Mercedes Lackey

[olivermoss]

I am not ready for a new Valdemar book and I doubt I will be any time soon. I'd drifted away when the later books came out, but I was really into the early stuff.

Once, many years ago, I sent a bunch of canon corrections with citations and also corrections to her bibliography I found on a website about Mercedes Lackey books. I thought it was a fan project and that I was helping. The site was run by someone named Misty and at the time I didn't know that Misty was her nickname. I was sending the author cited corrections.

I also have a recurring dream that there is a 'lost' Valdemar book out there somewhere that I somehow didn't know about. So, how much I as into the early books, and also like Diana Tregarde stuff and the elves who drove race cars can't be overstated.

A prequel this many years later and given ML's habit of not just ignoring her own canon but sometimes being aggro towards it ... I am not quite sure how to express my feelings towards a new book. I'll read it, but I expect to mostly be annoyed by it.

Also why has my blog turned into 'I admit to facepalmy stuff' recently?

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, I mostly drifted away from the later stuff (and didn't make it that far when I tried to reread the whole series at some point several years ago.)

I was super into Diana Tregarde, too. Children of the Night was (slightly inexplicably) available in my middle school library, and I checked it out repeatedly, before finally buying myself a copy.

Though regarding this new book... Beyond the fact that I do think she's just gotten... worse at writing, or maybe just lazy at it... The apparent time period (the founding of Valdemar) is one she at one point had explicitly said she would NOT write about, despite it being frequently asked about, because she wanted it to be left as a sort of legendary time for Valdemar. (I may be a bit off on her reasoning, but I remember reading that in an interview and being low-key disappointed, because at the time I'd wanted something from that time period.) Titling her first return to the series after such a long time "Foundations" and then having it be about something wildly different seemed almost-deliberately mean, though I figured that was unfair of me. Now I'm not so sure. :/
If I wasn't so terribly skeptical of her current writing and the retconning she does I might still be excited to be getting the story little 8th-grade-me so desperately hoped for, but now I think I'll just be more deeply disappointed.

I'll trade you a related facepalmy admission:
The first, and to-date most memorable, lucid dream I ever had was about the Valdemar books. Not in a sexy way, lol, but at some point in early high school, I managed to slip into exactly the right level of consciousness that I was able to give myself an extremely vivid lucid dream. I used it to hang out with Starwind and Moondance when they visited Vanyel's family in the third book, and everyone wanted to be my friend.
Super facepalmy. Know the depths of my cringe.

[olivermoss]

That may be facepalmy, but nothing is as bad as the emotional distance between Vanyel and his Tale'edras friends in that book. OMG.

Sometimes the book in my dreams is not a specific Valdemar book, just more Valdemar, but sometimes it's missing scenes from that book where they hang out and are friends and maybe show emotions towards each other.

I considered submitting 'I grew up on Mercedes Lackey Books and now have opinions peer support' as an Escapade panel, but didn't.

[mistressofmuses]

RIGHT!? The agony of that emotional distancing.

PLEASE, WOULD YOU ALL JUST HAVE FEELINGS AND NORMAL CONVERSATIONS?

Look, I clearly need that support group, all right? I feel like there are a LOT of people who would benefit from it, lmao.

[olivermoss]

Vanyel missed them so much! That part of the book was so unsatisfying. She writes longing very well, but not having. Even with Vanyel and Stefan, once they are together there isn't much exploration of their relationship or enjoying being together, from what I remember.

Oh, and the book I was complaining about was Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, not Bedlam Bards. From a quick google it looks like Bedlam's Bard is the name of the series it became.

I think a lot of us need that support group.

[mistressofmuses]

Agreed! It does seem like she managed the longing and the pining and the sorrow far better than she managed any positive emotions, lol. The Last Herald Mage ones are definitely the ones that I've reread the most, and you remember correctly, haha. After they get together, it's fairly immediate that stuff happens to pull them back apart (physically and emotionally) and it never really gets resolved before Vanyel's death.

I feel like I might have that book hidden away somewhere in a box at my mom's house... I think I bought it, and never actually read it. (I think I found out it was a series, and was such a completionist when I was younger that I was afraid to start it.) But if things fell apart after that particular book, maybe I'll just read it, if I can dig it up!

And there's no disagreement from me there, lol.

[olivermoss]

Knight of Ghosts and Shadows is really better as a stand-alone.

[mistressofmuses]

Next time I'm allowed inside my mom's (probably post-vaccination) I'll see if I can find my copy, and then treat it like it's the only book in the series.

[olivermoss]

I'll be interested to see what you think of it!

[mistressofmuses]

I will definitely let you know!