Collegium Chronicles Series Overview

 Collegium Chonicles by Mercedes Lackey

This post will contain spoilers for Collegium Chronicles and previous Valdemar series on the timeline. You have been warned.

I had read someone's review of Foundation where someone said Mercedes Lackey was rewriting Harry Potter due to similarities between Mags and Harry and kind of the plot. (This was after I'd read Foundation) Though there are a few similarities in Foundation, Collegium Chronicles is definitely not Harry Potter rewritten for Valdemar. To begin with, the story takes a turn for the very dark very quickly. Mags is by no means a Harry type character. Mags is way more clever and thoughtful and actually athletic than Harry ever was. There is also Kirball, which I felt was much more fun to read than Quidditch and was definitely different from Quidditch. For one thing, all the players are actually engaged with the game at all times rather than having a Seeker off to one side trying to find the Snitch. That's pretty much where the Harry Potter similarities end. The additional characters don't even have one-to-one analogues once you get past Bear and Lena being male and female like Ron and Hermione are. Would I recommend Collegium Chronicles to Harry Potter fans? Yes, depending on the age of the Harry Potter fan. Like I said, Collegium Chronicles gets real dark, real fast.

I really feel like Collegium Chronicles is really an extended prequel to Herald Spy (which I have not read yet). There's not a lot that goes on that doesn't add to Mags' ongoing accumulation of skills. Even Mags' small circuit run had very little in the way of actual Herald training. We actually don't get a lot of Herald training for Mags. He's mostly either catching up in academic classes or running around for Herald Nikolas doing the spy training thing... and of course the kidnapping situation in Redoubt. Mags will clearly not be a traditional Herald and so getting too into the weeds about traditional Herald training would have been a little silly. Add to all this the fact that technically, due to how new the Collegium is, Mags is technically getting a more "traditional" round of training. He's taken under the wing of a Herald as an apprentice rather than being stuck in a classroom all the time.

Collegium Chronicles has a large focus on the lasting trauma that Mags suffered throughout his early life. There's not a book that goes by where Mags doesn't look back on dwell some on his life in the mines. I honestly found this a little annoying, but I realize through my own dealings with trauma (nowhere near the level Mags or others have gone through)  that trauma does color your life in ways you might not think about. It does make sense that Mags would keep coming back to it over and over again. One thing about this I found lacking though, was the hammering down of how old Mags is actually supposed to be at any given point. The timeline of Collegium Chronicles seems to take place over about three to four years, but I'm not even sure on that count. I assume by the end that Mags would be about 18, maybe? It's really hard to pin down, especially because of the pseudo-renaissance-y society that Valdemar has at this point... after all, Lena and Bear get into a huge kerfuffle about getting married when they did due in part to their age. I feel like the age thing is important here, because Mags' whole life before becoming a Herald Trainee was the mine and it would be nice to know how long that actually was.

All of the secondary characters in the Collegium Chronicles are very secondary. We get a little bit more of Bear and Lena during Foundation, but after that, they're just sort of floating in the background. Given how much stress was put on Master Sorenson during Foundation, I thought that group of high-born people was going to have more of an impact on Mags' life... they did not. We barely get any more Lydia after that and the focus definitely shifts toward Amily. Amily's characterization is mostly done through stressing how she's her father's daughter and really more into the research side of things. She is shown to be adaptable after the surgery to fix her leg and kind of becoming Bear's assistant during Bastion. Nikolas actually ends up with more characterization than anyone else. He is at the forefront of Mags' training and Mags seems to spend more time around Nikolas than pretty much anyone else besides Dallen. Dallen himself is actually my second favorite Companion after Yfandes. He's just a generally fun-loving Companion who has zero problems throwing shade when he feels it necessary.

I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the Kirball team. Gennie and Jeffers were probably the most active in terms of the narrative. They're also literally the only two I can actually remember off the top of my head. I liked Gennie a lot. She was a solid team captain and has a good head on her shoulders. I'm glad the Kirball team came together around Mags a few times, trying to shield him from the whole "foreigner" issue during Intrigues and from being overwhelmed when he returned from his kidnapping at the beginning of Bastion.

Other characters of note are of course Lita, Jakyr, Franse, Reaylis, and Bey. Lita and Jakyr serve as the adults in charge of Mags' circuit run. That's really where we get to know Jakyr even though he was the Herald that helped Dallen get Mags in Foundation. He, like Lita, are kind of in the background the entire time, but like, way in the background. I really enjoyed Franse and Reaylis. I gushed over Reaylis in my Redoubt review so I won't go back into that here. Bey was an interesting addition at the end of Bastion. I think he largely served the purpose of getting Mags some assassin training without actually having to train Mags to be an assassin. I feel like Bey's assassin skills would be super applicable to spying. I mean, clearly, as Bey spied on Mags and friends the entire time they were at the Bastion. I do wonder how much of Bey's spying got him in turn spied on by the vrondi... he did not seem bothered, so... I don't know. That whole situation was just odd.

I also noticed a few things about magic in Valdemar that were interesting, to say the least. Reading through these books in chronological order has me questioning how quickly Valdemar seems to have forgotten things over the years. It's also a tad weird, because (according to the Valdemar Wiki) it's only been about 50-some odd years since Vanyel died. It just seemed really weird to me that things like Mages and the magic they wielded would have faded into obscurity so quickly. The Heralds of Mags' time rely solely on whatever mind-magic they might have and don't seem to have any curiosity as to, for instance, Vanyel's magic would have worked. I know that all the Herald Mages were basically killed off with Vanyel, but I find it really odd that Valdemar has absolutely no mages anymore, at least not until Elspeth in the Heralds of Valdemar series. I probably shouldn't be surprised that the information has been lost and turned into heresay so quickly, but I am and it's sad. I guess the combination of Stefan and the Companions really did a number on the information about magic being more common place. The fact that the Companions are semi-actively discouraging their chosen from even trying to delve into magic or the potential of the Mage Gift probably helped all this along. We see Dallen just be like "it doesn't matter" when Bey unwittingly gives a bit of this kind of info to Mags... and of course no one knows what's going on with the Magic Stone focus thing-y holding the Herald Web together. Companions are a bit sus, man; I do not approve.

Overall I really do feel like Collegium Chronicles is a prequel to Herald Spy. Mags is getting his training and managing to set up both support and information networks. There isn't really a strict progression of one year to the next, which does make sense given how Companions end up deciding when to choose their partners. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending to Collegium Chronicles. I feel like it'll just bleed into Herald Spy, but I guess I'll have to start that and see.