Firebird

Rating:
Summary: Mercedes Lackey spews out yet another excellent novel...
Review: Being the ballet fanatic that I am, I expected the story of the Firebird to be similar to that of the ballet, and recieved a pleasant surprise when I found that there were several very interesting deviations. For example, they made it much more difficult from Ilya to get to the magician's soul (in this case his heart) which definitely made it more interesting. The beginning dragged a little, but as Ilya left his home and went out on his own, the story took on a completely new atmosphere, and it picked up from there. I definitely would recommened this to anyone looking for a good fantasy book to drown themselves in.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but she can do better
Review: I have enjoyed Lackey's work ever since I started with her "Arrows" trilogy, some twelve years ago. When she's in top form, Misty can create a world full of characters so rich and vibrant, you truly can feel what they are going through. In the aforementioned "Arrows" books, as well as in "The Last Herald-Mage" series, Lackey has shown that she's capable of moving readers to tears.

With "Firebird", there was no need for kleenex.

Not that it wasn't good. Lackey's take on the Russian fable was interesting. Readers are given a good overview of medieval life under the boyars and Great Tsar (Ilya's interaction with the "bannik" in the steambath was both humorous and insightful).

The detailed descriptions of various environments (i.e. going from Ivan's palace, to the woodsman Yasha's simple home in a maze, to the grandeur of the Katschei's estate) helped in developing the novel's changing atmosphere in general, while illustrating changes in Ilya's physical and emotional state in particular. Lackey has a real talent for placing her characters in situations of danger/momentary safety/back to danger again.

The criticism lies in that Lackey tends to let her characters overthink certain situations. She sometimes has Ilya pondering his next decision for several pages, when a couple of tightly written paragraphs would have sufficed. It seemed to take Ilya a mighty long time to leave his abusive father, whereas Ilya's brother, Pietor, heads out after one very well-plotted scene. Ilya's time as a "monster"/spy in the Katschei's palace seemed to take forever as well. While Lackey probably wanted to make sure her character saw the situation from all possible angles, the story's pacing suffered because of it.

Again, on an up note, I did like the final chapter and how Ilya had to deal with his own "happily ever after" scenario. It's definitely a "be careful what you wish for" situation!

I do recommend the book, but there are others of Lackey's that I would put ahead of this one.

Rating:
Summary: What happened to the rest of the characters?
Review: I really enjoyed _Firebird_ by Mercedes Lackey. The use of Russian mythology is wonderful and adds a taste of richness to the story. Everything in the book is magical and fairy-tale-like without being too sugary-sweet.

If you are looking for a light read with adventure, romance, and fun, read this book!

Rating:
Summary: Aside from minor discrepancies another great book from Misty
Review: I wnated to read this book for two reasons, I love reading Mercedes Lackey books and I grew up on the legend of firebird. The summary on the back almost descoriged me, but I gave Misty a chance, and wasn't dissapointed. she gave a legend interesting twists, although not all of them I liked. In original tale Baba Yaga is a yonger sister that is equiped with the bone fake leg and a huge nose, dragon is actually a three headed hydra called 'zmey gorinich' and is a middle brother, and kaschey (bessmertniy) is the undead lich/necromancer. instead of fox there's a talking wolf, and sons are searching for magic golden apples to heal their sick old father, not protecting the cherry garden. The firebird (zharptitsa in Russian) is just a magical creature that has to be cought by a hero in order to get the apples, who ends up helping the hero in the end. But all in all it was a very interesting version, and concidering the fact that Misty is not Russian, she got a lot of things extremelly well.

Rating:
Summary: More than OK
Review: Mercedes Lackey is one of todays greatest fantasy writers and this book continues her legacy of great writing.

Set in the middle of Russia, the story takes on a magical essence as more and more fables creatures come to life. The reader is honestly transported to another time and place where everything tempts the senses.

Not only are there fantastical settings but Ilya, the main character, is fascinating. He's full of charm, witt, and most importantly kindness which has the reader cheering him on. He continues from one adventure to the next climaxing with a powerful wizard in a magnificent story.

In all it is a beautiful story. Some readers do not appreciate the fact it has a "happily ever after" ending. Yet this ending is still refreshing and after all....it is a fairy tale.

Rating:
Summary: Decent Effort, But Lackey Can Do Better
Review: The Firebird is a book based on the classic Russian fairy tale of the same name. Ivan is a self-styled tsar who has many strong, trained, warrior sons, but none of them are very bright. Except for Ilya, the middle son. He is much smarter than his brothers so they naturally assume that he is a sorcerer and use every opportunity provided to beat him to a pulp and just generally make his life miserable. When someone steals Ivan's prize cherries, he sends his sons one by one into the orchard to discover who the thief is. Ilya knows who the thief is because he spied on the orchard and saw her. It was the Firebird. As a reward for not telling Ivan who was stealing his cherries, she gives him the gift of speaking to animals. As his older brothers fail to discover the thief, they become convinced that Ilya is the thief and give him the worst beating of his life. Ilya now fears for his life and can think of no other plan to save himself than to pretend that the beating addled his wits and turned him into a fool. However, not even his pretense protects him as his brothers continue to play cruel jokes - such as tying him to his horse and setting the dogs on him during a hunt. Using his newly acquired skill to communicate with his horse and the dogs chasing him, he is able to get away. However, when his horse is killed, he is lost out in the forest in the middle of winter with no supplies. A kindly ex-employee of his grandfather takes him in for a time and then Ilya becomes restless and follows the feeling of magic back into the woods. There he comes upon a giant maze which leads to an evil sorcerer's castle. After catching one glimpse of the 12 beautiful maidens that the sorcerer keeps captive, he falls in love with the lovely Tatiana. He decides to do whatever it takes to free her and to kill the evil sorcerer. But, with evil demons, a dragon, and other impossible tasks, can Ilya accomplish what so many other heroes could not?

I gave this book 3 stars because there was such slow story development that I almost set it aside. I usually finish books in a day or 2 and this one took me a week and a half to plow through. The characters were likeable enough and the story was fine, but Mercedes Lackey spent well over half of the book just setting up the story. The first part of the book just dragged by as the author described Ilyas terrible life and the horrible things that his family did to him. She weakly explained that Ilya didn't dare leave because he couldn't survive out in the forest alone long enough to get anywhere else where he could survive. But, if Ilya's home life was actually as bad as it was potrayed, Ilya definitely had enough backbone to leave - long before the whole cherry tree incident. By the time Ilya actually does leave his father's land, there isn't a whole lot of time left for the real action in the book. The reader is going along at a nice slow pace and then suddenly is raced through to the ending where everything changes and nothing ends quite the way it was set up to. The ending was quite abrupt and left the reader hanging, too. If this book was a duology or a trilogy, then it would be understandable that Lackey spent so long setting up the story line and left the reader hanging at the end, but, as far as I am aware, it is a standalone novel. Perhaps Mercedes Lackey was planning on writing another novel to follow this one and it never happened?

Rating:
Summary: Worth reading...
Review: This is the first Lackey book I've read and I found it interesting.

It was not that catching to start with, but soon the story unfolded. Ilya, the main character, is charming and smart. Once he sees the Firebird he's given the gift of speaking to and understanding animals. The bad part about seeing the Firebird, is that she brings bad luck. Well Ilya sure gets his share of that.

The ending really disappointed me and that's why I rated it down. After building up a good story the book comes to an abrupt "happily ever after " ending

Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Review: This is the second Lackey Book I read- THe first being the Black Sawn. I think that this one is definitley better. I loved Ilya as a character- he's an outcast who gets beat up all the time and only has a few friends. He gets cursed by the firebird and that leads him to his journey. He goes to face the villian in his fortress for (of course) the princess. I liked how the princess wasn't "perfect" in the end.

The story kept me reading and I thought that Ilya was an interesting character and so were his animal friends. It'sa great story and I'd recomend it to anyone who likesa good story.

Rating:
Summary: The only reason it was not a five. . .
Review: was the rather rushed ending. I think that Misty was setting up for a sequel which hasn't yet gotten itself written.