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inferiorwit's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Grief, Murder, and Alcohol
Minor: Sexism
dotsonapage's review
4.0
The first in Lackey's Mage Storm's trilogy, a portion of her massive Valdemar series. What happens when disasterous magical storms begin raining chaos all over Velgarth? Can a new and unprecedented alliance of nations and species work together to save their world? If you've read any of Lackey's previous books you can probably guess the answer to that one, but this is still worth picking up for some new and interesting characters and an unusual central conflict.
melanie_page's review
5.0
Ah, a fresh start with a new trilogy! I’m so glad, because the previous trilogy was getting both too stale and sadistic for my tastes. Storm Warning gives fans a new character to root for, Karal, a secretary to a priest from Karse who is serving as the envoy in Valdemar. The novel opens with Karal and priest-mage Ulrich being escorted to Valdemar. When they get there, Karal will be surprised to learn how diverse Valdemar is compared to Karse, a homogeneous country that used to be Valdemar’s sworn enemy. A boy of about fifteen, Karal is both eager to help his mentor and plagued by homesickness.
But everyone has bigger problems after a something like an earthquake disrupts all the countries, friend and foe. All magic spells are destroyed, patches of land are oddly changed, animals become vicious, mages are physically sicked by the “wave” of power. . .
Though the focus is not an individual villain like in previous books, Storm Warning opens with the bad guy: the king of the Eastern Empire. Mercedes Lackey’s description of how the empire is run and who the king is made me fear his abilities. He’s logical but ruthless, trained to be a strong king without getting too greedy like the dunderheads in previous trilogies. His people use magic for everything, including transporting entire armies and supplies, and in a way that is unknown to mages in Valdemar. Right away, I knew this was going to be an exciting story if the king of the Eastern Empire is the foe. Their reliance on magic, though, is a massive issue when the first “wave” hits.
But the focus is Karal, a teenage boy, suggesting Lackey’s focus will always be young people discovering their identities. Tasked by Karse’s leader, the priestess Solaris, with caring for Ulrich and taking notes at every important meeting, Karal seems like a “nobody” at first. But he’s loyal and practical. He connects the mages in Valdemar and the math fanatics, whom mages and heralds ignore, to solve problems. Acknowledging his feelings as needed and looking past them to do the right yet challenging or scary task, Karal is someone readers easily care for.
Since Storm Warning is from an outsider’s perspective — that is, Karal is from the sunlord-worshiping Karse, has never been to Valdemar, doesn’t know the language well, was raised to think heralds and companions are demons — the story feels fresh. Characters carried over from previous novels seem new through Karal’s eyes, especially Firesong, who can only be described as a well-intentioned know-it-all. Talia, who hasn’t really been a big presence since her own trilogy (The Heralds of Valdemar) is a friend and mother-figure to Karal, drying his tears and helping him make friends. I forgot how she was different from Elspeth, as in the last trilogy the two characters seemed to serve the same function, but they are decidedly individual people now that Lackey has remembered to emphasize each character’s unique personality.
Most exciting is the plot. After the first “earthquake,” one of the villains thinks Valdemar has attacked them, but it doesn’t make sense. He receives reports from messengers from his different armies explaining what happened after this first disruption that destroyed all mage spells across the globe:
This review was originally published at Grab the Lapels.
But everyone has bigger problems after a something like an earthquake disrupts all the countries, friend and foe. All magic spells are destroyed, patches of land are oddly changed, animals become vicious, mages are physically sicked by the “wave” of power. . .
Though the focus is not an individual villain like in previous books, Storm Warning opens with the bad guy: the king of the Eastern Empire. Mercedes Lackey’s description of how the empire is run and who the king is made me fear his abilities. He’s logical but ruthless, trained to be a strong king without getting too greedy like the dunderheads in previous trilogies. His people use magic for everything, including transporting entire armies and supplies, and in a way that is unknown to mages in Valdemar. Right away, I knew this was going to be an exciting story if the king of the Eastern Empire is the foe. Their reliance on magic, though, is a massive issue when the first “wave” hits.
But the focus is Karal, a teenage boy, suggesting Lackey’s focus will always be young people discovering their identities. Tasked by Karse’s leader, the priestess Solaris, with caring for Ulrich and taking notes at every important meeting, Karal seems like a “nobody” at first. But he’s loyal and practical. He connects the mages in Valdemar and the math fanatics, whom mages and heralds ignore, to solve problems. Acknowledging his feelings as needed and looking past them to do the right yet challenging or scary task, Karal is someone readers easily care for.
Since Storm Warning is from an outsider’s perspective — that is, Karal is from the sunlord-worshiping Karse, has never been to Valdemar, doesn’t know the language well, was raised to think heralds and companions are demons — the story feels fresh. Characters carried over from previous novels seem new through Karal’s eyes, especially Firesong, who can only be described as a well-intentioned know-it-all. Talia, who hasn’t really been a big presence since her own trilogy (The Heralds of Valdemar) is a friend and mother-figure to Karal, drying his tears and helping him make friends. I forgot how she was different from Elspeth, as in the last trilogy the two characters seemed to serve the same function, but they are decidedly individual people now that Lackey has remembered to emphasize each character’s unique personality.
Most exciting is the plot. After the first “earthquake,” one of the villains thinks Valdemar has attacked them, but it doesn’t make sense. He receives reports from messengers from his different armies explaining what happened after this first disruption that destroyed all mage spells across the globe:
There are places where rocks melted into puddles and resolidified in a heartbeat, sometimes trapping things in the newly-solid rock. . . . Strange and entirely new insects and even higher forms of life have appeared around the camp. . . . Roughly circular pieces of land two and three cubits in diameter appear to have been instantly transplanted from far and distant places. There are circles of desert, of forest, of swamp — even a bit of lake bottom, complete with mud, water-weeds, and gasping and dying fish.An exciting story, indeed, one that shows mages and mathematicians working around the clock to learn when the next “wave” or “earthquake” will strike, and where, had my eager to turn the pages.
This review was originally published at Grab the Lapels.
_misty_'s review against another edition
3.0
Not a bad start for this new trilogy.
I like the characters and the storm theme is intriguing.
The Empire seems like unnecessary at this time? I mean, there's plenty to do even without it. Let's see how it develops.
EDIT: I was forgetting... I found really interesting the concept that lies behind the Companions. How it was (finally?) sort of explained who they are. I was always really curious about them, especially after reading the novels set behind in the timelines and finding out thatRolan is always the Monarch's Own Companion. That one is immortal! But I'm wondering, why the Monarch's Companion and not the Monarch's? It would make more sense if the Monarch's Companion was always the same.
I like the characters and the storm theme is intriguing.
The Empire seems like unnecessary at this time? I mean, there's plenty to do even without it. Let's see how it develops.
EDIT: I was forgetting... I found really interesting the concept that lies behind the Companions. How it was (finally?) sort of explained who they are. I was always really curious about them, especially after reading the novels set behind in the timelines and finding out that
shidoburrito's review against another edition
4.0
Alright! Finally some answers as to why these storms created those crazy large creatures! I haven't been reading the Valdemar books in chronological order, but it really helps to read about the Mage Storms if you're getting confused at times about the crazy big animals and dangerous forests!
bibliotropic's review against another edition
4.0
Another rather dull synopsis from GoodReads, and something of a misleading one. Selenay isn’t so much struggling to bring about an alliance with Karse as she already has one, as evidenced by the envoy, Ulrich, and his secretary, Karal, staying at the palace. Better to say that the story actually revolves around the Karsite envoy’s secretary for the most part, while everybody tries to figure out what to do about Hardorn now that Ancar is dead and the Eastern Empire seems to be making a move toward them all.
Oh yes, and let’s not forget that there are now catastrophic waves of magic circling the world, distorting the land and warping animals into rabid carnivorous monsters. Can’t forget that.
This book was actually released about half a year after The Black Gryphon, which ties in well with this book, since while The Black Gryphon deals with the events leading up to the destruction of Ma’ar (we all remember him, don’t we?) and the magical cataclysm that reshaped the world, Storm Warning deals with the temporal echoes of that cataclysm, the waves of magic coming back and doing ever-increasing damage.
The key to discovering all this, and a way to help keep some of the damage to a minimum, is hidden in An’desha’s memories of Falconsbane and his previous incarnations, and understandably, delving into those memories is no easy task for someone who’s terrified that merely having the memories at all is a sign that Falconsbane is still lurking in his mind. While An’desha does spend a good chunk of the book being rather whiny about the whole thing, I think some of that whininess and fear can be forgiven, even if it did make for annoying reading at times.
Through Karal, we get an insider’s perspective on Karsites and Karsite religion, previous villified in just about all of the Valdemar novels. Mostly we get to see all this through comparisons, as now Solaris is the religious leader of the country and she’s made some sweeping reforms. Or it might be more accurate to say “returns”, since a lot of what Solaris did was take the religion back to its less terrifying and political roots, making the religion into what it apparently was supposed to have been for generations. It’s through the now/then comparisons that we see what happens when power-hungry politicians control religion (and vice versa), an oppressive past regime versus a more lenient current regime.
Happily (at least from a reader’s standpoint on realism), this didn’t mean that everyone now views Karsites and inherently good. Generations of prejudice die hard on both sides of the border. The Valdemar novels are known somewhat for their idealism, but it’s good to thrown in some nice sobering reality now and then. Keeps things believable, keeps people acting like people instead of actors in a moral play.
We also get to see another cultural perspective from Tremane’s point of view as part of the Eastern Empire. The Empire is expansive and hard, but in its way, not really cruel or unjust. It takes over turbulent lands and brings order to them, brings employment and safety and security to the populace. Whether they want it or not. Hardorn’s citizens, no matter how much they were beaten down by Ancar’s regime, seem bound and determined to fight against the Eastern invasion of their land, to the point where it seems to make no sense to Duke Tremane. Isn’t he offering them a chance to rebuild their homes and improve them? Isn’t he bringing with them a better justice system that has proved well for other lands? It’s a real treat to get to see so many variying cultural standpoints here, which of course thrills the amateur anthropologist in me.
Also interesting in this book is the attempt to apply the rules of physics to magic. I have a friend who disdains most fantasy because she says that magic is all too often used as a McGuffin. It can do anything, it has no rules attached to it, and it’s entire unbelievable. (I always reply that she must be reading some truly crappy fantasy, because not all fantasy contains magic, and most of the stuff that does has clearly defined rules attached to it…) In Storm Warning, we get to see two opposing viewpoints, one stating that magic is entirely intuitive and its use is limited only by what the caster can imagine, and the other stating that magic must conform to the rules that the entire rest of the world has to go by, like physics. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that magic’s real function is a mix of the two sides of the debate, but it was certainly nice to see Lackey lay down some really solid rules about how magic can and cannot work in relation to the more mundane aspects of the world.
This book loses a few marks for being very repetitive, however. Fascinating story, and Lackey does have something of a talent for being able to make characters essentially have the same discussion numerous times without it getting too boring, but there were times where it felt like all the recap discussions were little more than padding. Sometimes they brought something new and interesting to the mix, but other times it was entirely for the sake of characters catching up on what had happened, and could have been avoided and shortened by just stating that so-and-so gave a run-down of the situation to another character.
Still, a good beginning to what promises to be a very interesting trilogy. Magic and politics all rolled into one fascinating and multi-layered story, pieces of the familiar combined with the strange and new. It’s classic Lackey work that explores her world in greater detail than ever before, fleshing out not only characters but an entire planet of people and cultures, that will leave you hungry for the next book. Highly recommended to Valdemar fans, though I recommend if you haven’t already read the Mage Winds trilogy, do so before tackling this. Not doing so might leave you pretty confused as to who everyone is and what they’re doing there in the first place.
Oh yes, and let’s not forget that there are now catastrophic waves of magic circling the world, distorting the land and warping animals into rabid carnivorous monsters. Can’t forget that.
This book was actually released about half a year after The Black Gryphon, which ties in well with this book, since while The Black Gryphon deals with the events leading up to the destruction of Ma’ar (we all remember him, don’t we?) and the magical cataclysm that reshaped the world, Storm Warning deals with the temporal echoes of that cataclysm, the waves of magic coming back and doing ever-increasing damage.
The key to discovering all this, and a way to help keep some of the damage to a minimum, is hidden in An’desha’s memories of Falconsbane and his previous incarnations, and understandably, delving into those memories is no easy task for someone who’s terrified that merely having the memories at all is a sign that Falconsbane is still lurking in his mind. While An’desha does spend a good chunk of the book being rather whiny about the whole thing, I think some of that whininess and fear can be forgiven, even if it did make for annoying reading at times.
Through Karal, we get an insider’s perspective on Karsites and Karsite religion, previous villified in just about all of the Valdemar novels. Mostly we get to see all this through comparisons, as now Solaris is the religious leader of the country and she’s made some sweeping reforms. Or it might be more accurate to say “returns”, since a lot of what Solaris did was take the religion back to its less terrifying and political roots, making the religion into what it apparently was supposed to have been for generations. It’s through the now/then comparisons that we see what happens when power-hungry politicians control religion (and vice versa), an oppressive past regime versus a more lenient current regime.
Happily (at least from a reader’s standpoint on realism), this didn’t mean that everyone now views Karsites and inherently good. Generations of prejudice die hard on both sides of the border. The Valdemar novels are known somewhat for their idealism, but it’s good to thrown in some nice sobering reality now and then. Keeps things believable, keeps people acting like people instead of actors in a moral play.
We also get to see another cultural perspective from Tremane’s point of view as part of the Eastern Empire. The Empire is expansive and hard, but in its way, not really cruel or unjust. It takes over turbulent lands and brings order to them, brings employment and safety and security to the populace. Whether they want it or not. Hardorn’s citizens, no matter how much they were beaten down by Ancar’s regime, seem bound and determined to fight against the Eastern invasion of their land, to the point where it seems to make no sense to Duke Tremane. Isn’t he offering them a chance to rebuild their homes and improve them? Isn’t he bringing with them a better justice system that has proved well for other lands? It’s a real treat to get to see so many variying cultural standpoints here, which of course thrills the amateur anthropologist in me.
Also interesting in this book is the attempt to apply the rules of physics to magic. I have a friend who disdains most fantasy because she says that magic is all too often used as a McGuffin. It can do anything, it has no rules attached to it, and it’s entire unbelievable. (I always reply that she must be reading some truly crappy fantasy, because not all fantasy contains magic, and most of the stuff that does has clearly defined rules attached to it…) In Storm Warning, we get to see two opposing viewpoints, one stating that magic is entirely intuitive and its use is limited only by what the caster can imagine, and the other stating that magic must conform to the rules that the entire rest of the world has to go by, like physics. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that magic’s real function is a mix of the two sides of the debate, but it was certainly nice to see Lackey lay down some really solid rules about how magic can and cannot work in relation to the more mundane aspects of the world.
This book loses a few marks for being very repetitive, however. Fascinating story, and Lackey does have something of a talent for being able to make characters essentially have the same discussion numerous times without it getting too boring, but there were times where it felt like all the recap discussions were little more than padding. Sometimes they brought something new and interesting to the mix, but other times it was entirely for the sake of characters catching up on what had happened, and could have been avoided and shortened by just stating that so-and-so gave a run-down of the situation to another character.
Still, a good beginning to what promises to be a very interesting trilogy. Magic and politics all rolled into one fascinating and multi-layered story, pieces of the familiar combined with the strange and new. It’s classic Lackey work that explores her world in greater detail than ever before, fleshing out not only characters but an entire planet of people and cultures, that will leave you hungry for the next book. Highly recommended to Valdemar fans, though I recommend if you haven’t already read the Mage Winds trilogy, do so before tackling this. Not doing so might leave you pretty confused as to who everyone is and what they’re doing there in the first place.
strixbrevis's review against another edition
3.0
My relationship with Lackey's work, particularly the Velgarth setting, is...complicated. I had bailed on it after the Winds trilogy, aside from the Skif book and the first Mags novel. But people I trusted said the Storm trilogy was good, and I decided to give it another shot. And it was enjoyable! A bit more complex than some of the previous books, especially in regards to more complicated villains. Still kinda...blunt about How The World Should Be, but not as thuddy. I'll pick up the next book as part of my summer-break comfort reading binge.