A quick explanation: In order to have something on the blog that's not just me reacting to whatever news article attracts the most attention, I'm going to be experimenting a bit with some weekly posts on other topics - for example, me talking about whatever novels I'm reading (or re-reading) in the past week.
... I suppose if I didn't read any novels in a particular week, I might have a bit of trouble with that idea, but then I've not had a week like that in a long, long time.
Anyway, on to this week's reading.
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I've been re-reading some of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar and Elemental Masters novels this week. (If you want specific examples, I'd probably pick the Collegium Chronicles for the former and Phoenix and Ashes for the latter.) There's a lot of both of them; I actually didn't pick up Lackey's Valdemar novels for a long time simply because I wasn't sure where to start. That little problem didn't get resolved until I asked a friend for recommendations.
I particularly like Lackey's approach to the magic in her novels. It manages to make magic feel properly mystical and elaborate without making it seem too weird and unknowable. There's also a lot of references (particularly in the Elemental Masters novels) to a number of different belief systems, myths, and other bits and pieces of mysticism, which makes it that much more interesting to find all of them and learn about those legends as well.
And her Valdemar novels have always had some very well-written heroes and heroines; they're neither unrealistically flawless, nor so badly flawed that one wonders how they ever manage to be competent. Their problems are understandable and realistic, as is the character growth that solves those problems - sometimes it happens a bit faster than one might expect with the help of some of their spiritual advisers, but then the books do have to have a conclusion to them eventually.
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