[Book review] Intrigues by Mercedes Lackey

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This review contains spoilers

Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar books have been a staple in the fantasy genre for a long time.  I picked up my first Valdemar novel back in 1992, and I still occasionally go back and revisit the land and people that have given me so many hours of happy reading.  But after so many years in the same setting, can the newer books be as original as the earlier ones?

Mags, an orphan rescued from horrible conditions in a mine by being Chosen by the Companion Dallen, is settling into his new life at the Heralds’ Collegium.  Although inundated with lessons ranging from math to history to equitation, he works with the King’s Own Herald to learn the tricks of being a spy.  And such skills come in handy when Mags is in town and spots someone who infiltrated the Collegium the previous winter.

But all isn’t smooth sailing for Mags.  The Foreseers have begun to have disturbing visions of the King lying on the ground and Mags standing over him with blood on his hands.  Since Mags is an outsider of unknown parentage, suspicion falls squarely on him and begins to take a toll on his confidence.  Mags may be the only person able to clear his own name, but can he do that while everyone seems to be against him?

My overall opinion of this book can be summed up in the word “non-threatening”.  By this I mean that the book covers no new ground in the Valdemar universe, it introduces no new concepts, and it really does nothing to add to the history of Valdemar.  Nominally, this trilogy is billed as being about the founding of the Herald’s Collegium in its “modern” format, but there’s extremely little in the novels on that subject. In Intrigues, such subjects are only mentioned a few times—once when Mags tells the King that after-class tutors would be useful, and again when the obstacle course is replaced with a game modeled after a combo of polo and capture the flag.  The rest of the book is taken up with other matters.

It took me a while to pin down why I felt vaguely disappointed with this new story, but I did finally figure it out.  Essentially, almost all of Lackey’s past work has told stories of individuals, but their tales are woven into the much greater fabric of Valdemar’s history.  Lackey’s original heroine, Talia, undergoes her training against the backdrop of the encroaching danger of a neighboring kingdom.  Likewise, her hero Vanyel Demonsbane lives his life during a time in which magic was being weeded out of the Heralds through attrition and malicious action. 

But the Collegium Chronicles seem to have little, if anything, to do with the overarching tale of Valdemar as a whole.  There are mentions of plots against the king and maybe some shadowy malice hanging around waiting to strike, but it’s nothing that drives the tale in any real way.  It’s all about showing the development of Mags, who unfortunately can be characterized as a “magical orphan”.  From abject poverty, he’s given everything he wants, told almost anything he wants to know, forgiven every mistake and sleight, and accomplishes everything to the accolades of everyone in the area.  Lackey seems to be so busy painting Mags as a great and wonderful person that she’s forgotten that there’s a whole world outside the Collegium walls waiting to be explored.

“Magical orphan” stories, in and of themselves, aren’t bad.  Lackey has used the trope before—Talia, from the original series, isn’t exactly an orphan, but she is disowned by her family—to good effect.  But I mention Talia for a reason, and that reason is that Mags bears a striking resemblance to Talia in mindset and plot arc.  Talia goes through many similar trials as Mags, especially the fear and self-doubt that he experiences.  In Arrows of the Queen, Talia must struggle to find her place in the Collegium, and Mags does the same in Foundation.  In Arrow’s Flight, Talia must master her own talents and find her self-confidence, just as Mags does in Intrigues.  More than once, I found myself feeling like I was reading the Talia story all over again.

The one thing that I thought was very badly fumbled was Mags’s descent into suicidal depression and his subsequent bounceback from it as though nothing had happened.  True, a lot of what he went through was magically induced, but be that as it may, I find it hard to believe that someone could simply shake off that degree of depression as if it had never happened.  Much of what he was made to feel was based on his own real feelings about himself, magnified to overwhelming proportions.  Given that fact, a certain degree of those beliefs should have remained rooted in his mind.

Overall, the story isn’t bad.  It’s a fast read, and if you’re in the mood for something that’s not challenging, it’s easy to breeze through.  Lackey hits all the familiar locations such as various places around the Collegium, Companion’s Field, and parts of Haven.  That very familiarity might smooth over some of the aforementioned flaws.  I wouldn’t characterize Intrigues as either bad or good… I think I would just call it “present”.  It exists in the Valdemar continuum, and I’m okay with that, but I won’t hold it up as a shining example of the series.  If I had to rate it, I’d give it two and a half out of five stars—squarely in the middle.  It’s fitting, as this very much a middle-of-the-road book.

Also by this author: Changing the World, The Firebird, Gwenhwyfar: The White Spirit, Phoenix and Ashes