There's a new Valdemar novel coming out

[olivermoss]

I have so many questions about that cover art. Oh god...

Comments

[dine]

well, isn't that something

[olivermoss]

I am not ready

[mistressofmuses]

Well. That is... a cover.

I wonder if this one will be worth reading. I gave up on the Foundations books (the ones about Mags) after the third one, because the writing quality seemed to have taken a STEEP decline for that then-trilogy. I didn't find the character terribly interesting anyway, but I remember finding whole, multi-paragraph sections that were repeated almost word-for-word in different parts of the first couple books, and I couldn't get past that.

I've also read better writers and better stories since, but like so many others, the Valdemar books were very important to me as a baby queer, so I still have a lot of fondness for them. (Even though I now realize how iffy a lot of aspects of them were.)

[olivermoss]

I'll read it, but I probably wont like it. I don't even know if I read the last of the previous books. I was very into the early books. But then some of the later stuff was ... just weird. A whole book was inside the head of someone who thought he was soulbonded but really just was really dealing with mental illness. Once it was realized the book just ends and then suddenly they are a minor character with no follow up. A whole book on one person's pain, but no healing? On a meta level it was just being super aggro towards the earlier books.

Some of the early books handled a lot of issues with surprising nuance but others were messes. And Misty isn't shy about nuking previous canon.

[mistressofmuses]

Lol, I think I'm in the same boat - I'll read it, but I'm not going to enjoy it. >:(

I feel like I've probably missed several... Okay, I looked it up, and I quit after I think the 2011 "Changes", which was the third one about Mags. As interesting as the concept for the character could have been, I just didn't like him much, and having the usual trilogy format bucked for five books about him just bored me, and I never picked up the last two.
Plus those repeated paragraphs of description seemed to point to her having reached a point where she didn't feel she needed an editor/an editor feeling like they couldn't do their job, and I just wasn't about that. HOLY FUCK, she wrote two more trilogies after that about the same character? That went on for 11 books??
Why?
Maybe that's unfair and later books were better than the ones that burned me out, but...

I don't know if I ever read the one about someone with a non-existent soulbond? Was that one of the ones I didn't make it to, or one I've deliberately forgotten about? That sounds kind of awful, actually, and yeah, like it's unnecessarily taking swipes at so many of the earlier books and their themes.

There's been some good critique of how even the earlier books had some not-so-great elements about mental illness and things, but honestly, they *were* important to me as a kid. That queer characters got to have satisfying and important roles (Vanyel being one of the most important in-universe heroes ever, as well as a lot of side characters that were portrayed positively) was really comforting to me as an awkward closeted-questioning teenager. And that characters could have genuine trauma, but come through it and still be heroes, and worth loving. There were some definite "misses" on some issues, but for the most part I at least felt like they were trying to do good. But some of this later stuff...

Having a career spanning decades and dozens and dozens of books has got to be difficult in a lot of ways (maybe especially with a series that's a genre-definer for "romantic fantasy" for a lot of people), but... also I feel like I can usually see authors progress in their storytelling, even if I may personally prefer certain older works or not care for all of them, or whatever.
But it's felt like so many of her more recent entries have had a weird move backwards in a lot of ways, both in the literal writing style, but also the plots and the characters and the broader implications of how themes are handled.

And whoa did I apparently just have a ton of feelings about this that I wanted to unleash.

[olivermoss]

I feel like a LOT of fandom has unprocessed Mercedes Lackey feelings. With all these conversations happening recently I am about to go full MS Paint / conspiracy board about Eric / Beth / Kory being reconned canon. I don't have to because everyone agrees with me and it's actual text, not subtext.

I haven't even read the Herald Spy stuff. I am not sure I realized they existed. The whole 'fantastasizing a soul bond' think was somewhere in the mage storms or thereabouts. It was the Tale'edras guy who was Vanyel's descendant IIRC? It's been a while, I'd need to reread those ...and I am not going to re-read those.

Yeah, she definitely had some elements that were not great. I should read some criticism of her early work at a point. But there was also a lot of solid stuff about dealing with trauma, healing, facing one's own past, etc that was honestly better than most of what I see today. Tho it is 100% her fault that I sometimes want to write stories where the POV spins around like a roulette wheel.

Yeah, her stuff got a lot worse over time. Larry Dixon seems pretty ... special. Did you see that one tweet thread of his looking for unpaid help? I saw it posted a bunch of places and it was the subject of a lot of discussion.

For a while I thought she was maturing as a writer and had more real world experience with relationships or something. Now I just think she went downhill as a writer.

[mistressofmuses]

This is true, lol. And I think it's left a really complicated legacy for a lot of people.

Please remind me of who Eric, Beth, and Kory are, and then absolutely show me your MS Paint conspiracy string-board. I want to see it. (If you're interested; if it's too much effort, no pressure!)

OH YEAH. Firesong? Was that his name? I DO REMEMBER THAT. She did him way dirty, and I remember being real mad about it. >:( If I recall, he was a fairly prominent supporting character for quite a while, and then he just sort of... had his breakdown and got obsessed with... Silverfox? the guy he thought he had the soulbond with? and lived in a greenhouse in the capital (???) and we never really spoke of him again. (?????) That sounds like a fever dream, so I could be really wrong about most of that. I know at the time I was still really desperately clinging to any queer rep I could, and I felt really betrayed by how he wound up portrayed, because he never did get any meaningful closure or chance to move on.

Yes! Even just seeing trauma, or the character growth of confronting your own negative actions and choosing to do better... so much of that meant a lot to me at the time, and still resonates now. But oh god, the POV changes, hahaha. Suuuuuper guilty of wanting to do the same thing, lol.

I enjoyed the Mage Wars trilogy, which I know he cowrote, but everything else I tried to read that he'd had anything to do with just could not hold my interest, but I don't know much about him personally. But I had NOT seen the tweet thread you're talking about. That sounds super fucked: I'll have to go look for it.

I'd hoped the same; that she'd grow as a writer, but instead... everything feels like a backslide, honestly. I really don't want to get into the realm of guessing "motives" of anything like that, because I obviously don't and can't know them. But some stuff feels like either sell-out "I'll write more about Valdemar, since that's what everyone wanted, but I don't care about it, and that will show" or "I'm a big enough name that I can just throw my first draft at a publisher and it'll sell fine."

[olivermoss]

That one book does seem like a fever dream because it's so out of place and never resolves. We are like knee deep in Firesong's pain for a while and it's like 'yeah, you've got issues' and that's it.

Eric / Beth / Kory are from one of her urban fantasy books, Bedlam Bard. I loved that book so much. Years later she did a continuation with Rosemary Edghill that reconned everything and it just a hot mess through and through. It's so bad. I like Rosemary Edghill's urban fantasy so when I first heard they were teaming up to write sequels to me favorite book I was so excited!! and then I was just confused.

Yeah, I try to avoid guessing why she backslid so much and try to keep out of knowing things about her personal life. Partially because, unless you actually know her you don't actually know and it's all just creepy speculation. Some people blame Larry Dixon 100% and I can see their point but I also try to stay fr away from all of that.

[mistressofmuses]

Right? I remember that being extremely jarring. And I don't necessarily mind having characters suffer, but damn, usually they at least get some closure for it!

I remember the title "Bedlam's Bard", but I do not think I ever read any of the ones out of that series. That's super tragic, that the continuation made a mess of it, when it was with another well-liked writer. Retconning stuff bothers me so much. I DO understand that with extremely long-running series it may not be entirely possible to avoid continuity errors, or that sometimes you may wind up with something that doesn't gel perfectly with older entries... but I hate when it feels like there's not even an effort or an acknowledgement of it.

Yeah, it's not really fair to speculate about someone's personal life, and it's also not my business to. But the objective(ish) decline in writing quality is very sad for me, coming from an author I did used to admire so much.
I do seem to remember people saying Larry Dixon was kind of shitty, though I don't remember any real specifics. I will look for that tweet you mentioned, though.

[olivermoss]

This is the tweet thread that has, uh, a few red flags?

[mistressofmuses]

Oh. Oh dear. That is like a whole fabric store of red flags. (A weak metaphor, but.) Yikes. Yikesyikesyikes. "Don't worry, we're friendly to the most potentially vulnerable people! Also you absolutely can't share any information about what happens here! EVER. Paid in ~experience~!"

[olivermoss]

It's dangerous and isolated, but it's us!

Also I hate the Hong Kong Cavaliers comparison in the thread because Buckaroo canonically paid them on top of room, board and more! I know, niche thing to get annoyed about but my fave fandom being dragged in irritates the heck out of me.

[mistressofmuses]

It's dangerous and isolated and we're semi-selecting for vulnerable people and you won't be paid for the labor we're asking for and we're offering you room and board but for a completely indeterminate length of time so there's no security in it but... hey, hope you're a bit star-struck! :|

And lol, that may be a niche thing to be bothered by, but it's a fair one, okay!?

[luthienberen]

I've only read the Last Herald Mage trilogy, which I enjoyed. I admit though I do like the chap's costume...Fashion sense? What's that. lol

[olivermoss]

It's sort of pirate meets 80s fantasy art.

[luthienberen]

ooo...that's an excellent description, now I'm thinking of 80s dressed pirates in Valdemar x