![\"\"](\"http:\/\/photo.goodreads.com\/books\/1219130966l\/463421.jpg\" "\\"Foundation\\"")
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Mags, so named because he had the eye of a Magpie, was a slave in a gem mine until one of Valdemar’s magical companions chose him. After that, he entered a whole new world as a trainee, and despite all odds, attracted the notice of some powerful people who were eager to use his skills.<\/p>\n
This is something of a fluid story, without the typical event-driven structure. It’s really about Mags, so it takes some time to get to the intrigue portion. Nevertheless, I found it captivating from the first. The detailed descriptions of working in a mine, coupled with Mags’s sad inside view of the situation, were a masterpiece. We might think what he endured, his treatment, and the little he had to eat were criminal — and they were — but Mags just thought that’s the way life was. The priests told him so, after all.<\/p>\n
I read this book over two years ago, before the two sequels were available. I reread it recently, now that I have the two sequels (almost) in hand, and I enjoyed it more than I did the first time. The reason, I think, is largely because I have those two sequels. The story doesn’t end in book one, but that’s normal for Mercedes Lackey. She writes in trilogies, so I recommend reading her that way. Luckily, unlike some other fantasy authors I could name, she doesn’t write insanely long books. nor does she write insanely long series — just neatly packaged 3-volume sets. <\/p>\n
I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes fantasy and\/or strong characters. It is other world fantasy, but don’t let the label get you down if you don’t usually go for epic\/D&D-like books. This isn’t that. It only belongs in the same category by a fluke of setting. <\/p>\n
Rating: 4.5\/5<\/p>\n
Title: Foundation
\nAuthor: Mercedes Lackey
\nISBN: 1423307941
\nPublished: October 2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mags, so named because he had the eye of a Magpie, was a slave in a gem mine until one of Valdemar’s magical companions chose him. After that, he entered a whole new world as a trainee, and despite all odds, attracted the notice of some powerful people who were eager to use his skills. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-im-reading","category-fantasy-what-im-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1438"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1440,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438\/revisions\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}