Spirits White as Lightning

Rating:
Summary: Mercedes Magick
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed the latestEric Banyon adventure! For me itwas a page-turner. There was a lotof good humor, interesting characters (ie. Chinthliss, the dragon, a Fox with 9 tails, Elves from the Serrated Edge series, andan unlikely Bardic apprentice) andthe ongoing relationships betweenElves and humans. It's a great read, fast and funny.

Rating:
Summary: *
Review: I would hust like to stsrt out by saying that I did actually enjoy this book. As with all of Lackey's work the story and charectors were good enough to keep me interested despite everything else. I enjoyed the cameos form the Serrated Edge series and thought that the ending was good.

BUT Lackey and Edghill engaed in one of the most blatent acts of plagerisim I have ever seen. In the 80's and early 90's two of Marvel comics titles - Uncanny Xmen and Excalibur featured the following storyline: A young girl named Racheal Summers was forced to seek out other mutants against her will. She was called a hound and had a talent similar to telepathy which allowed her to sense other mutants nearby. She wore a black (but sometimes red) leather jumsuit with spikes running down the arms and legs, spiked coller and leash.
In Spirits White as Lightning Jeanete Campbell was forced to hunt other Talents agaist her will. She was called a Hound (sometimes a Hellhound) and alongside her Empathy had a talent which alowed her to seek out other talents nearby. She wore a black leather jumpsuit with spikes down th arms and legs, spiked collar and leash.

Ms Lackey is a Busy woman, she writes several books a year. Perhaps she simply didn't notice. It could (though given the sheer number of details that were exactly the same as in the comics, it isn't exactly likely) happen.

Ms Lackey has with this act lost herself a loyal reader. Is it so hard to write something original?

Rating:
Summary: Serviceable but slipshod
Review: If you like Eric and Beth and Kory, you may want to know what's been happening to them since the last installment in the series. Go ahead and read this one, then. But get it at the library, or wait for the paperback. This book is not as good as it could have been.

Part of it is me; I'm finding Lackey a less compelling read in the last couple of years. But this one is a bit more unstructured than usual - the story really didn't hang together very well.

Rating:
Summary: An entertaining work
Review: In one realm Sir Eric Banyon, known there as Silverflute, a Queen's Knight, is a hero who saved the world. On a more earthly plane, Eric is a Juilliard student flautist who flunked Introduction to Music Theory because he missed his midterm saving the world from Aerune. Eric attends summer school to make up the credits and stay in school

Of course Eric has other activities intruding on his studies. These include a naming ceremony for his daughter Maeve and coping with being ripped off by his professor, a technical genius who has no earthly idea how to teach. This is next to nothing for Eric who has faced deadly enemy in combat, but remains unaware that Aerune and the Sidhe are plotting a rematch with a different ending.

SPIRITS WHITE AS LIGHTNING is a humorous "Bedlam's Bard" tale that cleverly mixes ordinary life with fantasy elements. The amusing story line never slows down as old favorites and villains return for another world threatening engagement in between homework assignments. Eric is a complex hero who can save worlds, fail classes, and look at his infant daughter and seriously claim she looks like Winston Churchill sans cigar; this Queen's Knight makes the tale sing. Sub-genre fans who relish a comic fantasy romp filled with New York guardians and Vegas elves will join the chorus line of readers singing praise to Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edgehill for their latest collaboration.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat entertaining, but...
Review: In this world, Eric Banyon is a New York Subway Busker and Julliard student. But you don't have to worry about that, because instead of actually attending college, mostly he hangs out with various magickal people and entities, both this-worldly and other-worldly. Eric is a practitioner of Bardic Magic, you see, and it gets him into sticky situations as well as occasionally helping him save the world.

Maybe it's that I haven't read any of the other books in this series, or even in any of the related series, but I had a hard time getting into this book. From the beginning, there are too many characters and too much backstory that is only implied or hinted at, making the first few chapters really confusing. I also had a hard time getting past the fact that everything in this book is really derivative. The setting reminded me of a cheap, American imitation of Charles DeLint's _Moonheart_, the characters were flat Urban Fantasy knock-offs without any true personality and there was absolutely nothing new to say here about magic, elves, the hollow hills, or anything else. All of this is wrapped up in a Pagan-Fem ethic and aesthetic that I find at best naive and at worst nauseating and irresponsible.

Once the story gets going it stops taking itself so seriously and is somewhat entertaining, provided you can overlook glitches like the secret government installation called the "Black Lab" (Woof!) and the PhD folkloricist who has never heard the word "Sidhe." (Doh!) There are quite a few good one-liners. I liked the dragon. I liked the haunted banjo. Trouble is, there were just too many plot threads going and none of them was developed particularly well. They all came together...kind of...but to me, it seemed that the books consisted of a bunch of random action and then all of a sudden MAJOR CONFLICT!

_Spirits White as Lightning_ is a short, easy and relatively mindless read with some amusing scenes. But get it out of the library.

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat entertaining, but...
Review: In this world, Eric Banyon is a New York Subway Busker and Julliard student. But you don't have to worry about that, because instead of actually attending college, mostly he hangs out with various magickal people and entities, both this-worldly and other-worldly. Eric is a practitioner of Bardic Magic, you see, and it gets him into sticky situations as well as occasionally helping him save the world.

Maybe it's that I haven't read any of the other books in this series, or even in any of the related series, but I had a hard time getting into this book. From the beginning, there are too many characters and too much backstory that is only implied or hinted at, making the first few chapters really confusing. I also had a hard time getting past the fact that everything in this book is really derivative. The setting reminded me of a cheap, American imitation of Charles DeLint's _Moonheart_, the characters were flat Urban Fantasy knock-offs without any true personality and there was absolutely nothing new to say here about magic, elves, the hollow hills, or anything else. All of this is wrapped up in a Pagan-Fem ethic and aesthetic that I find at best naive and at worst nauseating and irresponsible.

Once the story gets going it stops taking itself so seriously and is somewhat entertaining, provided you can overlook glitches like the secret government installation called the "Black Lab" (Woof!) and the PhD folkloricist who has never heard the word "Sidhe." (Doh!) There are quite a few good one-liners. I liked the dragon. I liked the haunted banjo. Trouble is, there were just too many plot threads going and none of them was developed particularly well. They all came together...kind of...but to me, it seemed that the books consisted of a bunch of random action and then all of a sudden MAJOR CONFLICT!

_Spirits White as Lightning_ is a short, easy and relatively mindless read with some amusing scenes. But get it out of the library.

Rating:
Summary: Lackey just keeps getting better and better
Review: Mercedes Lackey has been one of my favorite authors for some time. At the beginning of this series, she was an average writer with excellent ideas. Her plotlines kept me interested. In this, her l;atest book in this series, her writing skills are the strongest ever. The hero of this story is one of my favorite characters.
buy this book, you will not be disapointed.

Rating:
Summary: A consistant storyline would be nice..
Review: So Eric Banyon is still living in New York and going to school. I don't know if I'm the only one who noticed this, but in "Beyond Worlds End" he had come out of hiding after the events in the first two books in the series. Well, since time gone differently, it had been somewhere between 10-20 years in our world, so he hadn't really aged much because he was in Underhill. He said the authorities would be looking for someone much older than he was, like in his 40's, but in this book, she messes up COMPLETELY. After saying it had been years and years and years, Kayla comes to New York, and is still a teenager. She was 17 in the first two books, and now she is preparing to go to college. Wouldn't she be in her 30's if the plot was actually CONSISTANT? There are other various things in this book that just don't go along with previous storylines, and it's just boring and doesn't really drag me into it like the "Last Herald Mage" series did. I know Mercedes could do better than this, but there were such glaring oversights it makes me wonder who her editors are, and if she ever thinks out the plot lines.

Rating:
Summary: A consistant storyline would be nice..
Review: So Eric Banyon is still living in New York and going to school. I don't know if I'm the only one who noticed this, but in "Beyond Worlds End" he had come out of hiding after the events in the first two books in the series. Well, since time gone differently, it had been somewhere between 10-20 years in our world, so he hadn't really aged much because he was in Underhill. He said the authorities would be looking for someone much older than he was, like in his 40's, but in this book, she messes up COMPLETELY. After saying it had been years and years and years, Kayla comes to New York, and is still a teenager. She was 17 in the first two books, and now she is preparing to go to college. Wouldn't she be in her 30's if the plot was actually CONSISTANT? There are other various things in this book that just don't go along with previous storylines, and it's just boring and doesn't really drag me into it like the "Last Herald Mage" series did. I know Mercedes could do better than this, but there were such glaring oversights it makes me wonder who her editors are, and if she ever thinks out the plot lines.

Rating:
Summary: excellent sequel
Review: This book is the sequel to "Beyond World's End" and continues the story of Eric Banyon in New York with Aerune mac Audelaine returning as the villain. Most of the other characters are back also plus there are appearances by a few characters from previous books and from the SERRAted Edge series. There's one new major character in the role of Eric's first apprentice Bard. Despite the large number of characters, Ms. Lackey does an excellent job of weaving all of them into the story. The major sub-plot is well-integrated also and is highly entertaining, especially the visit to the Las Vegas elves. All in all this book is a pleasant read although I strongly recommend reading "Beyond World's End" first because this story is so closely tied to events in that book.