skygiants | (no subject)

So when I got my Kindle,

genarti bought me a digital version of The Black Gryphon as an inaugural bit of nostalgia to put on it. The most important thing about The Black Gryphon obviously is that it is the only Mercedes Lackey book to feature NOT ENOUGH DUDE.

-- okay, there are a couple new people around here now, so I feel justified in copy/pasting this joke again for people who were not around last year when

jothra and I went on one of our regularly scheduled nostalgic Mercedes Lackey reminiscences:

"Remember how she had all those animal people as love interests? Part-animal people? But somehow it was never a problem for sexytimes, because they were only part animal, and -"
"JUST ENOUGH DUDE!"
"YES! JUST ENOUGH DUDE in the place where it counted!"

But alas! In The Black Gryphon, a hot lady gryphon, due to a misunderstanding, tackles a human dude for sexytimes and he has to spend several embarrassing moments explaining to this poor insecure lady gryphon that NO, REALLY, IT'S NOT HER, IT'S HIM, HE WOULD TOTALLY HIT THAT IF HE COULD BUT HE HAS JUST NOT GOT THE RIGHT BITS AND PERHAPS THEY WOULD BE BETTER OFF WITH THEIR OWN SPECIES, and it was deeply awkward for all concerned, including the reader.

This is basically notable for being a speciesist distinction that Mercedes Lackey will never make again. (Well, I guess the Herald who is in love with his horse never actually gets it on with the horse. I think. BUT MAYBE I'M WRONG.)

I mean, I guess there was also a plot in this book, sort of. Basically there's some kind of giant terrible magic war going on, and Our Heroes are Skandranon, who is a saucy gryphon, and his bff Amberdrake, who is a sexy masseuse-psychologist-courtesan with magical healing skills and an angsty and exoticised past -- basically the tragic dude equivalent of Inara from Firefly.

Then they meet Zhaneel, hot lady gryphon with low self-esteem, but she gets magically better as soon as she has a talk with magical psychologist Amberdrake (once they have gotten the unfortunate Not Enough Dude incident out of the way). And then Amberdrake meets Winterhart, another lady with low self-esteem that starts getting magically better as soon as he starts hanging out with her, because that's what sexy masseuse-psychologist-courtesans do. And it turns out Amberdrake and Winterhart are magical soulmates, and Amberdrake gives Zhaneel some terrible advice about pretending she doesn't like Skandranon to get him interested in her and then they're grypn soulmates and that's all good. Oh, and the leader of the war/creator of the gryphons has been creepily controlling them by not giving them the secret to have baby gryphons, but it turns out he was just doing it for their own good, and when they steal it back he's all "lol you wacky gryphon scamps!" and everything's still fine.

But in case you were worried everything was going too well, Winterhart's Evil Ex-Boyfriend That Everyone Hated and Zhaneel's Evil Former General That Everyone Hated get together and DRAMATIC PLOT TWISTS OF BETRAYAL THAT SURPRISED NO ONE, because the only evil people in the world are the people our protagonists disliked from the beginning for their convenient lack of any redeeming traits. At least that's how it works in proto-Valdemar!

. . . so I guess that only sort of counts as a plot. Oh well!

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/324451.html

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Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

silveraspen

I suppose you could also call the not-really-secret plot of the book being ALL BACKSTORY ALL THE TIME for series-to-come: namely, the Mage Winds Trilogy and basically everything after that.

...why do I know this. why. I can never unsee.

Also no, Lavan Firestorm and Companion Kalira never physically express their mutual doomed lifebonded-and-Companionsoulbonded love. At least not that we ever see. They don't actually appear to be AWARE of it. *facepalm*

(Does gryphon + gryfalcon count as cross-species? Probably not, huh.)

From:

skygiants

I have really fond memories of the Mage Winds trilogy . . . which is the reason I'm kind of afraid to reread them. But a plot about acknowledging that people who are not super special chosen heroes can also be helpful and relevant! Romances that do not involve soulmates . . . and sometimes break up! WHAT IS THIS MADNESS.

I do not know whether I'm glad to hear that about Lavan and Kalira, or weirdly disappointed.

(Well, it's no human/giant eagle . . )

From:

jothra

There were many lols. I am fond of Amberdrake simply because he is not physically badass, nor crazily powerful with magic, like most of the male heroes in the Valdemar stuff.

The stuff with Winterhart is kind of...well. It is sketchy. Just do me a favor and don't read the White Gryphon, okay? You won't like it.

From:

silveraspen

I remember Ghost!Stefan's very long talk about how being lifebonded was NOT the be-all and end-all, and that even though he and Vanyel WERE, it didn't make everything perfect and easy, which I was super glad to see.

Also I like that character. :D Both of them, really.

(No, it's not. But hey, Mage Winds offers you a parallel with Skif/Nyara helped by Need, so...)

Anyway -- wait it is obvious that [Ma'ar in the Gryphon book is also Falconsbane], right? I'm not the only one who made that association?

From:

silveraspen

Skip straight to Silver, seriously. I think you can get enough from context without having to read White.

From:

skygiants

I remembered really liking Winterhart from when I was a kid -- because I like angry ladies! -- and was so disappointed to reread and realize that she was basically . . . there to look Amberdrake look good. (Also, you know what's great? When the one Bechdel-passing conversation with Winterhart and Zhaneel, the one that ACTUALLY makes Winterhart re-evaluate all her life decisions, is completely offscreened. Awesome choice there.)

I have . . . zero recollection of what happens in the White Gryphon. Seriously, zero. I remember what happens in Silver Gryphon, that's the one where everyone's kids go on a camping trip!

From:

skygiants

(Yeah, that one TOTALLY counts. She is Just Enough Lady!)

Oh, yeah, that's definitely obvious, or at least it was also to me -- isn't he also basically every villain ever who shows up in any Valdemar books? At least I'm almost positive that he's Vanyel's villain too, if memory serves. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

From:

silveraspen

Yep! He was Vanyel's archenemy Leareth too, that's right.

But there's LOGIC to it! Remember, we find out in Mage Winds that he [learned how to stuff his soiled soul in a weird spacetime pocket until he could seize a descendant - poor An'desha, etc. - until Firesong finished great-great-great-great-granddaddy-and-also-uncle Vanyel's work by pursuing him into the spacetime continuum corner and SHREDDING HIM WITH FLAMING PHOENIX CLAWS.]

... for some definition of logic, anyway...

From:

skygiants

I also vaguely remember commentary about how by the time he'd got down to modern era he was still evil but also all the soul-pocketing had turned him from Epic Evil into, like . . . weird, tacky evil. Like if original flavor could look at the latest model he would be like, "ew, kitty ears? I CAN'T BELIEVE I THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA."

. . . . did that actually happen? Am I making that up?

From:

silveraspen

Yep, that totally happened! Clearly soul-pocketing is bad for the judgement. And the fashion sense.

Which is clearly why SOMEONE needed to save Firesong from himself later. GO SILVERFOX.

(Name. Will. Never. Not. Make. Me. Laugh. Because of course, he WAS a silver fox.)

From:

skygiants

HAHAHAHAHA HOW COULD I FORGET HIS NAME WAS SILVERFOX

From:

silveraspen

HERE TO HELP!

From:

damselfish

Came over here to see the comments and I'm glad I read this! I don't remember Winterhart or Zhaneel at ALL from reading these books-- I knew they must have existed but I remember literally nothing about them-- and I'm pretty glad. "Must have existed" is so much better than "exists to make Amberdrake look good."

White Gryphon has a pretty cover. The prettiest cover. I could own it, just for the cover.

From:

skygiants

It makes me mad, because Winterhart in and of herself could have been a GREAT character, you know? Like, her arc is really interesting, we just . . . don't see it . . . except the bits that are about falling in love with Amberdrake. >:|

From:

inkstone

OH THE MEMORIES.

From:

skygiants

SO MUCH OF MY CHILDHOOD lives in all these sparkly horse(/gryphon/magical cat/etc.) books.

From:

sophia_sol

OH GOSH SO MUCH MERCEDES LACKEY NOSTALGIA. Wow wow wow back in high school I read every single book of hers that my local library had, which was a goodly selection, and these days whenever I get reminded of some of the stuff that HAPPENED in her books I'm just like wow I was an oblivious child.

My favourites were Owlsight-Owlflight-Owlnight, the Mage Winds trilogy, and Fire Rose, iirc. Also the books about Tarma and Kethry. And I am quite sure if I reread any of them today I would be pretty astonished at the contents... :P

From:

sophia_sol

Okay so I just went and read your review of The Fire Rose via wandering your Mercedes Lackey tag and WTFFFFF. Wow wow wow, that that is so not what high-school-aged Sophia got out of it. I remember WEREWOLF and AWESOME SCHOLARLY LADY WHO DOESN'T KNOW SHE CAN DO MAGIC and FIRE ELEMENTALS and DRAMATIC EARTHQUAKE and HAPPY ENDING. Also trains. Whorehouses and drugs and an evil villain and the leading man being human in the middle bits are all ENTIRELY NEWS TO ME.

From:

skygiants

I think the Owls trilogy was the cutoff line for me -- I have this theory that everyone who read Mercedes Lackey as a kid has that cutoff line, before which everything is NOSTALGIA-FILLED SPARKLY HORSE GLORY and after which very little can be read, if anything, and for me it's the Owl books; a switch flipped in my head and I couldn't get through them at all, and I have yet to successfully read and enjoy anything she published after them.

The Mage Winds books were totally my favorites, though! And the Tarma-Kethry ones I was also SUPER FOND of. And every so often I still feel the need to go back and loll around in a pile of Mercedes Lackey nostalgia, and laugh affectionately at how ridiculous it all is.

From:

skygiants

Hahaha man, there are so many bits of that book that were formative to me -- San Francisco fire! Trains! Rose's clothes and spectacles! Rose is super special because unlike OTHER WOMEN she doesn't look in the mirror! (That one maybe especially, I spent years as a kid being like "is it wrong that I always want to look in the mirror, Misty Lacky told me that Special Girls don't do that! D:") BUT I WILL NEVER FORGET JUST ENOUGH DUDE.

From:

sophia_sol

yesss, your theory is a GOOD THEORY. For me it was her elemental masters book about Cinderella, iirc. I read it and was like "....wait. She's not actually a particularly great writer, is she." Since then I've only read a bit of Lackey and it's all affectionate laughing, yeah. :)

From:

sophia_sol

I DON'T KNOW HOW I EVER MISSED JUST ENOUGH DUDE, oh my god

From:

marginaliana

People's recaps of Mercedes Lackey books almost always make me want to go back and reread them with my current knowledge, as opposed to the 15 year old's worth of knowledge that I first read them with. Somehow I never stopped to think about the weirdness of JUST ENOUGH DUDE at the time (and all the other weird things). I think my attitude was kind of, "Well, okay, sure you can have sex with a guy who's half-cat. This is no stranger than 90% of the other things that media tells me about sex!"

From:

skygiants

Hah, yeah, I tended to just kind of roll with it at the time, probably for similar reasons! Rereading them with current knowledge is ALWAYS AN EXPERIENCE, let me put it that way.

From:

vass

Yes, Owlblight/plight/spite (actual nicknames I gave them at the time) were my sticking point too.

Before that I read Magic's Pawn so many times I sucked all the juice out of it and what was left was like overboiled chicken.