Oathblood by Mercedes Lackey

My review of Oathblood is broken into small reviews of each story in the order I read them in.

“Sword Sworn”
      Another tick in the “female protagonist has been raped” column. Despite that, I did enjoy this one. Getting to see some Shin’a’in culture was fun as was getting to see Tarma and Kethry’s first meeting. Hardly a meet cute, but well done. I’m also weirdly glad it was in short-story form because I imagine the slow planning of taking down Tarma’s bandits would have been hell to read. And actually (having forgotten pretty much all of this series) I’m glad to have read this because it makes the info dump at the beginning of The Oathbound much more palatable.

“The Talisman”
      Takes place in the middle of The Oathbound after the whole Wethes thing. Slightly amusing and slightly sad. It would be a very stuck-in-her-own-beliefs person who somehow managed to figure out how to shapeshift.

“Friendly Fire”
      Kind of funny. Murphy’s Law indeed.

“A Tale of Heroes”
      Sounds like the “wheelbound” have an interesting belief system. Balancing your good and evil… kind of like a carbon footprint kind of a thing… except with gods. Glad Landric and Fallon were suited to each other.

" 'That was then, this is now,' " her hawk-visaged partner quoted. " 'The moment is never the same twice.' " - Tarma

“Keys”
      This was actually included in The Oathbound and just furthers my opinion of it being a bunch of short stories strung together. It’s alright as a stand-alone story, too.

“Turnabout”
      Another story that was included in The Oathbound. Now I’m kind of pissed. “Can I recycle or what?” Lackey asks in the preface to this one. Yes, yes you can, but this is annoying, especially as Oathblood came out a decade after The Oathbound. Boy and I glad I got this as part of a Humble Bundle.

“The Making of a Legend”
      Alright, as these things go. Not super interested in the minstrel/Bard who embellishes on Tarma and Kethry’s adventures. Not super interested in what actually went down, but it was alright.

“A Woman’s Weapon”
      Kind of fun, though quick.

“Wings of Fire”
      Keyjon reminds me of The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. Wings of Fire was an enjoyable little adventure. It’s always nice to run into the Tayledras.

"It is not power and wealth that corrupt, my lady, but the lust for power and wealth. When that lust takes precedence over the needs of others, corruption becomes true evil." - Stormwing K'Sheyna

“Spring Plowing at Forst Reach”
      So, my entire life I’ve been told my dad had the “female” spelling of the name “Lauren.” It’s nice to see another dude with the same name.
Sucks about the horses attitudes, but it was kind of fun “watching” Tarma, Jodi, and Beaker work them.

“Oathblood”
      Includes a very long, seriously boring lecture on long-term revenge that show-cases Tarma’s teaching skills outside of combat. I honestly felt like this tale of kidnapping and rescue went on a little long, or maybe I was just very done with this series while I was reading. No idea, but… yeah. It was alright. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I’d been in a better overall mood.

In Other News

I finished another OviPets project a few days ago and forgot to post about it.

Anyway, my Draconis variant of Monodramon is finished! Monodramon took me approximately 10 months to complete. They're part of my Child Digimon project.