The Black Swan (Daw Book Collectors)

Rating:
Summary: I love this book!
Review: As a moderate fan of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books, I was interested in seeing what her other books were like. I had friends warn me against Gates of Sleep, so I picked up The Black Swan.

The book is wonderful. It is such a rich, multidimensional telling of the story of Swan Lake. The characters have true depth and development. Viewing the events from the pivoting standpoints of Odile, the black swan, and Prince Seigfried makes the story all the more interesting. We see Odette, the tragic Swan Queen only through the eyes of those about her.

Rating:
Summary: Not an exciting read
Review: Compared to some of M. Lackey's earlier works, especially her tales of Valdemar, but this book left me wanting. The characters were flat and the story was contrived and bland. The villian of the story was about the only character who remained consistent. The females of the book were often simpering and melodramatic. The "heroic" prince is a confused rapist who falls in love with a the leading fowl of the swan flock.

This story would have greatly benefited if the author had made her main character more independent and less of a (excuse the pun) lackey.

Rating:
Summary: not worth your money
Review: I am a very large fan of Merecedes Lackey, but this book was absolutely horrible. She spends forever on the exposition, forming an intricate plot that isn't actually all that interesting. The actual story of Swan Lake didn't begin until 2/3 into the book, when the prince finally gets around to going hunting and meeting Odette. I found that the uncanny way our heroine's name "Odile" was so close to Odette's, as well as the fact that they were look-alikes, was a little to coincidental to believe. The premise of the book, the Baron's (Odile's father) obsession with punishing all women who are unfaithful, untruthful, etc., is rather farfetched, as is his method of giving the evil queen her come-uppance. If you are in the mood for a Mercedes lackey book, I recommend her Heralds of Valedmar series, but avoid this book at all costs.

Rating:
Summary: Lovely
Review: I thought this was such as beautiful book. It is basically the movie "The Swan Princess" but WAY better. It is much darker and...better.

Anyway,the main story is that Odette and her flock are enchanted by a evil sorcer, Baron Eric von Rothbart to be swans by day, and their true form, maidens, by night. Von Rothbart's daughter, Odile, is their "keeper." A queen, Clothilde, is planning to "accidentally" make her son, Prince Seigfried, somehow die. After many incedents, Odette and Seigfried meet and fall in love. Odette can remove the curse placed on herself and the flock if she can get a man (who is Seigfried) to fall in love with her and never cheat on her until her death. Seigfried promises this, but is tricked later, and...I'll leave the rest for you to find out.

What is loved most about the book was the characters. I liked how Seigfried changed from a rapist to a devoted lover, and how perfectly EVIL von Rothbart was, and how Odile was a terrific, yet imperfect, herione.

There were only two things I wished I could change about the story: I wanted to know more about Odette's feelings and such, and I wanted the story to go on longer.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but....
Review: I'd never read anything by this author before but the book looked promising (I enjoy historical and fantasy works). The setting was very realistic, the plot interesting, the characters good and the writing good. However, it misses a 5-star rating becuase it felt like something was lacking. Somehow a distance is created from the characters. None of them feel very close to you or very easy to identify with. There is a general distant feel to the wiriting and the story as though you're watching the events from a distance rather than feeling like you're one of the characters (as some better books allow you to do...like the Mists of Avalon, etc.)

Rating:
Summary: Black Swan
Review: I'll admit it. I'm not a huge Mercedes Lackey fan. She tends to have stereotypical bad guys with no reason for their actions. Her books often start out very well, but then around the halfway point deteriorate, making it seem as if she lost her inspiration and is just trying to finish up the book. That's what happened with Magic's Pawn and with the first Bardic Voices novel -- with the remaining novels in the series not even starting out well. I had thought I was done with Lackey, until I picked up The Black Swan at the library, and got into it.

WOW!

This novel is definitely the best I have ever read by her. The plot -- based on the ballet Swan Lake -- is rich and detailed, the characters not completely black or white, even the villains. The evil Queen was still human, and Siegfried, while a 'good guy', had been a rapist in the past, and definitely had bad qualities still in existence. The book, unlike others where I had to work to finish, was captivating and difficult to put down. This was an incredible book. I'd recommend it to anyone, not just my friends who adore Mercedes Lackey.

Rating:
Summary: A novel of metamorphosis
Review: Mercedes Lackey's _The Black Swan_ is, fundamentally, about metamorphosis. On the surface level, it's a retelling of the story of Swan Lake, a tale of shapeshifting. Lackey moves further into the theme of change, as we follow the development of two interesting characters. She moves the Princess Odette into a more supporting role, focusing instead on Prince Siegfried and on Odile, the daughter of the evil sorcerer Rothbart. Siegfried is a chauvinist pig and a one-time rapist, in danger of becoming a true villain, when he goes through a haunting and a religious experience, and begins to try to live a better life. Odile is an aloof sorceress-in-training who initially idolizes her father and disdains Odette and the other swan-maidens; as the story progresses, she comes to know both Rothbart and Odette much better, and realizes who really cares about her and who does not. She opens up more to emotion, as she learns how to have friends.

Oh, yeah, and besides all this stuffy English-major thematic stuff, I would like to mention that it's an immensely enjoyable book, and a lot of fun to read.

Why not five stars? I subtracted a star because I don't believe the shapeshifting spell was described very well. The girls are supposed to remain swans unless Odette can keep a man faithful for a month--but on the day Siegfried first proposes, the girls talk about how this might be their last night under the spell. And the spell is supposed to change the swans back into maidens from moonrise to moonset--but Lackey always has them as humans by night ans swans by day. The moon rises at different times throughout the month; it's only at the full moon that it rises as the sun sets. So technically they should have transformed at different times of day throughout the month. But don't mind my nitpicking. It's a good story anyway.

Rating:
Summary: not worth your money
Review: The Black Swan was the first Mercedes Lackey book that I have ever read, though her books seem to be everywhere. I thought it was a decent book; the characters were well-rounded, the plot sensible and the details of it all were quite beautiful.

The plot follows the story line of the fairy tale Swan Lake, with Odile as the protagonist. Odile develops very well through the course of the story and the swan maidens are well drawn. It bothered me, though, that Von Rothbart's hatred of women was never explained. The reader never finds out what happened to Odile's mother or why Von Rothbart has set himself upon this quest. Those missing details left the story feeling incomplete, in my opinion.

Lackey switches her point of veiw between Odile, Prince Seigfried, and Siegfried's mother, Queen Clothide. Queen Clothide was an interesting and well developed, if not particularly likable character. I could see why she made some the choices she did. It was very interesting to see things through both the eyes of Seigfried and his mother. Lackey did a wonderful job of portraying life through the very different eyes of her three storytellers.

Overall, the book was a nice little read. I enjoyed it quite throroughly, even if it did leave some questions unanswered. Lackey's characters and details are distinct and nicley drawn, and, after all, who doesn't love a good fairy-tale?

Rating:
Summary: A light romance-fantasy
Review: This was my first Mercedes Lackey book, and I want more! It's a female fantasy, kind of like a romance in a fantasy setting. Guys won't like it. (I know because my brother didn't like it and he's a fantasy nut.) It revolves mainly around Odile, von Rothbart's daughter. It also covered a lot of sexist issues in an interesting way, such as how men can cheat on women yet not the other way around. With some of the men in this book, it's a wonder von Rothbart is after only women!
The problem with the book was that I felt it was incomplete. For example, why is von Rothbart after women? What did his wife do and why? You never find out. Why does von Rothbart hate mirrors? They show the truth, but what is he hiding? You don't find out either. Odile has a scrying mirror, and spends a chapter speculating and studying, but never ends up using it to see into her past.
The romance is mainly about Odette, the swan princess, even though she is not the main character. The main character, Odile barely gets any romance, and she is the black swan.