Enjoy Winds Of Fury (Valdemar: Mage Winds, #3) Imagined By Mercedes Lackey Listed As Softcover

I found my tolerance for gratuitously evil, and it's a bit below the breathlessly power obsessed villains here, The previous books didn't spend as much time on that perspective even though there's all kinds of horrible stuff hinted at to the expense of any conscientious SampM practitioner, but here they're enough of a viewpoint where it's like.
. . euuirk. The world building and exploration of tropes is fine, I just am not a fan of that degree of unambiguousness even in my escapism,.The discovery of Mercedes Lackey might be my most fortunate book discovery of the year by far,

Her seemingly unlimited books and series, though daunting at first, have done an incredible job of keeping my mind of other things,

For this one, Elspeth, the apparent heir to the Kingdom journeys to faroff lands to find a Mage to teach her and her folk as the threat of their neighbouring cruel King Angcar looms.
On this journey she and her Companion Gwena discover far more than they ever expected, as well as another world outside her sheltered nation that she never expected,

With new allies, and one very particular and formidable new enemy, these three books had me within their grasp in a day and I finished this particular trilogy faster than I expected given the amount of work I had the past few days.


I'm hopping directly into Lackey's next, Though I have no hope of finishing all her books from this world by the end of the year, I will be looking to make a dent, This book was so good that I've just spent all night reading it, because I've barely had a chance to pick it up since I started it, with Christmas, and presentmaking so greatly involved!

The conclusion of this trilogy was well worth the loss of sleep, though, as it brought together all of the disparate parts of the huge story of Valdemar, with it's Heralds, and Companions and associated with them, of course, being the Shin'a'in, the Kaled'a'in, and the Tayledras.


There were friends, and enemies, in their neighbouring countries, too, and each part that touched the lives of those who live in Valdemar, have brought so very much to the stories and I so hope that this isn't the last I'll read of them all especially with this particular story ending, as it did, with the interference of the Eastern Empire!

If you've never read these books, then run to your local library and, if they don't stock them, then ask why not! Look in your local secondhand book shop, too, because these are books that will keep to company, and entertain you, for many years to come

So, I'm going to catch up on my sleep and, later on today, I'll have a look to see what comes next on my bookshelves I know I still have very many more Mercedes Lackey books to read which I'm so very glad of though, right now, I'm finding it difficult to remember my own name, let alone what comes next in her books! Lol

Catch you later, and a Happy New Year, forto you all! I love Misty's system of magic.
I can't get enough of it,

Also, this tale is illustrated by her husband, Larry Dixon, When they work together, magic happens, While it took me much longer to read Winds of Fury than the other books in this trilogy, I did enjoy reading this novel, Winds of Change suffered from middlebook syndrome, The plot pacing was plodding but the characters were welldeveloped, Why does this always happen So we can focus on plot instead of character development in the final book, obviously! Winds of Fury does focus more on plot than character, but thankfully does not neglect character entirely.


Very few new characters are introduced in Winds of Fury, but two new characters get chapters from their own perspectives, Ancar and An'desha. The character that truly kept me reading is An'desha, After being trapped spiritually in his former body, now occupied by Falconsbane's spirit as well, I couldn't imagine how he might be able to escape this horror, I love the character Lackey created in him, While we didn't spend much time with An'desha, he grew the most in this novel, I was constantly drawn to his character, his challenges, his sacrifices, and rooted for him to win,

Winds of Fury differs from the previous book in one critical way: Plot plot plot! There is constant shift to new events and new discoveries that I feel often lacks in Lackey's works.
And some of these plot points are incredibly humorous, My favorite plot idea surrounds how our protagonists determine they will undermine and emerge victorious against the Big Bad: By sending in aperson assassin team disguised as a circus deep into enemy territory! Who doesn't love this! That said, they didn't really plan what they'd do in Hardon all that well, even though they had WEEKS of circusing to come up with a plan.
Perhaps Firestorm was enjoying the rouse too much, But, as is to be expected bam! They won, It might have fallen together for them in theth hour in an unbelievable and ridiculous fashion, but I still loved every minute of it,

Despite all the wonderful plot motion, Winds of Fury still had a tendency to drag, I read longwinded passages from the perspective of characters who were just trying to figure things out, While I appreciate Lackey's dedication to making the characters fallible and flawed, most of this content was repetitive, I get it. They are trying to untangle complex problems and personal emotional, Yes, the characters all have a lot to learn and lot of selfdiscovery to do, But instead of being exciting and interesting it's a bit dull, So pacing, still not good Lackey, I hope that I see this improve in the future in your writing,

Overall, Winds of Fury is an enjoyable addition to the Valdemar universe, As Lackey is wont to do with her trilogies, she has cleanly wrapped up the overarching plotline for The Mage Winds, But she

still left me with many unanswered questions which hook me into continuing to read the Valdemar universe novels,

Obviously, I'm going to keep reading, Not only for ReadingValdemar, but for my own interest, Here's to another trilogy! Bring it on, Lackey, Bring. It. On.
Winds of Fury is the third book in the Mage Winds trilogy, and is not only a satisfying but also quite creative and interesting conclusion to that part of Valdemars history.
The war with Ancar rages on, and the stakes are even higher now that, thanks to Ancar botching a spell, he has Falconsbane in his clutches and under magical coercions.
Magic has returned to Valdemar and mages are being recruited from all over, and those with magepotential are being looked for and trained, Everythings leading up to a battle between not only Valdemar and Ancar, but also Falconsbane, and Hulda, three of the most powerful and pissy people that Valdemar has had to deal with in an age.


That alone would be epic enough, but Lackey takes it a step further by giving us the character on Andesha, the man whose body Falconsbane took over and is currently inhabiting, and who is trapped in a tiny corner of Falconsbanes mind, his own personality intact but afraid.
With the help of a little divine intervention, Andesha works to undermine Falconsbanes plans from the inside while the heroes of Valdemar can attack from the outside,

Ive always had a fondness for stories involving trapped mental presences, other people dwelling in minds where normally theres just one personality present, What can I say, MPD and DID have been pet interests of mine for a long while now, Andesha appealed to me from the moment he was introduced for that reason alone, and that was just helped along when we got to see his backstory, find out how his body was taken over by Falconsbane/Maar, and more interestingly, just how he managed to keep his own personality intact while quietly sharing headspace with an ancient psychopath.


If theres one thing about this book that irks me, though, it was actually the divine intervention that did it, I have no problem with deities showing their hands, but I have to admit that some things seemed a little bit like a copout, Avatars assisting someone, fine. But the goddess reaching down and undoing most of the physical changes that were done to both Andesha and Nyara so that they no longer looked so inhuman seemed like things were being tied up too neatly.
A good chunk of the Valdemar books stress that actions have consequences, but thats just undone by admitting that sometimes your gods will step in and remove the consequences or the difficulties just because they feel like it.
Im not saying that Andesha and Nyara didnt deserve pity for what had been done to them, Its more like Im saying it would have been far more interesting to see them continue to cope with what they had, come to grips with it, and moved beyond it.
If youre looking for inspiration in characters, removing their problems rather than having them get past their problems takes away that which could be incredibly inspirational,

It also raises questions, Why didnt the goddess step in earlier and remove Falconsbanes coercion from Starblade Why didnt she show up and smack Maar down in one of his previous incarnations Why use that great power for aesthetics It would give Andesha and Nyara some comfort, no doubt, and was a nice reward for all that they had done to bring Falconsbane down, but it seemed rather arbitrary.


Aside from playing the deity card, this book was quite enjoyable, and a fitting end to the trilogy, It closes off that arc of the story nicely while still leaving some tantalizing unanswered questions, If I didnt know there were books in the series after this, Id be able to make a pretty good guess that there would be at least one set soon after.
As it turns out, theres another trilogy, which I will be getting to shortly, Good Valdemaran fun, and this is pretty much where we get to see what I would consider the height of Lackeys stylistic development in the Valdemar novels, Definitely interesting to see that progression, .