cannot explain to himself or describe to others, he connects to the agricultural world, nurturing gardens to flourish and instinctively knowing the healing properties each plant and herb has to offer. But Brenden’s gift isolates him from people–and from becoming part of a community.Until the day he receives a personal invitation from the wizard Od. She needs a gardener for her school in the great city of Kelior, where every potential wizard must be trained to serve the Kingdom of Numis. For decades the rulers of Numis have controlled the school, believing they can contain the power within it–and punish any wizard who dares defy the law.But unknown to the reigning monarchy is the power possessed by the school’s new gardener–a power that even Brenden isn’t fully aware of, and which is the true reason Od recruited him…
I liked this book because it was pretty chill, very fairytale-like, and most of the time the stakes were personal. The three main characters just want to be themselves and do their thing without fear. Name just wants to garden, Brenden just wants to practice her small magic and name just wants to make a living. But men’s fear and need to control magic and power won’t let that happen. I’ve only ever read one other book by McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, but I can see some similarities in the fairy-tale style, I’m sure the audiobook narration contributed there, and the just wanting to be left in peace theme.
The story opens with Brenden meeting Od, who sends him to her magic school in the big city. So I thought, oh magic school book! And I found it interesting how it both is and isn’t. A significant part takes place at a magic school, but we only get PoVs from the staff and teachers, there are none of the usual student life aspects. I really liked this play on a common trope.
I thought the antagonists were a bit too consumed by their obsessions and not seeing reason, believable, just unpleasant.
I really liked the magic parts, there’s a strong sense of wonder and unknown about what magic is and what it can do. There’s a magic school so you think these guys would be experts but really so much of the book focuses on learning what it is they don’t know. I would love a chance to explore the mysterious twilight quarter.