The Heralds of Valdemar series

So, we don't seem to have a thread about the Heralds of Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey.

For those not familiar with it, the Heralds of Valdemar series is a Long Running Heroic Fantasy series (30+ books, with the first one published in 1987) centering around The Kingdom of Valdemar in a Standard Fantasy Setting. The main thing that allows Valdemar to remain free from both internal corruption and external domination are the eponymous Heralds — heroes with Psychic Powers and certified 100% Incorruptible Pure Pureness via being Chosen by a Companion — Cool Horses that have human-level intelligence, are invariably pure white with blue eyes, and have a mental link with their Chosen heralds. Heralds are basically Paladins without the religious aspects. The protagonist du jour (the series typically runs in trilogies before changing focus to someone else) generally goes on The Quest to save the day from the current Big Bad, usually going through a Coming of Age Story at the same time.

I was a bit surprised to find that we didn't have a thread for this. The series has been around for decades, and is pretty damn Troperiffic. It's not exactly high literature, but I got into it back in like middle school, and it's been something of a Guilty Pleasure ever since. That said, despite not being staggeringly original or unique, the series is generally pretty well-executed and makes for an easy, fun read if you're in the mood for that sort of thing. I find myself rereading them not-infrequently, usually when there's nothing else new I've gotten into recently. They're sort of my default nothing-else-to-read books.

What about the rest of you? Anyone else read them?

edited 18th Jan '16 10:43:37 PM by NativeJovian

I've read most of the books, starting back in elementary school when my brother brought in a paper sack of them borrowed from a friend (at the time, you only had the 3 Talia books, the 3 Vanyel books, and the 2 Oathbound books). I think I read the first Gryphon book, but wasn't thrilled. I recently found the Collegium Chronicles and I'm reading the second Hearld-Spy book.

The series is, in some ways, a guilty pleasure for me. There's so much twee involved between the talking horses and the protagonists always being in the right, but it's fun to read.

The Black Gryphon (the first book of the Mage Wars trilogy) was pretty good, and it was neat because it basically gave us backstory for the entire setting. Sadly, the other two books were less interesting, as they were both less connected to the rest of the series and just less interesting in and of themselves (book two is a murder mystery where they have to solve the case on a strict time limit or else face major diplomatic issues with their new neighbors, and book three is about surviving in the wilderness against a pack anti-magic monsters).

The Collegium Chronicles were alright, but I felt like they dragged a little. It was a five-book series, but I felt like they would have been better off as the more typical trilogy. That also may have been because it owed not-a-little to the Exile books and Take a Thief (the other stories about Heralds-as-spies), though. That said, the Herald Spy books haven't run into the same problem yet, so we'll see what happens with that.

I'm in the middle of rereading the Mage Winds trilogy at the moment. I haven't read these ones in a while, so I forgot how annoying Elspeth is in them. I was never really sure if we were supposed to sympathize with her (mostly because she's the POV character for most of the stuff involving her) or if we're supposed to recognize that her issues are at least partially her own fault. I tend to have little patience with her whole "you all want me to do things this way, so I'm doing it differently entirely because you want me to do it that way" attitude. It gets weird because multiple people call her out on being kind of a bitch, and she kind of agrees with them, but never actually acts apologetic.

I do miss the filk songs. I used to love to grab the last book of the trilogy and try to figure out tunes to them (I know that Mercedes Lackey released official tunes, but I didn't have access to them).

Just finished Closer to the Heart. It was good, although the ending felt kind of anti-climactic in some ways with the villain conveniently kidnapping Mags and Amily so that they could defeat him and foil his plan. And the way that they kept hammering in the "accept everyone's differences is The Only Way" got a bit annoying after a time. I know that it's Valdemar's hat, and one of Mercedes Lackey's hobbyhorses, but it was downright Anvilicious at times.

I was actually pretty pleased with the way they handled kidnappings and abductions in Mags' books in general. Instead of a basic snatch-and-grab (which would give them time to use their various psychic powers to fight back and/or summon help) and then dumping them in a secured-but-isolated place and then ignoring them (which would give them time to work on their escape), the kidnappers actually behave reasonably intelligently, basically sucker-punching their victims and knocking them out before they can respond, and then making sure they're kept properly supervised so they can't get up to shenanigans while they're captive.

...except the villain at the end of Closer to the Heart. He did the exact opposite of all of that, and it came back to bite him in the ass. Whoops.

Admittedly, he was partly foiled by a betrayal on the part of the guy who was administering the drugs.

True. And I did like the part where he basically said "I'm a goddamn Herald. I'm basically For-The-Good-of-Valdemar given physical form. Are you really gonna try to kill me?" and all the people who were well-meaning-but-misguided essentially looked down at the floor and mumbled "no, sir" like a kid caught sneaking cookies.

Eyeh... that's the bit at the end that was the least believable for me. It sounded like Thallian had gotten all of these people whipped up with a belief that the Heralds were propping up a weak regime, that action was needed, that a valid next step would be killing the Companions to cripple the Heralds. And then they're all just capitulating after a short speech? That would be like expecting the Oregeon militia group to vacate the premises because a Federal agent delivered a speech about the need for big government.

The impression I got is that the bulk of the group weren't really totally buying into what he was selling, though. Heralds are basically paladins. They pretty much ooze goodness. I can totally see someone reluctantly going along with the plan when convinced by a charismatic leader, and then folding completely in the face of an actual herald.

Huge fan of the series; like you, Jovian, I found them in middle school and grew up with them. I agree with just about everything you've said, except that I really like Mage Winds and Elspeth's character. *shrug*

My first book was Owlsight. Weird place to start, but my grandmother saw a giant owl on a cover in a bookstore and thought I would like it. One of her better decisions concerning me.

I guess I just never really understood what Elspeth's problem was. Yeah, she's being guided behind the scenes, and yes, she's understandably put out by that. But she's literally trying to save the kingdom — the correct response would have been to insist that they include her in their planning, not "oh, you want me to do this, because you honestly think that that's the best way to accomplish our goals? lol too bad, gonna do something completely else just because".

The way she treats Skif didn't endear me to her, either. She didn't reciprocate his feelings? That's fine, but treating him like falling for her makes him an asshole was uncalled for.

That said, I liked kid Skif better than adult Skif anyway.

I definitely like Winds of Change and Fury better than Winds of Fate, and that's probably why. Once Elspeth and Skif part ways for a while they both get less annoying. And yes, Artful Dodger Skif is better than Shell-Shocked Veteran Skif any day.

Hmm, I just noticed this topic. The Valdemar books are among my favorite fantasy literature novels of all time, so I can't resist.

I have to say that Lackey's earlier work remains my favorite: the Arrows, Mage Winds, and Last Herald-Mage trilogies. The Black Gryphon was great; the other two were just okay. Obviously, I also love the Tarma and Kethry novels, and by extension, By the Sword.

Mage Storms is pretty good, too; I just felt a bit disappointed by Karal's Character Development arc. I would have preferred him to become more worldly — being blinded and effectively reduced to asceticism was not satisfying (even if the Firecat is still around to be his eyes).

Elspeth is supposed to be a bit of a Jerkass in Winds of Change. Part of her arc is learning to go with the flow instead of fighting constantly against every imposition on her personal autonomy. As for Skif, he's been fighting in wars since his late teens. It's really hard for that not to change someone. I'd find his character far less believable if he hadn't been a bit shell-shocked by everything that he'd seen and done during the conflict with Hardorn. Remember Vanyel in Magic's Promise?

edited 21st Apr '16 12:25:53 PM by Fighteer

All that makes perfect sense, and yet... it's hard to reconcile the two Skifs. Come to think of it, that might be because it's hard to get a sense of how much time passes between Arrows and Winds—and then you remember that Skif was already a Trainee when Elspeth was a toddler, and that he's therefore at least in his mid- to late thirties during Winds. Suddenly that aspect of his characterization makes more sense. And he's about 15 years older than her, which makes his attempted romance a bit odd, but that's never stopped Lackey before.

I like Mage Winds, By the Sword, the Last Herald-Mage Trilogy (the only sub-series to have its own page as of yet), and some of Tarma & Kethry. Arrows has a bit too much Early-Installment Weirdness for me to like it as much as the later books. Exile's Honor is better than Exile's Valor.

Black Gryphon is definitely better than the other two. What are opinions on the other trilogy to give Larry Dixon co-writing credit—the Owl trilogy, right at the other end of the timeline? Again, I read Owlsight first, and that might be the reason I like it best of the three, but Darian is a bit too young and whiny in Owlflight.

The Owl trilogy suffers a bit from what is obviously an attempt to reset the dramatic base of the story. We move from averting the literal apocalypse in Mage Storms to watching some boy in a minor village master his mage powers. It's not a bad story by any means, but lacks gravitas.

To read them in order, I suppose it would seem that way. To read the middle of the chronologically last trilogy first made for a surprisingly good introduction to the world, since all that huge stuff was in the background. I met Firesong and Kerowyn as Darian did—big names, Shrouded in Myth, and looking forward to finding out the stories that were only alluded to. I had no idea the Heralds (and not the Tayledras) were the overall stars of the show for the longest time.

The timeline between the Tendrel Wars and the Winds trilogy is all kinds of messed up. I'll just quote the Continuity Snarl entry on the subject:

The amount of time between the Arrows trilogy and the Winds trilogy is also rather vague. How old is Elspeth at that point, exactly? Somewhere between "late teens" and "mid 20s" but it's hard to pin it down further than that. Not to mention, as you pointed out, that Skif is largely treated by the narrative as being roughly the same age as Elspeth, when he should be somewhere between about five and fifteen years older, depending on which part of the timeline you want to base it on.

Anyway, part of the reason that I dislike older Skif is that Take a Thief is probably my favorite Valdemar novel. The Mage Storms trilogy is probably number two after that, not least of all because it gives us an interesting look at a culture besides Valdemar and their immediate neighbors (and the Eastern Empire makes an interesting counterpoint to the Hawkbrothers — they're both societies highly reliant on magic to function, but the Hawkbrothers are hippie tree-hugging ethical hedonists, while the Empire is a technologically-driven urban society with rigid, authoritarian rule topped by a Deadly Decadent Court). The Arrows trilogy suffers greatly from both Early-Installment Weirdness and generally being the product of a much less practiced author. The Last Herald-Mage was good but a little dark for me, so I haven't read it in a while. The Black Gryphon was good but the other two books in the trilogy was sorta eh. The Owls trilogy I feel the opposite about — the first book was meh but I rather liked the second and third.

edited 20th Apr '16 10:16:19 AM by NativeJovian

I've really been enjoying the Collegium books the following Herald-Spy books. Mags comes off as a bit too competent in some ways, but he is entertaining and, much like with Skif, it's nice to have a worldly character to contrast the typical Herald "Life is great for everyone because of the Heralds!" line. I do kind of wish they'd better dealt with Amily's leg, though. The surgery works a little too well in my opinion, taking her from a handicapped character who perservered despite her handicap to someone comfortable with leaping across rooftops.

Wait, Elspeth is seven in Arrows of the Queen? I thought she was at most four; I forgot that part of the trouble of the "Royal Brat" is that she was supposed to grow out of the behavior but didn't. It's been too long since I've read them. But anyway, Skif is still a Trainee in Take a Thief, which is before Arrows, so I can't believe that he's less than ten years older than her. Eight at least.

The Collegium Chronicles are pretty good, but as pointed out upthread, they suffer from telling the same story in five books that most of Lackey's protagonists handle in three. And I think that once Mags is Chosen, Lackey is a bit too nice to him, especially in Closer to Home. I saw Amily becoming King's Own coming a mile away, but I thought Nikolas would have to suffer the Mentor Occupational Hazard first; getting revived through CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable (in a Medieval European Fantasy!) and getting to switch Companions via Revival Loophole is just a bit too convenient.

And then there's the What Could Have Been factor; the Collegium Chronicles, as I recall, were supposed to be just that: a trilogy focusing on each Collegium in turn, with Bardic and Healing protagonists along with the Herald. This survives only in the characters and subplots of Bear and Lena, and it's Mags' show all the way.

edited 21st Apr '16 11:02:13 AM by HeraldAlberich

Yeah, Elsepth is seven in the first Arrows book. I think they also mention her age at some point in the Winds trilogy, but I can't remember when, or what age she is at the time. Honestly, it'd probably only make things even screwier. But it's probably worth pointing out that Skif is really young in Take a Thief. He's young enough to blend in with pages in the noble houses and palace servants, at least — even if he's a few years older than them and just small for his age, that's pretty young. He doesn't get his whites (which would make him roughly 17 or 18) until partway through the Arrows trilogy, but it's difficult to judge the time that passes within a trilogy. It at least gives us a maximum: Elspeth is seven at the start and Skif is still a trainee, so he's less than 18, which gives us at most a ten year age difference.

Actually, that might be a good way to look at things. IIRC, Elspeth is 14 when she's chosen, which is just before Talia gets her Whites, making her 18-ish. Which would make her about four years older than Elspeth, and Skif about two years older than that (since he's had time to go out on his first circuit and return, plus a bit extra — I can't remember if circuits were supposed to last a year or 18 months, but we'll call Skif two years older than Talia just for the sake of nice round numbers).

That actually works out pretty nicely, if my memory is correct and I've got my numbers right. Now if only I could remember where it mentions Elspeth's age in the Winds trilogy, we might actually be in business. Of course, Skif acting like a teenager with his first crush when he's actually in his mid/late 20s only annoys me all that much more, but oh well. What're you gonna do?

Incidentally, I think that's part of what I like about adult Mags. He's basically what adult Skif should have been. (Tying the spymaster position to the weaponsmaster position is stupid anyway. They're both full-time jobs with wildly different skillsets.)

Skif and Talia, both Chosen at about 11 years old? Ok, that does make more sense; I was sure they were around 13-14 at least.

edited 21st Apr '16 11:50:18 AM by HeraldAlberich

Hm, you're right, I didn't think of checking it that way. I just went and doublechecked, and Talia is explicitly said to be 13 in the first few pages of Arrows of the Queen. Which would make her around six years older than Elspeth (who is seven at the beginning of Arrows) and thus Skif would be about eight years older than Elspeth (as he gets his Whites about two years before Talia).

Moral of the story: Lackey is bad at math. Or dates are hard when you're writing a series across several decades. Either/or.

edited 21st Apr '16 11:57:59 AM by NativeJovian

Continuity drift would be the best explanation out-of-universe, I guess.

I got bored after the Owl series and didn't bother buying the Collegium Chronicles. My experience, from reading many, many fantasy and science-fiction authors, is that interquel retrospectives rarely add anything worth the cover price, since no matter what transpires within them, things have to end at the status quo established by the next chronological story.

edited 21st Apr '16 12:28:08 PM by Fighteer