Mercedes Lackey: Exile's Honor

[Ashlea]

I know I've been touting Lackey all over the place, but I had to start a new thread b/c I just finished Exile's Honor and loved it.
As much as I love the Valdemar series, the last few trilogies just haven't been quite as good, but lately she's been writing novels about some of the minor characters in the other books and they've been great.

Maybe I'll get inspired and write a review.

 

[nelka35]

Mercedes Lackey - Exile's Honor

The sequel to that - Exile's Valor - is out already over a month. And I still didn't get a chance to read it! Exile's Honor is great; it was quite interesting to see Alberich's background. I want to reread it;hmm, I want to have my own copy.
Anyway - this is my first post here - and I am glad to meet another person who likes Misty's books.

 

[Ashlea]

Hmm - I wonder if the library has it. I'm a big fan but I still don't buy her stuff in hardcover.

 

[nelka35]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I generally buy her staff used; I just can't afford to buy new books. I read Exile's Honor in the library, but I don't think mine has Exile's Valor yet. And I just don't have the opportunity now to get away and read it in the store like Barnes and Noble...

 

[Ben Holiday]

I just finished both Exile's Honor and Exile's Valor last night and came away with a pretty good feeling about both books.

Alberich was definitely a character I always wanted to hear more information about and the books did a nice job of filling in his background and filling in some minor characters backgrounds as well like Jadus and Orthallen. I wish there had been a bit more of him in Karse then just what was in the first book but it was all summed up fairly well so it's easy to look past that. I've been a fan of the series since I picked up a copy of Magic's Pawn back in the late eighties and the last few series plus stand alone books have done a good job of filling in the history that the older books mentioned from time to time.

*Spoiler and Gripe warning*

Spoiler

As always there has to be a "BUT" mentioned somewhere and here is mine. But some things with these two books and some of the newer ones have bothered me the first off being the glasses belonging to Herald Myste I thought that was strange that she introduced such a device to the world. The glasses just bug me for some reason just like in the Mage Storm trilogy when the blues were talking about a steam or coal engine can't remember at this point but it just rubbed me wrong and felt out of place. The second thing that bothered me was the introduction of the sport Hurlee I just couldn't see the reason for it to be there. So many books nowadays seem to do this make up a new sport and then spend endless pages talking about the game, people learning it and the various rules it will need. Too me it's just so much filler that's taking away time from the actual story and boring the pants off me I've yet to understand why so many authors do this if they need a little extra filler give one of the minor characters a bit more depth. The third and fourth things that bothered me were nothing too major just two simple words Divorce and Pornographic. It just seemed strange that suddenly Valdemar was the kingdom that tolerates and has the option of divorce. I don't even know why the word pornographic was even in the book it's just mentioned the one time as Alberich's reading the decoded message which turned out to be plans for seducing Selenay the word just seemed out of place it's something that you really wouldn't expect people to be using in that type of time period. The fifth and final thing that bothered me was just a technicality really I found it strange that the Rethwellen king died before Thalen's death when in By The Sword he died when the news reached him a week later that his son had died trying to kill the queen and upon hearing it his heart gave out.

So no real major problems with either of the books overall I enjoyed them greatly they filled in what I always wanted to know about Alberich since his introduction back in Arrows of the Queen. I rate the books 4 out of 5 on the Valdemar addict scale.

 

[Ashlea]

Valdemar is just horribly addictive, isn't it?

 

[nelka35]

Originally posted by Ashlea
Valdemar is just horribly addictive, isn't it?

Definitely is...

I reread, on average, a few of Misty's books a week...