Out of all of the Valdemar books, the Mage Winds trilogy - of which this is the first volume - is my most favorite.The book takes place in the reign of Selenay, where war with a formerly friendly nation is taking its toll. Herald Elspeth, heir to the throne, rides off with her companion at her side to find the training key to winning the war. For those wondering precisely when in the chronology it falls, the book takes up after the end of the Arrows trilogy, which is linked to this one by the stand-alone book By The Sword.I've been a huge Valdemar fan for years, and this next bit of my review applies to the rest of the books in addition to this one. They're standard in that the good guys fight the bad guys, and tragedies occur along with the good stuff. The funny thing about these is that even with the bad guys, there's a feeling of...I suppose "safety" is the best word. Valdemar is a world to which one can retreat when real life gets to be too much and its Heralds make you better along with their country. It's like comfort food for the eyeballs. That comfort was invaluable to a teenagerish teenager - even though I positively YEARNED to be chosen! - but the funny thing is, it's still a comforting place to go for a grownup who can't even pretend to be a teenager anymore. See, the good guys are hardly perfect, but they're good and they think of others and they understand...well, they just understand. Sometimes we need to be reminded that life can have people like that in it, even when the people are imaginary.My choosing this trilogy as my favorite is probably pretty arbitrary, since like I said, I enjoy all of them. But after Arrows, in which "mind magic" is the only real magic, this book starts the current era's journey into the realm of "real" magic...and I do loves me some magic. In addition, these books entail the *learning* of magic, and - it's probably part Harry Potter and part wishful thinking - the learning of magic is even more fun to me than the doing. Also, this is the first time we get to spend any real length of time in a Tayledras vale, with all its swarthy scenery and decadent pleasure - where even the threats seem like they'd be worth it.If you're new to Valdemar, I'd recommend beginning at the beginning with Arrows of the Queen (which I almost didn't buy because the cover looked so silly-little-girlish), and the Herald Mage series (start with Magic's Pawn) is the next logical step. But if you've already visited and are ready for the next adventure, you should certainly get this; it's the best yet!(PS: this isn't enough for me to take off a star, but I've read both the mass market paperback edition and the Kindle edition. The e-book has far, far more typographical errors and odd formatting. If stuff like that bugs you, get the paperback. It DOES bug me, and the only reason I'm not frothing at the mouth is that this book just happens to be one of the few that's worth putting up with it.)
Here we go again with my love hate relationship with Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series. This continues the story of the heralds in Talia's time. This book tells the story of Princess Elspeth and Skif search for a mage who can help Valdemar with its magic problem. It fills in nicely some of the mysteries of the world like where the sword Need came from, what is going on with the barrier that Vanyal put up to keep magic out of Valdemar, you even learn a little more about the companions themselves. Some of the love. I have said this before I really like the world she has created. Which is why I keep reading the novels. She has done interesting things with magic and how different types work. I like her races and getting to know more about the hawkbrothers and their culture. And we find out why they split with the shin'in horse clans after the mage wars. She does villains well. She makes you hate them with a burning passion and you want to see torments heaped on them. Some of the hate. For some reason she feels the need to make her main characters filled with angst and to top that off they are often rude, whiny, and just unpleasant. Elspeth treats both Skif and her companion this way through much of the book. I could understand it more if she was still a teen at this point bu she is not she is in her twenties and she has seen war, been chosen. Her behaving like a spoiled brat over her situation grated on my nerves I wanted her companion to kick her a swift kick in the butt.What was worse was the treatment of Skif who has always been my favorite character. Skif was never a whiny, angst filled, lacking confidence type character but he is in this book. He is written as a puppy in love panting after Elspeth. It was just so out of character. It seemed she wrote him this way making him look incompetent to make Elspeth look smarter. It really made me mad several times and I had to put the book down and walk away. I think these books are for fans of Valdemar if you are not I would suggest skipping them and reading her Elemental series which are just wonderful stories.
What do You think about Winds Of Fate (1992)?
OK, this is not great literature, but an entertaining read. I give it 5 stars because I actually liked the series enough to purchase my own copy, and having recently gotten annoyed with how lousy all my Kindle books are, decided to reread the series and still really liked them. I think it's probably my third read through so there weren't many surprises, but I remember liking the fantasy setting of the Tayledras Vale and the plot. If you haven't read any other books in the Valdemar series though, I expect you'll be pretty confused because this book references almost all the other major series and assumes you've got a pretty good sense of Heralds and Mind Magic and all that. Having been pretty obsessed in my childhood, I read basically everything Mercedes Lackey wrote before 2000 so that was OK by me.
—Alicia
This review has been crossposted from my blog at The Cosy Dragon . Please head there for more in-depth reviews by me, which appear on a timely schedule.Elspeth must find a way to bring magery back to Valdemar. Instead of following the convenient plan set out for her, she chooses to ride a different path - much to the consternation of her traveling companions.Honestly, I found Darkwind's sections boring, and often found myself skipping through them impatiently. The best part of those were the griffins!I don't see the same character faults in Elspeth that she sees in herself. Nevermind. I'm not sure if it's a character inconsistency or something else wrong with the writing.There were some inconsistencies with Skif's characters. Elspeth says that Skif's uncle was a thief, and Skif followed in his footsteps, but if you've read 'Take a Thief', you'll know this isn't the case. Also, the ending, I felt that what he might be planning to do would be outside what was required of him as a herald.This is a great refresher on magic in Valdemar if you've forgotten all about it since Vanyel's time. Lots of useful history and other good things.I'm positive there are some redeeming factors for this book - I've certainly read them more than once. But I'm hardly ever attracted to them when they sit on my shelf ready to read, so that must say something as well.
—TheCosyDragon
I actually didn't want to read this series in the world of Valdemar for the longest time. Although, I almost feel that way about any new Valdemar books that came my way (strange, that, since I love the world so much!) But, this became one of the most richly written series in the Velgarth realm. Not only does it tie all the countries together (finally we learn more from outside Valdemar), ML also branches off into the Hawkbrothers and the Shin'a'in a bit more. Also also, we get a lot more information from the Empire!Of course, most of this comes to a head in the Storm trilogy, the series after this one, but it's still wonderful to have all these characters come to life. It's almost as though this was ML's first attempt to weave a parallel story with over 10 main characters at a time, and it went really really well. Her characters are always her strong points, but her plot does not lack, and neither does her writing! Her themes all become a bit redundant, but because of the overall positive note, it makes this whole entire world setup one of the best I've ever read!
—♥Xeni♥
