Closer to the Chest by Mercedes Lackey

Honestly, Closer to the Chest is boring. There’s lots of rehashing the plots of Collegium Chronicles and the last two Herald Spy books. Kind of to be expected in a series, but still boring. And the plot of the woman-hating bad guy who’s writing letters is boring. I am heartily against woman-hating nonsense, being a woman myself, but that doesn’t make this plot any less boring. It’s just a lot of “oh look, we’ve discovered this plot thing but can’t actually do anything whatsoever about it until a few chapters from the end of the book and then everyone throws themselves on the fire.” Much yawn. Almost ended up in my DNF pile.

I appreciate Valdemar’s “There is no one true way” mantra, but I think allowing a religion that denigrates a portion of the population — especially if it’s a large portion of the population — to flourish is a bad idea. I really think there needs to be an amendment like “but this is definitely NOT part of anyone’s way.” I’m only about halfway through the book at this point and I have zero doubt that whoever this is, is a member of the Order of Sethor. Bloody obvious.

I’m also not sure why no one thinks to go question them at all. Like, Jorthun or someone said most religions don’t like zealots and the Order might know who would be most likely to be the perpetrator. So why not question them? Oh, because the priest is just a condescending ass about women, that’s why. Unlikely to get an actual answer out of him, apparently. Gross. By the time Mags actually goes fully undercover with them, it’s entirely too late for any of that to be at all interesting.

It is no surprise to me that Lackey decides we must get Sethor’s friggin origin story on top of all the in-world grossness. It’s, no surprise at this point in the story, a thinly veiled Christian allegory. Very thin veil on this one. And of course there’s a female Satan-equivalent. Of course there is. Just… why? Why are we subjected to this nonsense? I get that it’s probably supposed to humanize the villains of the piece but they’re all religious zealots who really don’t deserve humanization in my opinion. Just… ugh.

On a completely separate note: It is still really odd that magic is so suppressed in Valdemar. I understand what Vanyel did with the web and the vrondi would suppress magic users, but why keep people from talking about it at all? That just seems stupid.

Closer the the Chest is honestly utterly skip-able. Like really, if you’ve decided to be me and read through the Valdemar novels in chronological order, or really, at all, just skip this one. It’s boring and ultimately does little, if anything, to advance any overall plot.