Magic's Pawn - Mercedes Lackey

Magic's Pawn
Mercedes Lackey
Daw Books
Copyright: 1989
978-0886773526

The amazon.com product description:

In Magic's Pawn, an ancient age in the history of Valdemar comes to life--an age when the kingdom was ravaged by the ungoverned fury of bandit warlords, ferocious ice dragons, and the wild magic of wizards. A new addition to Lackey's Valdemar kingdom--and her most powerful series to date!

The story of Vanyel, told in the Last Herald Mage Trilogy is honestly my favourite of Mercedes Lackey's many books set in the world of Valdemar, although of the three, Magic's Price (the third book) is my all-time favorite. Magic's Pawn tells of Vanyel's early years and the events that shaped him into who he was: his family and his first love.

This time around, I was reading on my Kobo E-reader and I was a bit disappointed with the book. It was rather full of errors - although there are some in the paper version of the book, and all those errors were transferred, but there were more added as well, with spaces in the middle of words and the italicization of mindspeech and thoughts being interrupted at times. Not the quality I was expecting when I purchased the book. None of which really affects the story at all. That was just as gripping as ever.

I don't think this series is for everyone though, even though I absolutely love it. The main character is gay, and some people might have problems with that, though I'd recommend giving Magic's Pawn a try anyway. You never know, you just might like it.

Other than that, this series is equally good for older teens and adults. There's nothing too graphic in it anywhere, either for violence or anything else - more just inferences than anything. True of a lot of Mercedes Lackey's books, I've found.