This series baffles me.
First of all: Is it over? If anyone knows, please comment!
I don’t feel a burning need to read anything else in the series. It didn’t end on a cliffhanger and the mysteries of the previous volumes are over. And yet if this is the end … talk about an anti-climax! It practically whispered out of existence.
Yet paradoxically, even though I’m not sure this is over, I don’t want there to be anymore books. There were already 2 books too many! Most of Lackey’s series take place in trilogies.
Which brings me to my second baffling point: Why was this five books long? There certainly wasn’t enough substance to fill five books. I commented on this two books ago. The fourth book picked up the pace a bit, but this fifth book could just about have been tacked on to the end of that one for all the actual plot that existed.
Thinking back over this book (which I JUST finished), I can’t really remember what happened. They returned home from their original adventure, took baths, debriefed, spent time with the weapons master, packed, left, went to inns, rode on circuit ….
Mags did spend quite a bit of time worrying about having sex with his girlfriend. Knowing Lackey as I do, I was sure she’d skip the details of the scene and of course she did, but I have to say that I found some real irony in this case: Mags main concern was that he didn’t know what he was doing and was afraid of hurting her. So his mentor explains it (not so the reader can hear, mind — this is summarized) and I guess it worked … whatever these magical tricks to please a woman are! I had to laugh because she was, in effect, contributing to the conspiracy of silence and non-information.
Oh, and a nit-pick I just have to put out there: Leena and Leeta? (sp?) I do read audiobooks so these names may not have been quite as similar to read as they were to hear (Lina/Lita/Leena/Leeta?) but it was so annoying to keep them straight! The reader was even good, and gave each one a different voice, but I still had to work to keep them straight.
I’m not sure what to say about this book. Not sure if it’s the conclusion of the series or a boring middling book. Overall, I’m not going to recommend this series to new readers, even if the first book in the series was extremely good.
Rating: 2/5
Title: Bastion ( Valdemar: Collegium Chronicles #5)
Audhot: Mercedes Lackey