Lackey, Mercedes
EXILE'S VALOR
Mercedes Lackey
DAW 2003
Pb 438 pages
ISBN#
0-7564-0221-2
This is the sequel to EXILE'S HONOR and does
not stand alone without the first to support it. EXILE'S VALOR is
for readers who don't mind court intrigue being the main focus of
the story. The characterization is good, and the world-building,
but there's practically no action and the two main characters rarely
interact with each other. I was attracted to this book by a
misleading add that hinted at a romance between Queen Selenay and
her warrior champion Herald Alberich. That is absolutely not so.
Though there is a tad of romance in this book, it is mostly sterile
and not between the main characters.
So. What IS this book about? It's mostly
about the day-to-day lives of Queen Selenay and her Weaponsmaster
Alberich who spends his evenings down in town disguised so he can
discover plots against his queen before they come to fruition. This
latest plot comes to Alberich quite by accident. He goes to see a
play to discover why two of his students acted up during sword
practice. During the play, Alberich spies out a transfer of papers
from the hand of the lead actor to the hand of a lesser nobleman.
It turns out that this actor is writing instructions to a visiting
prince on how to seduce the queen, very specific instructions based
on personal information about the queen, taken from somewhere within
the castle. This visiting prince wants to be king of Valdemar! But
Selenay is so smitten she won't listen to any of her councilors
about the matter. So it is that Alberich must come up with a scheme
to protect his queen without her knowledge. Luckily, he has the
gift of ForeSight as well as the support of the other Heralds and
all the Companions. But can he make it work?
Four-hundred and thirty-eight pages and this is
the plot. Well, it does work well as a bedtime story, guaranteed to
put you to sleep.
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