The Snow Queen by Mercedes Lackey
Jun. 27th, 2008 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittyWhile Mercedes Lackey continues to be a writer whose work I enjoy greatly, I don't feel that her best work has been in the past ten years. I still feel that Vows and Honor, The Queen's Own, and The Last Herald-Mage are her best works. However, with that being said, her recent 500 Kingdoms books are a hoot. It's easy to be forgiving of works that are a bit formulaic when they are also making fun of themselves and the fantasy genre. Why do the heros always band together? It's the magic of the Tradition! Why are the villains always overconfident and paranoid? The magic of the Tradition! Why does true love always win the day? Well, the Tradition wants it that way.
In this installment, Aleksia is the Godmother of the Ever-Winter, also known as the Snow Queen. She perpetually plays the bad guy to keep little Kays from growing up to be self-absorbed and uncaring, and little Gerdas from growing up spineless and weak. She's done it a hundred times. More than a hundred. If the truth be known, she's actually a bit bored. She's bored with the cold, bored with the solitude, bored with the need to always assume a mask of indifference. But Aleksia's world is about to be turned upside down. Someone is impersonating the Snow Queen, and she is up to no good.
I found this to be one of the more pleasing installments in the 500 Kingdoms series. The romance angle is not played too heavily. Instead, common sense and cleverness are emphasized. The love story between the minor characters Kaari and Veikko is charming, and the use of myths from the Sammi culture are unusual enough to be pleasing. Four stars.
In this installment, Aleksia is the Godmother of the Ever-Winter, also known as the Snow Queen. She perpetually plays the bad guy to keep little Kays from growing up to be self-absorbed and uncaring, and little Gerdas from growing up spineless and weak. She's done it a hundred times. More than a hundred. If the truth be known, she's actually a bit bored. She's bored with the cold, bored with the solitude, bored with the need to always assume a mask of indifference. But Aleksia's world is about to be turned upside down. Someone is impersonating the Snow Queen, and she is up to no good.
I found this to be one of the more pleasing installments in the 500 Kingdoms series. The romance angle is not played too heavily. Instead, common sense and cleverness are emphasized. The love story between the minor characters Kaari and Veikko is charming, and the use of myths from the Sammi culture are unusual enough to be pleasing. Four stars.