Mercedes Lackey-great or not? where to start?

[billyf27]

hi, having never read mercedes lackey -i was researching her books and wow theres a lot of them --someone suggested them to me and im interested -they do have some animal bonding in them --would anyone recomend a starting point--i guess arrows of the queen is the starting point
thanks

 

[Priestvyrce]

Originally posted by billyf27
hi, having never read mercedes lackey -i was researching her books and wow theres a lot of them --someone suggested them to me and im interested -they do have some animal bonding in them --would anyone recomend a starting point--i guess arrows of the queen is the starting point
thanks

Yes, Arrows of the Queen is a very good starting point for the Valdemar series though I started with Winds of Change. Actually, it really doesn't matter where you start, but I have adored ALL her Valdemar novels.

 

[Redcandle17]

The first book in the Valdemar series I read was The Black Gryphon, which is the first book in terms of Valdemar's history. But Arrows of the Queen was the first book written so it's pretty much the only one that takes the time to introduce the reader to the setting(not that I'm complaining - I read a lot of series and I hate it when writers devote too many pages to explaining things found in other novels) since the protagonist has been raised in an isolated fundamentalist religious community and is as new to Valdemar as a new reader is to the series.

 

[Heresy]

Spare yourself some pain, and avoid Lackey.

 

[Expendable]

I like reading her books, they're good stories. She has a few of them in the Baen Free Library - go check it out.

 

[Yobmod]

Meh, she's OK, but the books feel very samey after a few.

I loved The Last-herald mage as a kid, but now it seems terribly overwrought.