Magic's Promise (The Last Herald-Mage #2) in Queereaders

Jun 07, 2016 Stephen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: all-5-star-reads, gay, z-read-in-2016, fantasy, all-time-favorites, gay-pg

Just read this in my literary revisit of Valdemar. Of the three books in the trilogy, this may be the strongest but I do wish that more of the events in Vanyel's life had made it into print. Yes, we get the highlights and the most important events but so much is skipped over or just referred to obliquely that I sometimes feel that there might have been three more books at least. ...more

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Dec 09, 2010 Amy rated it really liked it

Shelves: lgbtq, 2010

This book only loses a star because the resolution to the whole war was a bit of a let down. It seemed to build throughout the book, and the end didn't justify all of that.

But I love Vanyel and it was great to see the changes in him interacting with his family again and the armsmaster compared to the first book.

Again, this was a reread for me. It had been 10 years or so since I had last read this trilogy. Unlike the first and last book, I hardly remembered a thing about this one.

Don't get me wr ...more

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Aug 01, 2016 Akiva 隀� rated it it was ok

Shelves: 3-fmt-f-novel, f-queer, f-scifi-specfic

This was only of the only Valdemar trilogies I didn't get to before the age of 18, which is the main reason that after a half dozen attempts I've never finished it. I don't know why I'm determined to do so right now, but I've made it to 40%, so I gotta keep going.

There are some cringeworthy racist themes, especially around the Tayledras and their lizardy house elves (who fortunately do not appear in this book, so far). Also, Lackey's characters always think too much, but it's not as egregious in ...more

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Dec 30, 2008 Erica rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy

Vanyel takes a break from the Karsite War to visit his family, and ends up trying to solve a mystery that arises after a potential border dispute between two neighboring countries. Because of the mystery component, it might be my favorite out of the three.

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