The Mage Wars Series Overview

The Mage Wars by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon

Contains Spoilers for the series

I am of the opinion that The Mage Wars is a very misleading title for this trilogy. Literally the "Mage War" in question is happening/ends in the very first book and everything after that is, well, after that. There is a mage antagonist in The White Gryphon, but he's barely there. So yeah, very misleading series title. I don't really have a much better title in mind, though, so what do I know?

The series itself is alright. Not the best trilogy I've ever read, but readable enough. Each of the books takes place at slightly different parts in the timeline, basically a years apart, and in different places around Valdemar before Valdemar itself, the country, exists. The characters are largely the same throughout, although The Silver Gryphon focuses more on Tad and Blade (Skan and Drake's children) as opposed to Skan and Drake themselves.

The Black Gryphon did not spend a lot of time in the war aspects. We got a few gryphon missions, but otherwise most of the time was spent in Urtho's war camp. There was a lot of character work, mostly focused on Amberdrake and Skandranon with a little bit of Zhaneel and Winterhart. We got a lot of gryphon and hertasi description, but very little on any of the other species that Urtho apparently made or imparted intelligence on. I did enjoy The Black Gryphon, but it was definitely less than action packed. Also, Kechara is a sweetie who I really wish we'd gotten more of outside of her plot relevance.

I was incredibly frustrated during The White Gryphon. It was fun getting an entirely different society (the Haighlei), but the way that society was structured was mostly frustrating. I found it increasingly ridiculous that the inhabitants of White Gryphon were not apprised of all of their rights and such under Haighlei laws, especially while under suspicion for murder. The fact that this was apparently not done because King Shalaman wanted Winterhart as his Forever Wife or whatever made things even more frustrating... I spent a lot of time just wanting to be done with it. In addition to this, Skandranon apparently forgot he wasn't actually any kind of Ruler among his people and that was just a helpful fiction they created to deal with the Haighlei. Just so, so frustrating. Add to all that the absolutely despicable villain of Hadanelith... ho boy. I was almost immediately just done with him but couldn't get away due to how prevalent he was in the whole book.

The Silver Gryphon was definitely a breath of fresh air after the gigantic ball of frustration that was The White Gryphon. I really enjoyed Tadrith and Silverblade as characters. They meshed well as a team and I'm just really glad we had their pair rather than just one of them. In my review, I likened The Silver Gryphon to Hatchet by Gary Paulsen and it really was quite similar in regards to the figuring out how to survive in the wilderness arena. I definitely think the pair of protagonists helped to keep things interesting, as well as the antagonist wyrsa. Speaking of the wyrsa, I think they're kind of interesting as antagonists. Kind of wish they'd been more than just magic doggos, but they did serve as tension for the good portion of the book. I would like to know exactly how they "inspected and sorted" through Tad and Blade's stuff with just dog anatomy... but yeah. I guess that just goes to show how ultimately underdeveloped they were.

Overall, I think The Mage Wars wasn't very cohesive as a trilogy. It was really only a trilogy in that the characters carried over and the timeline carried through. Each of the books could technically be read as a standalone novel. There's enough explanation in the latter two that, yes, connects them, but also just feeds you the information relevant to the particular story.

I'm fairly certain that, if I were to do another Valdemar reread in the future, I just might skip this trilogy altogether. I don't really remember The Mage Wars as having much, if any bearing on the rest of the Valdemar series, which makes sense The Black Gryphon wasn't published until six years after Arrows of the Queen and the trilogy is set way before Valdemar is even founded. Really just feels like Lackey and Dixon wanted to set up other societies and critters existing in the Valdemar world (apparently called Velgarth, which is something I learned via the Valdemar Fandom Wiki) and kind of explain how things like Mage Storms started happening.

On the subject of "critters," the only ones that really have any bearing on the story are the gryphons, hertasi, and wyrsa. We get mentions of kyree, tervadi, and dyheli as non-human races but little to no explanation as to what these races actually look like or how they behave. I had to google them -- the dyheli a couple of times because I just plain forgot -- to figure out what they were and looked like. I also still want an actual explanation as to what the maakar look like, even if they are extinct after The Black Gryphon. I guess all this serves to fill out the world, but I honestly forgot most of these guys existed outside of the odd mentions of them.

On a separate note, I read The Mage Wars on via the Kindle app. The Mage Wars contains portraits, I guess you'd call them, of the main characters as well as things like the wyrsa. I highly recommend looking up these portraits online if you are reading via Kindle because the scans of them that appear in the Kindle version are pretty shit. It was like looking at a copy of a copy of a copy. Not cool.

The Mage Wars was a fairly good read, my frustrations with The White Gryphon aside. If you're a completionist like me, I'd definitely say go ahead and give it a read. If not... meh. I honestly don't think there's much missing from the overall Valdemar story without this trilogy. I guess we'll see as I continue my read through.

In Other News

I have finished another OviPets project. This one is as close as I could get to the Digimon Huanglongmon. Part of my Mega Digimon project line.

The White Gryphon by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon

A Spoiler Free Review

Well, that was much more of a slog than the last one. I spent most of my reading time incredibly frustrated at both characters and the societies they inhabit. There's both a lot going on in The White Gryphon and a whole lot of nothing. I was not impressed at all by the "mystery" plot-line, though I guess it did a little something to break up what would otherwise have been an even more boring court-politics novel. The White Gryphon did nothing to really make me want to finish this trilogy or, if I hadn't already read a good chunk of them, the rest of the Valdemar series.

So, we start our story off a few years after The Black Gryphon ended, which is fine. We get to see where the characters we grew attached to are at this point in time; we're introduced to the main villain... who I will get to later; and finally, we're introduced to the inciting incident of the plot. The plot that involves us traveling to and learning about the Haighlei people and their culture. The Haighlei culture is... odd, in all honesty. Odd and incredibly frustrating. Amberdrake and Skandranon and the others are basically told it's really rigid and not to break any of the rules otherwise, you'll probably be put to death... and then nothing else, not even most of the rules. This frustrated me to no end, especially as there's one point during the book where Leyuet, The Truthsayer, sits and wonders if Amberdrake even knows of his rights under Haighlei law and whether or not Leyuet should apprise Amberdrake of this or not. Just... what the hell even?

On the subject of Haighlei law... the investigation into the murders taking place is a joke. Less than a joke. There's no actual investigation going on for the reader to see aside from the one or two times Skandranon is brought in as a consultant. He's told, in a most ridiculous and roundabout manner that he's basically allowed to investigate if he wants to, but not officially and not actually told at all. We as readers know this because, I think it was Leyuet, is thinking about it while Skandranon is being told this. Also, Skandranon's status as King... Pretty immediately upon meeting the Haighlei people, the White Gryphon Council basically agrees to pretend that Skandranon is their leader. He remains playing this part for the rest of the book and has many thoughts about his kingship, which he somehow forgets is fake, during the course of the book. Skan solidifies his Kingship among the Haighlei by basically getting completely fed up with the way the Haighlei King Shalaman is handling the murder investigation. Like, yes, Skan's not actually a King, but he and his people told you he was and ya'll decided NOT to treat him as one until he basically threw a tantrum at you? What. The. Hell. Nope. Haighlei society makes zero sense.

So, on to Mr. Hadanelith, Kanshin, and Noyoki. Noyoki was the worst set-up and backed up character in the entire narrative. He's basically lurking in the background and we learn absolutely nothing about him until the very end, and even that's just a "oh hey, that's the real identity of the antagonist." He wasn't even foreshadowed anywhere aside from the one time there's discussion on how mages work in Haighlei and that he's of high rank somewhere in the palace. Otherwise, nothing. Kanshin would have been interesting if he'd been in more than a few scenes and given more to do. But no, we have to focus on Hadanelith. Hadanelith is probably the most disgusting character I've read in the past year, and that included a dirty old man drunk on power in my dad's book (Granny Bael, available on Amazon if you're interested). Hadanelith is basically a misogynist with control issues and skill in manipulating people in a very exaggerated S&M-style manner -- which, by the way, isn't how an actual S&M Domme would treat their Sub, for the record. He's just gross and I really hated every single moment spent in his POV. I guess that's kind of a good thing for an antagonist, but... *much shuddering ensues*

So anyway, the rest of The White Gryphon was really quite boring. A bit of court drama mixed with so much exposition of Haighlei culture, but only as it pertained to the people of White Gryphon. I'm really hoping The Silver Gryphon is more interesting. I really hate being so negative while ostensibly reading a series I quite like.

Just a Heads Up

I have decided that I will be reading the Valdemar series in chunks interspersed with single books. The series is largely made up of trilogies, so this makes sense to me and also lets me read more than just Valdemar this year. Just wanted to let ya'll know, if you were interested.

Hope everyone has a happy and healthy 2023!