Customer Reviews

The Free Bards

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have read all the Bardic Voices books, individually, and they are all excellent. A word of advice if you are going to read them in their collected form, though: Mercedes Lackey wrote a book, called A Cast of Corbies, that goes with the series. It covers what happens between The Robin and the Kestrel and The Eagle and the Nightingales. It isn't absolutely necessary, but Eagle makes more sense if you read Cast first.

A big fan of Lackey's Bardic Tales and Valdemar series, I first read the former. The Free Bards has all three of her first books in one volume. This is the best way to read the book if you are purchasing it! It saves money and it does not lose anything from being compiled.

If anything, being able to read them together gives one a good read for many days!

Excellent book!!!!!!

I am a very devoted Mercedes Lackey fan, and I must say, she has done it again. She is the veritable mistress of trilogies, all wonderful and exciting. But beware, Mercedes Lackey fans, this is no "The Last Herald Mage". I do not even believe that this trilogy can be placed in the same category. (Don't get me wrong. I love all of Misty's books). This trilogy is uniquely different from all of the others, still blending in the prerequisite magic and mystical creatures, but also including music and the wonderfully mysterious Gypsies. This collection is a great starter for readers who have not experienced Mercedes Lackey before, and new readers will find that the world of the Free Bards is a wonderful world indeed. A gem of a trilogy - it certainly has a golden voice.

I bought this book used for under $5.00. It arrived in very good condition and was a wonderful story. Great value fot the price as it was 3 novels in one. I would recommend 'used' vs 'new' to anyone looking for a good bargain

This whole series is magical and I love it, but this is deffinatly the place to start! The story is enchanting and the character's will stay with you for ever. I am very greatfull for having read all the books of The Free Bards, the story just keeps building with every book!
I highly recomand them all!

These 3 stories from the Free Bards series are an excellent introduction the first The Lark & The Wren deals with how Rune decided to become a musician and leave her dead end village. The Robin & The Kestrel deals with the adventures of Robin a Gipsy Free Bard and Johnny a curios anomaly. The last The Eagle & The Nightingales deals with a Free Bard singer and her entanglement with some of the non-humans and court politics.

The characters are all well done and compelling and the plots are very good although not truly great. The stories were edited when the collection was done with resulting improvements by and large. But there are a number of editorial rough spots both original and new which keep this book from getting 5 stars.

The cover here is not horrid contrary to recent tradition, actually its pretty good. Goes to show that Baen doesn't have a requirement for bad covers.

Overall an Excellent though not outstanding read (5 stars is Outstanding for the genre).

The accuracy of description and safe delivery was quite good. I would buy a product from these people again.

Some authors have a habit of writing popular books and then combining them into one under a new title to fool people into buying books they've already read before. This is one of that type. Read the other "Bard" books rather than paying this one. It was advertised as "Used" for 76 cents and maybe that's what it is worth. Don't be fooled by authors who suck you in to buying books you've already read by publishing their stories under other names. That's a cheat.

It's a must for anyone who LOVE Mercedes Lackey! I've worn the book down from the many hours of pleasure that I get from this story.

If I could, I'd give this book 2 1/2 stars, but as that's not possible, I rounded down.

When I first read these books ("these books" refering to the trilogy brought together in this books), I rather enjoyed them. There were many aspects that I liked. It seemed somewhat creative, I liked the characters, and the created world was interesting (just close enough and yet different enough from our world for my tastes).

On the other hand, for someone who has read a lot of Mercedes Lackey, it has some of the stereotypes she tends to use. The one that grated at me the most was the govt. vs. religion issue. She bent over backwards to demonstrate how the government was generally being reasonable, caring for the people, and having fair, understanding laws, while the church was harsh, cruel, controlling, and generally bad news (this wouldn't bother me so much except that it seems to be a theme throughout many of her books, and eventually it wears on you). She did have a few token good church types, but it was more to make it seem like she was being fair than anything else.

There were also the male vs. female issues. This is probably a personal difference of taste, as I used to enjoy the whole "women are automatically at the bottom because of their gender but through personal merit struggle to the top" genre, but have gotten bored of it. For me that was a negative part of the books, although as I said, that might be more of a personal issue.

If you like M. Lackey's style, you will probably like this one. However, she has other books that are better (such as her earlier Valdemar books).