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A review by hebberelle
Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey
4.0
Let me preface this by saying how much I love Mercedes Lackey and how I absolutely did cry twice in this book. First when the companions appeared and second when Sydney disappeared.
What I wanted: I was hoping for a gloriously magical tale of how the first companions appeared, how the first Heralds were chosen, how they felt and what they had to deal with in terms of everyone else's reactions, then how they set about organizing the future.
What we got: fully 50% of this was day to day minutiae for running a kingdom. It was slow and pretty boring. We also got sunsinger and shadowdancer, but they were mooney teenagers that just happened to have useful gifts. The Companions didn't appear until fully 48% into the novel. THEN it was still minutiae for another 25% of the book until the reader could figure out it was good ole' Falconsbane (Ma'ar) again and it was a battle for the rest of the novel. It felt VERY railroaded and formulaic, almost as if Lackey is trying to wrap up every last bit of Valdemar history and toss it all into this one book.
Still, 4 stars because it's well done and still Misty, and she made my cry.
What I wanted: I was hoping for a gloriously magical tale of how the first companions appeared, how the first Heralds were chosen, how they felt and what they had to deal with in terms of everyone else's reactions, then how they set about organizing the future.
What we got: fully 50% of this was day to day minutiae for running a kingdom. It was slow and pretty boring. We also got sunsinger and shadowdancer, but they were mooney teenagers that just happened to have useful gifts. The Companions didn't appear until fully 48% into the novel. THEN it was still minutiae for another 25% of the book until the reader could figure out it was good ole' Falconsbane (Ma'ar) again and it was a battle for the rest of the novel. It felt VERY railroaded and formulaic, almost as if Lackey is trying to wrap up every last bit of Valdemar history and toss it all into this one book.
Still, 4 stars because it's well done and still Misty, and she made my cry.