Bastion by Mercedes Lackey

A Spoiler Free Review

Bastion is actually where Mags gets a 99% normal “year” training to be a Herald. I rather enjoyed this one, though it doesn’t actually feel like a finale at all. Not that those things are mutually exclusive, but… yeah. Bastion had Mags and friends headed out on Circuit for that last bit of training they all needed… and for a change in Mags’ identity apparently.

I know that most of the Heralds series are either duologies or trilogies and The Collegium Chronicles is the longest series. However, that really doesn’t mean we can’t remember the important bits of what happened in the last four books. There were several instances of straight-up text-lifting in order to refresh us on Mags’ memories. As soon as I realized this, I skipped them wholesale. I feel like, had I read them, they would have dragged the momentum of the current story down.

I was not expecting Lita to be the “other person” added to Mags’ band during Circuit. I like that Jakyr had someone he knew well to bounce off of and Lita turned out to be a good addition overall. I also feel like Jakyr got some more fleshing out here, which was good because most everyone else is still fairly flat. The story isn’t really about Bear, Lena, Amily, or the adults, but it would have been nice for more of their personalities to come through. I think Lena barely did anything in Bastion worth her actually being there, to be completely honest.

I was pleasantly surprised to see an empty Tayledras Vale. I would have thought there might be more of those dotted around Valdemar, but I guess not. I was also actually surprised that Jakyr had met some Tayledras. Guess at least one Herald a generation is their quota.

On another note: the Companions are apparently burying even the very idea of magic and mages. Dallen telling Mags “it doesn’t matter” during Bey’s little sharing session confirms that. On the one hand, this makes sense as there apparently weren’t any Mages born between Vanyel and what’s-her-face-Princess-something… On the other hand, I feel like it puts Valdemarans at a disadvantage to cultures that have more than mind-magic to go on, like the Tayledras and Karsites. Just in The Collegium Chronicles we have the Heralds being completely in the dark about the vrondi and that was actually kind of important but reduced to a footnote.

Speaking of Bey, he is easily the most well rounded secondary character of the lot. He’s clearly got a personality on him that vaguely clashes with his assassin thing. I liked him a lot.

Bastion was an alright end to an alright series. Definitely went out with less of a bang than I maybe thought it might. I dunno, I enjoyed it overall.

Favorite Lines

:Yes, well, civility is an art form not practiced nearly enough,: Dallen observed

"The person who throws his weapon at the enemy is an idiot. A few moments after that, he will be a dead idiot." - Mags