Magic's Pawn (The Last Herald-Mage Series, Book 1)

Rating:
Summary: Mercedes Lackey's most important book yet.
Review: In this first novel of her "Last Herald Mage" series, author Merdedes Lackey tells the story of Vanyel Ashkevron, the legendary hero of Valdemar. Beginning with Vanyel's childhood as a misfit child, abused by his conservative family, the story follows Van through his personal growth as he comes to terms with his gay identity, the loss of his first love to madness and suicide, and finally the advent of his awesome mage-power and his acceptance of the responsibility that goes with them. As a fictional account of a young man's coming-out experience, this novel provides a compelling picture of the abuse suffered by gay youth in a homophobic family as well as pointing the way to an acceptance and self-love that can serve as a guide to readers of any age.
For readers of Fantasy, the novel offers a vast range of wonderful prose, quite aside from the important social issues that it covers. Even readers who are not interested in the l/g/b themes will find this a rewarding novel, full of magic, adventure, and wonderful characters. This is a book that you will want to read again and again.

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Summary: Greatest book!
Review: this is the first book that i read by mercedes lackey and boy am i glad that my friend recommended it.
everything about this book is wonderful. Its exciting and emotional and lackey is amazingly apt at creating characters that you feel you know and love.
the main character vanyel starts out as a bit of a stuck up brat and transforms into a wonderful young man under the care of his aunt in Haven, the capital city of the kingdom Valdamar. he discovers the love of his life tylendel and just as his life is coming together, a tragedy tears it apart.
i won't tell you what it is because that would ruin the book so go get it now!

Rating:
Summary: LETS BE HONEST ABOUT THIS BOOK!
Review: I never read books that I can't learn anything out of. I picked this book because of the homosexual character and I thought I could have learned something from him. So in this book what the author tried to capture was how important it is to be in touch with your own nature, to sacrafice things like temptation in order to atchive something more greater. To be able to cut your selfishness short so you'de see things around you, so it wont get in the way. You'll be alble to see how important it is to love all people, whether rich or poor... SO THAT WAS GOOD, BUT...

Things i didn't like:
1. What's with all the wisazrds??? Even Tolkien was careful when he chose to have wizard characters. We all know that to be a wizard is not an easy journy to take, whether for evil or for good. Gandalf the white was the only wizard in such a great epic such as Lord of the Rings. You can't just pic wizards and drop them in your story. In Mercedes' world however it seems that every stupid dog could be a wizard. Not even Harry Potter has so many illogical wizards...

It seems she does't care for the nature of some of her characters sometimes as well; as if they were performing some actions just because Mrs. Mercedes told them to. In other words, some actions the characters did were simply taken out of nowhere, out of who knows what reason. (You'll know what I mean ascpecially by the end of the book when Vaniel meets his enemy)

2. The story also takes break when the author gets on the "blah" side, after two pages or so quickly returns to the main point, so it's important not to relax too much during those "blah" times, cuz you might miss some little things.

IN CONCLUSION: The author wrote SOOO many books, just SOOO many books, like letters to her chikens... Seriously, I wish modern fantasy writers didnt' do their job only for money, and creat worlds out of nowhere. Any one can creat fantasy, but with fantasy something great has to come. Every fairy tale has a lesson. Or suppos to have a lesson of some sort! Aren't I right? It's not just for fun! If Lord of the Rings were just for fun, it woudln't be fun at all! Some writers such as Mercedes Lackey seems to write just for money, that she's probably even lost count how many wizards she's got that act so illogically and spread through her little imaginary world, so she has to write so many books on that note.

If you don't care about the fantasy epic quality, but just want a story, go ahead, you gonna love this book!! It isn't bad!..

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book in an excellent series.
Review: Loved the book. The main character is sharp, intelligent. Its interesting seeing him grow up where everyone is more blunt and dull and how he sticks out there. You have a bit of an odd feeling sometimes about the character, he is not exactly what you want him to be - but thats what makes him interesting. Highly recommend this book and the 2 others in the last herald-mage series.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Trilogy
Review: This is by far my favorite trilogy in the fantasy genre! The series is compelling and full or plenty of action, heartache, valor, honor...I could go on and on...I love this series so much that I'vebeen known to purchase the trilogy just to give to friends!

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly realistic
Review: For those naysayers: Many forget that during this first story, Vanyel is sixteen. How many of you have worked with teenagers who are emotionally abused? His "whiny" self-pitying nature is realistic. Also, his tyrannical father is realistic in that all too often fathers are tyrannical and cruel without meaning to be. As some one who has a little experience dealing with troubled teens and their families let me tell you that Vanyel is the rule.

This book could have done many things. It could have made Vanyel have unrealistic strength and self-reliance for a child in a situation like his. *That* would have disgusted me, as it puts unfair burdens on children who deal with this. Vanyel isn't superman. His personality is shaped by a vain and self-centered mother. His personality is shaped by a father who suspects his homosexuality so is determined to drive him from all things "feminine" (So he spends time on music and clothes to spite his father). He, like his parents, thinks only of himself and looks out for "Number one".

The father is realistic. The author could have made him physically abusive as well as emotionally. She chose not to, and instead focused only on the emotional abuse. A hard choice, but it works. He is not emotionally abusive to everyone. He's actually a good guy, otherwise. He loves his family. He's a great vassal, and he takes care of his people. He works hard and he believes in treating others equitably. He just has a certain world view that his son does not mesh with in a positive way. He hurts his son because he's human and he just doesn't know how to handle his son's differences. It's an all-too-common scenario. It happens to good fathers and mothers when their sons and daughters are different. Maybe the child is smarter than them. Maybe the child chooses a different life than they do. They handle the differences badly and treat them poorly.

As for the love of Tylendel. Of course it's overly dramatic!!! They are sixteen and seventeen. Everything involves saccrine promises and "undying" love. Like Romeo and Juliet, if their love were not forbidden, it would not be as attractive. Vanyel clutches Tylendel to him because he doesn't *Want* to be a monster and Tylendel loves him unselfishly, and has faith that there is a good decent person in there. Later they come to love one another for who they are. How many relationships are entered into where each person knows the other and makes it a conscious choice? In my experience, very few. Tylendel has a "hero" complex (of course, he's this world's equivalent of a paladin), and he sees a beautiful human being who needs to be rescued from his own demons. Later he loves Vanyel for himself, but his own need to be the night in shining armor is what gets him at first. And his need to administer "justice" is what kills him in the end.

They aren't supermen. But Vanyel uses the inner strength that his lover gave him, his teachers refused to let die, and his older sister tried to instill in him in the first place, and becomes a good person in the end. Sometimes people are whiny and selfish. We aren't all "born" perfect. Virtue is sometimes earned.

As someone who has worked with troubled teens, this book is painfully realistic. Whiny, self-pitying, self-centered, brats are exactly what most of them are. I hate it when teens from these books have an "inner strength" that almost never exists in the real world. Sure, sometimes the dialogue is a little forced, but it's a beautiful story and I wonder how much experience with real people the naysayers have.

And it's what made my homophobic baby sister realize that homosexual people were human beings. Vanyel is a real, very flawed person. Most TV and movies portray them as supermen, or overly-virtuous creatures. In reading this book she could see, conceivably, how a person can be truly gay and act the way many of the younger gay teens she knew did. That, in my opinion, is worth a lot.

Four stars because while this book is groundbreaking, heartfelt, and beautiful, it is not perfect. I don't always like the sentence structure, and some scene could have been cleaned up.

Rating:
Summary: Best trilogy
Review: From fans of Mercedes Lackey's novels, I have often heard it said that the Last-herald Mage series was the best. And I shamefully admit, that I have only been a Lackey fan for a relatively short period and have been reading other Valdemar books before this series. (The Arrows of the Queen trilogy is particularly good as well).

Well, I completely agree, Vanyel's trilogy is the most well written and moving. Before I go into the great attributes of this trilogy, particularly in Magic's Pawn. I'd like to offer a few suggestions, (since many of you won't actually make it though my entire review :), no hard feelings.)

I would first suggest you read some of Mercedes Lackey's other novels. The Arrows of the Queen Trilogy is a must, and then perhaps a few novels set in the times of Seleny's reign. (Suggestions being Exile's Honor and Exile's Valor, or To Take a Thief, they aren't trilogies like most of Lackey's Valdemar series but they're good stand alones.) I mostly suggest this so that you can see the perception of some of the characters in the future. Most of the people mentioned in the trilogy will go on to be legendary, for good or bad. And it helps to see the herald's of Seleny's time, and their fears of becoming a Tylendel and their aspirations of becoming a Vanyel. They also mention Stef, and the need to meet Stef will def help push you through some of the dryer parts in Book 2, Magic's Promise. Arrow's of the Queen is essential to this.

Now on to the good stuff. Magic's Pawn...what to say? It is one of the best fantasy books I think I've ever read. Lackey occasionally has a problem with making her work original and changing the plot from series to series, but that issue is no where to be seen here. Elements of the trademark Lackey still remain, such as her desire to write Lifebonds, but they are nowhere near typical. Instead of happy lifebonds, which can only enrich the lives of her characters, she wrote Vanyel's lifebond more as a curse. A lovely curse, but one that leads to so much destruction and broken souls that there are two attempted suicides, some which are more effective than others. Vanyel is a character with depth and real emotions and he is surrounded with other such characters. They have human flaws and very human problems.

I have heard some say that they didn't appreciate the way "a bad guy just sprung up out of no where" and that the bad mage was just "I dimensional and characterized as purely evil". Well there's a reason for that. This book is written in 3rd person point of view, yes, but it is focused on Vanyel and occasional Tylendel or Savil. It shows only their viewpoints purposely, and it furthers the point that this is NOT a good vs. evil type of fantasy book. This is book for and about Vanyel. It is about a boy, who doesn't fit with his family, and doesn't fit with the bards and really doesn't seem to fit anywhere but with Tylendel. And the result of that is utter dependence, a dangerous thing, especially since Tylendel is human, and humans make mistakes.

Bad parts? There are a few, but nothing that significantly takes away from the book. Tylendel and Vanyel's relationship was undeniably an effort of Lackey to put more people at ease with homosexuality. It's a beautifully written relationship, and it shows how much harder it is to be in a relationship which you have to hide, for fear of harm being done to you. BUT occasionally she does focus too much on solely the homosexual aspect of it. The other two novels in the series are much better at that. The only other problem I found to be even the slightest bit disturbing was the few inconstancies only a truly half crazed Lackey fan would find...they probably wont even be noticed by most.

Great book...read it. That's an order :)

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Summary: THis book is awsome, and you should read it!
Review: I have a comment to make first, so listen up.

I read the reviews, and I was appaled by what a certain "reader" said about this novel. I'm really sorry, but Mr. "Gay Erotica" (and I asume that you are a male, and a homophobic at that), I don't want to offend you, I swear, but honestly, do you listen to every cute girl that talks to you?

It's obvious that you are blind when it comes to good literature. Do you usually walk into stores and buy everything that a girl you think is attractive recommends? I find that a little sad.

Here is a little suggestion (to help you avoid those "eroticas" you speak of) Have you ever thought about reading a summary of the book before you buy it? Or maybe just look on the back to read what it's about...umm, maybe flip through it first? Obviosuly not.

If you actually read this novel, (though it really looks like you haven't) what is so "erotic" about it? That is how Vanyel is! He likes men, so what? It's not like he murdered his parents, killed all the women in Valdemar and raped all the boys.

Actually, Lackey never goes into any kind of detail at all about that! The most she says about that is by placing a little sugestive remark that Vanyel or Tylendel make before they go to bed. SHe barely even writes about their affection, like a simple kiss. SO, what is so shocking? Man, some people seem like they are Hitler's followers or something.

I WANTED MERCEDES TO WRITE MORE ABOUT what their bedroom romance actually.

Sorry about that (the comment to the all thoughtful "Mr. Erotica". His remark got me a little. I have to say, though I adore this book, I dislike Mercedes for what she did in the middle of her novel. It was very sadistic. If I was Vanyel, I would probably go insane as well. But maybe that is why she did it-to get the stronger sense of emotion into the book.


Rating:
Summary: Took A Little Time
Review: I rated this book low simply because I found it difficult to get into until about chapter 7, which is longer than I usually give a book that doesn't grab my attention within the first couple chapters. What kept me going was the character of Vanyel and the characters that surround him. At first, Vanyel's whole spoiled, put-upon princely heir attitude got on my nerves, but once the character is freed from the confines of a constricting parental relationship, he really begins to shine. The other drawback was the relationship between Vanyel and Tylendel. After awhile it became too cloying and sickly sweet for my tastes, and the author's use of the brutish father to drive Vanyel into the arms of another man seemed too sterotypical. As a work of fantasy, the author does present a somewhat original world with different ideas about magic and that's a saving grace for what, at times, was more like a fantasy soap opera. It was however, good enough for me to be interested in the next book in the series.

Rating:
Summary: I just keep coming back...
Review: The Last Herald-Mage trilogy (along with the rest of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series) is one of the best ever written. The characters are well-developed, and throughout the trilogy you watch Vanyel grow and change from a lonely, arrogant boy into a hero. I was skeptical when my mother first handed me Magic's Pawn last summer, but because I am such an avid reader, I was willing to give it a shot. I have since read and re-read the entire trilogy over twenty times. Ms. Lackey is so talented with her prose that even after practically memorizing Magic's Pawn, I still cry every time I read it.
However, SOME reviewers seem to think that because Vanyel is homosexual, the books are not worthwhile. The point of the book is not that he is gay! That is just one aspect of his life and personality. I don't think that whether or not the main character is attracted to the opposite sex, should make any difference in if you think the story is good. Honestly, people should try to be more open-minded and stop caring about things that shouldn't matter.
Thank you Misty, for welcoming us into your world.