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juushikaTitle: Magic's Promise (The Last Herald Mage Book 2)
Author: Mercedes Lackey
Published: New York: Daw Books, 1990
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 139,441
Text Number: 409
Read Because: personal enjoyment, e-book borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Many years after Magic's Pawn, Herald-Mage Vanyel is fighting on the frontlines of a magical war. Worn to exhaustion, he takes leave to visit his family home—but war follows him even there. The first half of Magic's Promise is unexpectedly domestic, the second half is packed full of plot; it's an uneven effort overall. As in Pawn, Vanyel's emotional journey fails to ring true—the intentions are there, but they lack either subtlety or resonance; supporting characters are abruptly recharacterized, and all relationships are handled with a heavy hand—but Promise is a significantly less melodramatic and, as a result, better book. Nor does it suffer from middle book syndrome: the domestic half grows wearisome, but the plot is both sufficiently robust and self-contained as to be satisfying. But none of this makes Magic's Promise particularly good. Despite objective improvements it's not as memorable as Price, and it's a personal, emotional book which fails to be either. Magic's Promise is mediocre and doesn't stand alone, and I continue not to recommend this series.
Author: Mercedes Lackey
Published: New York: Daw Books, 1990
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 139,441
Text Number: 409
Read Because: personal enjoyment, e-book borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Many years after Magic's Pawn, Herald-Mage Vanyel is fighting on the frontlines of a magical war. Worn to exhaustion, he takes leave to visit his family home—but war follows him even there. The first half of Magic's Promise is unexpectedly domestic, the second half is packed full of plot; it's an uneven effort overall. As in Pawn, Vanyel's emotional journey fails to ring true—the intentions are there, but they lack either subtlety or resonance; supporting characters are abruptly recharacterized, and all relationships are handled with a heavy hand—but Promise is a significantly less melodramatic and, as a result, better book. Nor does it suffer from middle book syndrome: the domestic half grows wearisome, but the plot is both sufficiently robust and self-contained as to be satisfying. But none of this makes Magic's Promise particularly good. Despite objective improvements it's not as memorable as Price, and it's a personal, emotional book which fails to be either. Magic's Promise is mediocre and doesn't stand alone, and I continue not to recommend this series.
