Lackey's Valdemar books are my go-to for fluffy escapist reading. over the years I have slogged through some pointless stories that were apparently published for the sake of world-building.This is book 4 in the Collegium story arc, and eleventeen in the Valdemar series. It was the first satisfying Valdemar read I've had from Lackey in a while -- her Owl Knight and Gryphon trilogies fell flat for me. While she seems to be writing her own Harry Potter, she stripped down to the basic elements --orphan boy with mysterious past is rescued-- and is retelling the story as part of Valdemar history. I need to backtrack and read books 2 & 3 again while I wait for the price to come down on 5.on an unrelated note, I am having technical difficulties accessing the B&N epub format. These are "guilty pleasure" books. I enjoy reading them but then end up thinking about all the things that are wrong with them.So Mags finally gets kidnapped and dragged off to Karse. Not sure why Karse, since the kidnappers have a contract with Karse, but not for Mags. If I hadn't fulfilled my Karse contract, I think I'd have avoided Karse. And the kidnappers want him because he's one of them; this is the secret heritage he didn't know about (but which has been telegraphed for at least the prior 2 books). He is Shadao. And, through a miraculous drug they give him, he remembers his early years before his parents died as well as his prior lives. There seems to be some timeline confusion, because at least 2 places they've talked about him starting working in the kitchen by tying rags to him so that when he crawled around he cleaned the floor (sounds dangerous to me to both the child and the others -- can you imagine hauling big pots around the kitchen when you could trip on a crawling kiddo?), and then in another place he's 2 or 3 years old when his parents die. Those facts aren't congruent.I thought it was overkill to have Mags do the long explanation of why he was afraid of ghosts (which was a very long way of encouraging readers to believe in talk therapy) AND then do all the dream scenes in the mines when he was drugged during the kidnapping. Too much recap of book #1 and too many mine scenes that just weren't relevant in this book.And for some reason we needed a full description of "how did Karse go bad" from Reaylis's point of view and a description of good and bad religion. Lots of tell instead of show.Less teenage drama, though, than the prior books. Well, Bear and Lena did get married, but in the grand scheme of teenage drama that this series has seen, that was minor. I thought it was weird that the priest dragged Mags into it. AND, Bear got to disown his father. Woohoo!And Mags hasn't taken survival class so he doesn't know how to survive except what he learned when he worked in the mine. But he does know how to fletch arrows. And, his shortened weapons training classes apparently include fighting with anything at hand. Which doesn't make much sense in a group situation unless others are also being trained that way. But only Mags is because it's special because he works with Nikolas. So how are they explaining this to the others?They talk about how far behind Mags is, but there's never any sense of what the whole curriculum scope & sequence is that the trainees need to master (and it is apparently mastery-based because it's not a fixed number of years before you're ready for your whites, so it's not like the normal time period is 5 and Mags will take 6 or that nobles with lots of education normally only take 4 or whatever).And I can't figure out how Nikolas has been managing as King's Own while simultaneously working nights running a Pawn Shop. In this book, he hires a retired actor friend to work some nights. And he has Mags create another character besides the deaf-mute son/nephew so Mags works some nights on his own. That seems weird. Would a person in his position really have people do that for him? And they say that Mags & Nikolas are just going about every 4 nights, then after Mags creates the new character he's still going about every 4 nights. That doesn't add up. They have a 7 day week. It would make most sense for certain people to work certain days and if you have more people to work (Nikolas works by himself sometimes), then you go less often. The new Mags character really seems to happen just so that Mags can be kidnapped on the roof when no one else is around. And really, does Mags arrive via the roof? So he's never seen entering OR leaving? Or does he only depart via the roof so he's never seen leaving. In the last book, as the deaf-mute son he took stuff to the Constable's via the roof and then came back that way so no one saw him carrying the valuables to the law. That makes sense. This is just a setup for the kidnapping.Mags didn't want to go to Nikolas about his feeling of being watched, but he's comfortable going to the Dean, who he's talked to all of maybe 3 times in these books, with the story. So Nikolas, who he hangs with multiple times a week and whose daughter he's dating, is unapproachable about something related to Mags's work with Nikolas. But the Dean is approachable. So weird.
Do You like book Redoubt (2012)?
This book was not among the very best, although it was great in the sense that we finally get some hint as to the heritage of Mags. It had a little too much general about-the-town stuff, and really needed a serious editor, but otherwise was pretty decent. One irritating tidbit - even though this is fantasy about another world, if the author is going to make the setting so Earth-like then the seasons need to coordinate a little better. Where I am from, you can't harvest acorns and blackberries at the same time - in the late fall.
—jessicalisseth
Oh I really liked this book. Except for the part in the middle where one minute Mags is talking with a Healer and Nikolas and the next minute he's hallucinating for like, 10 pages. It felt like Lackey didn't know how to transition from where she was in the story to where she was going, so she pulled a fast one. Or tried to. It made me all scowly. However, I really, really love Reaylis the Suncat, so I forgive her. But I'm still scowly.
—Victoria
Struggled through this one after loving the first three books. Kinda disappointing.
—Eengland
