Oathblood (Vows and Honor, Book 3)

Rating:
Summary: An Exciting Summery of Tarma and Kethry
Review: What really makes this book is the last story. I just finished reading this book for the fourth time in a year and I would reccomend Mercedes to any of my friends, and I do! There are a couple repeats of stories from Oathbound, but the new ones are witty and put women where they belong (at the top) in the age it is written, showing just how much men don't show when they write. All women weren't dumb blonde ninnys. Tarma and Keth show this numerous times and there are alot of old friends from Oathbreakers in here too. Another classic Lackey book to add to your collection.

Rating:
Summary: IT AIN'T NEW FOLKS!!!!! DON'T BE FOOLED
Review: When I fist heard that this book was coming out I was very excited. Its been awhile since a new Lackey book came out. I was greatly disappointed to find out that this is not a new book. It is a compilation of the Tarma and Kethry stories that have previously been published in Marion Zimmer Bradley's SWORD AND SORCERESS anthology with only one new "short novel" added in. While most of these short stories are very good, I had read them before. For the devoted Lackey fan this is a good way to get all of the Tarma and Kethry stories together. For people who have not read Mercedes Lackey before you would probably be better off starting with the first of this series THE OATHBOUND and it's sequal THE OATHBREAKERS, both are excellent books. If you read OATHBLOOD first you will find out how Tarma and Kethry meet, but the rest of the stories will probably confuse you since they rely on a base knowledge of the other two books and the rest of the Valdemar series. Over all I gave this series a seven because these stories are not new. They are good, but I already had all but one of them. It also gets a seven because now I do have all of the Tarma and Kethry stories together. But please, please do not buy this or the other "new" Mercedes Lackey book THE BEDLAM'S BARD if you are expecting new material.

Rating:
Summary: "Oathblood" delivers what it promises
Review: When I picked up this book, I knew what it promised -- on the back cover it says that there is a new "short novel" and the collection of all of the Tarma and Kethry stories in one place. I was thrilled. I have been trying to read all of the Sword and Sorceress volumes, but I'm never sure if I've read them all, since most of them are out of print. I knew, as anyone who is familiar with this form of literature should be, that the "short novel" advertised would be a novella, or a long short story. Fine with me! I love short stories, and I frankly have preferred Tarma and Kethry in short story form to novel form. Even their novels read as a string of adventures, most of the time. And for those reviewers who said that some of the chapters were directly out of one of the previous novels? Well, I direct you to Sword and Sorceress, where they were originally published. This is a nice collection of short stories for those of us who are interested in the characters of Tarma and Kethry and would like to get all of their stories in one place.

Rating:
Summary: "Oathblood" delivers what it promises
Review: When I picked up this book, I knew what it promised -- on the back cover it says that there is a new "short novel" and the collection of all of the Tarma and Kethry stories in one place. I was thrilled. I have been trying to read all of the Sword and Sorceress volumes, but I'm never sure if I've read them all, since most of them are out of print. I knew, as anyone who is familiar with this form of literature should be, that the "short novel" advertised would be a novella, or a long short story. Fine with me! I love short stories, and I frankly have preferred Tarma and Kethry in short story form to novel form. Even their novels read as a string of adventures, most of the time. And for those reviewers who said that some of the chapters were directly out of one of the previous novels? Well, I direct you to Sword and Sorceress, where they were originally published. This is a nice collection of short stories for those of us who are interested in the characters of Tarma and Kethry and would like to get all of their stories in one place.