Storm Breaking

The Mage Storms trilogy wraps up in an exciting way that was much more tense and action-oriented than the previous novel in the series, which I'm glad to see. The reader gets to see the world as it's known change drastically. Iftel opens its borders, Hardorn gets a new King, the Empire suffers yet more turmoil (and not just from the increasing mage-storms) and most importantly, the structure of magic itself is shattered and must slowly reform. It's all a very fitting finish for this chapter of Velgarth's history, one that does justice to both the large and the small issues of all the major players in the tale.

(Poor Valdemarans, just rediscovering magic and then having to witness it getting scrambled up before they can really get a show more handle on it.)

But like all things, it has a drawback. In this case, the drawback is the fact that this book -- or rather, this book and the book before it -- were clearly not meant to be read independently of the Gryphon series, which was published round the same time. While the Storms trilogy deals with the echo of the Cataclysm, the Gryphon books deal with Cataclysm itself, and the events that followed. Publishing these series at the same time formed a nice symmetry, but things are mentioned in the Storms books that get no explanation, and the only way to really find out about them is to read the Gryphon novels. The makaar are a prime example of this. Normally Lackey is all over repeat descriptions in her novels, but in this case it's almost like she decided to forgo that tactic in favour of getting people to buy both series for a full explanation. Only having read and remembered the Gryphon trilogy kept me from being confused a couple of times.

At the end of this trilogy, though, I have to say that if you're interested in the Valdemar books, this is a trilogy you can't miss. Not without leaving a serious gap in your understanding of the world and how it works. Though the second book may have been slower than the first, the third comes roaring back with more fascinating things, world-changing events, and the return of a few beloved characters that no doubt made more than a couple of people grin with glee. There are a few books in the Valdemar series that can be skipped without much problem, but this certainly isn't one of them. A must-have for Valdemar fans! show less

Karal continued to be a sweet, thoughtful, and compassionate character and An'desha continued to experience character growth while they worked together and with friends, both old and new, to find a solution to end the Mage Storms before they grew too powerful to survive. Their chapters were relatively slow and plodding without much action and with a fair bit of reflection but continued to show decent development for both the characters themselves, those they were with, and for the overall plot. We saw a return to a POV in the Empire with Charliss selecting a new successor and we had an interesting POV from him as he worked to deal with the ramifications of the Mage Wars in the Empire. While we also continued to follow Tremaine and show more Hardorn we switched from his POV to Elspeth's as she and Darkwind were sent as envoys. This was the most annoying aspect of this addition to the trilogy as Tremaine's character arc had not ended and he continued to experience many challenges so his POV would've been much more interesting to follow instead of established character POVs. Overall this was a decent finale to the trilogy and the trilogy itself isn't terribly, but it is definitely not my favorite of Lackey's work. show less

Storm Breaking doesn't work quite as perfectly for me for a couple of reasons, but it's still fairly solid. This is in large part due to Karal, who is just a delightful viewpoint character, and his sections work well with the Hardorn bits, which I also enjoy.

The main problem with the whole series is that each book ends with exactly the same climax, just with slightly higher losses. Nothing really innovative happens, and it sucks some of the climax out of the last book when it becomes obvious that we've seen this scene before. It doesn't quite overshadow all the lovely small bits, but... well, don't read this book for the plot.

The lesser problem is the Empire POV scenes. They're wedged in and just don't fit - they'd make an interesting show more companion novella, but they don't work for me at all as interludes in this book about people I actually like. The Empire has ceased to be the villain, or in fact relevant at all, and this last gasp effort to bring them back flat doesn't work.

Overall, though, I enjoy the trilogy quite a bit. show less

I like the books Mercedes Lackey writes, she is good at creating a believable world and people to populate it. While her writing is not the strongest I do find it engaging ang and enjoyable. I like a series I can live inside of and her books are ones that have characters I feel invested in and a world I believe could exist.

This one starts with Elspeth and Darkwind going to Tremane, and Karal et al in the Tower. There's quite a bit of Tremane in it - he does a lot of developing - and Solaris' curse becomes almost beside the point (and he chose that path himself!). Elspeth's comment on his attitude about the earth-binding is interesting, something I hadn't caught before. It's made explicit during the ceremony, but I'm not sure whether I would have 'seen' that if Elspeth hadn't commented; he's just a bit blase about the whole thing. Hee hee. And then the Iftel delegation comes down...yet another completely different culture grown from the same (well, similar) roots. Fascinating people, want to see more. Then the Tower lot - everybody does some developing show more there, too. Karal, An'desha, Silverfox, even Firesong learn more about themselves - not navel-gazing, they learn things _while_ they're working on problems, both Urtho's puzzles and everyday life in the Tower. I very much like Lyam and Tarrn, they're nice people and interesting viewpoints. And the Empire is the third area that gets covered...the problem there is that there's no person I like. The Emperor is greedy and going mad, the heir doesn't have the excuse of going mad, the Army commander is cut from the same cloth...bah. And the things that do happen there are mostly...hmmm, how shall I put it. The actions that are taken there mostly preclude interaction with Valdemar or any of the areas we know. Melles' timing is...interesting when he finally moves - but _he_ doesn't know that. It's all very straightforward to him. I wonder what effect the Iron Throne will have, long term? It's interesting that the story doesn't stop with the climax - it's necessary to deal with the aftermath, in multiple directions. Karal and Firesong are the most directly affected (aside from Vanyel, Stefan, Yfandes and Need), and they'll be dealing with the aftermath for the rest of their lives. But everyone felt some effect. It will be interesting to see how/if the Shin'a'in lifestyle changes (I don't remember much reference to them in the Owl books, so I don't know). show less

This is the conclusion of the Mage Storms trilogy, so you should read Storm Warning and Storm Rising first--in fact I'd go back further than that, and read the Arrows of the Queen with Talia and the succeeding books.

I don't think this is the strongest grouping among the Valdemar books, but if you do love the preceding books, this entry is entertaining for several reasons. For one, Karal is an engaging protagonist, and its interesting seeing Valdemar from his Karsite perspective. I like also how this concluding book in the trilogy pulls together threads from several preceding books in this universe, in dealing with Urtho and the cataclysm that formed a defining backdrop in the previous books.

The conclusion of the Mage Storms trilogy finds Karal and the allies representatives camped out under the center of the Dorisha plains desperately seeking some way to avert the deadly force of the storms. Meanwhile to the east the Empire and the Emperor are failing. With each temporary solution the future seems in more danger, and even should they find a solution it seems unlikely that those under Urtho's Tower will survive.

It's Lackey, so a happy life-changing ending was a fore-gone conclusion. Still, it was entertaining getting there.