The Lackey story is very good, and fills a 'hole' in Valdemar's history.

The first story is also good and also tries to fills a hole. The writer may be only 12, but she knows Valdemar well.

The other stories did not seem to really belong in Valdemar. This sort of anthology is always a gamble, but this one was a lot less well done than most. ( )

Yay for anthologies! What's fun about Mercedes Lackey is that she wrote fanfiction a long time ago, and these stories about Valdemar are basically the result of professionals doing what I do- using someone else's world to fuel my own imagination, with encouragement from the creator of said world! And each story fills in a little of the gaps deliberately left in the history of Valdemar/Velgarth. I can't wait to read more of these anthologies. ( )

Although, like all these things, there are good and bad stories, the average tends towards the good

Catherine McCullen is the youngest writer here - but this does not detract from her story as she tells the tale of the one of the oldest settlements in what would become Valdemar (her father is the SF/Fantasy writer Sean) but the most powerful story in the anthology was Nancy Asire's 'The Cat Who Came to Dinner', and Mercedes Lackey's title story was almost as good. ( )

Don't let the first story turn you off, it's the weakest of the lot - it's a good story by a younger author, but the rest of the book is much stronger. Michelle West and Tanya Huff's entries stand out, and of course I was excited to read about Talia's investiture as a Sun Priest (though it's told from Alberich's pov, and I felt almost cheated by not seeing more than glimpses of Talia and Kero), an event that fell between novels. This anthology focuses a bit more on people who *don't* become Heralds, which provides an interesting take on life in Valdemar and the surrounds. ( )

Mostly other people takeing a crack at Lackey's Valdemar Universe… a Mixed bag ( )