Customer Reviews

Take a Thief: A Novel of Valdemar

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Mercedes Lackey has crafted an interesting series of books focused mostly on Valdemar, a country whose government is greatly helped by spirit horses called Companions. The Companions select and assist Heralds, who are the government's agents in the field and very nearly incorruptible. Since the first Valdemar trilogy, the "Arrows" books, the Herald Skif, a reformed thief, has popped up from time to time, sometimes in minor roles, sometimes in larger ones, as in the "Winds" trilogy.

In her last two Valedmar books, Lackey has abandoned the development of Valdemar and focused instead on specific characters. In "Brightly Burning" it was an historical character, mentioned only in passing in other novels. This time it's a somewhat larger character, although still just a "spear carrier," an important but not a central character.

Anne McCaffrey, whose Pern is in some ways similar to the Valdemar books, in "Masterharper of Pern," did something similar. She took a "spear carrier" who had appeared in many books and wrote his history. And she noted somewhere, perhaps in the introduction, how hard it is to bring off right. One the one hand, it's pleasant to wander through the fringes of earlier stories, recognizing bits and pieces; on the other hand, you absolutely know how it is all going to come out, and the possibilities for inconsistencies are very great.

Lackey does an okay job with the inconsistencies. Reviewers who note apparent problems with the naming of Companions Haven't Been Paying Attention... A few do creep in, but they are minor. And Lackey manages to sneak in a great deal of information about Alberich, the exile from Valdemar's enemy who became a Herald, and about what really happened when Queen Selenay was attacked by her husband.

But it's hard to walk through the very considerable amount Lackey has written about Valdemar and its history, develop any kind of plot suspense, and not baffle readers new to the series.

While it's nice to have a new Valdemar book, I'm looking forward to a return to the larger themes of the "Winds" and "Storm" series, as opposed to the less interesting, less imaginative character studies and personal histories in the "Owl" series, in "Brightly Burning" and now in "Take a Thief."

Overall this is a good yarn. It's nice to wander the fringes of earlier stories - the "Arrow" series in particular - and to see Alberich at his devious best. You can feel Ms. Lackey's wonderful powers of imagination at work, but can also see how they are bound by what she has written before. It doesn't seriously distract from the tale, but it's much less captivating than the "Arrows" and "Winds" series, and far below her peak in the "Magic" trilogy.

Recommended, but not recommended as Lackey's best.

Mercedes Lackey's Take a Thief is the tale of Skif, a young orphan reminiscent of Oliver Twist, making his way in the knock-and-tumble neighborhood between two of Haven's outermost walls. Skif is intelligent, good-hearted and creative enough to forage up three meals a day in a place where food is scarce and kindness almost unheard of. After a chain of events leave him homeless, Skif lands in the lair of Bazie, an Faginish ex-mercenary who trains thieves.

If you've never read a novel of Valdemar before, take heart: Take a Thief stands alone and serves as a good introduction to that land. Lackey is a wonderful writer with particular talent for setting a scene and drawing you into the life of a sympathetic character. Though Skif speaks in heavy dialect, Lackey writes his speech with a skillful hand so that the dialect is not disruptive.

The flaws in the story are few, but noticeable. Lackey draws her peripheral characters almost too well, so that one feels cheated when a character disappears from the scene and doesn't ever get another mention. The pacing of the book is perfect for the first 75% of the story, but then speeds up too much as it approaches the big climax. As a result the story wears a little bit thin towards the end as you begin to suspect that Lackey may be on a bit of a soapbox here.

Still don't let that deter you. Though this book may only deserve 3 or 3 and a half stars for technical merit, it is still a thoroughly enjoyable read.

On Valdemar during the reign of Queen Selenay, his cold Uncle Londer Galko raises orphaned Skif as if the lad is a criminal. Though Skif laboriously works long hours at his uncle's Hollybush Tavern, his guardian sees the lad as a grudge earning his supper or dying.

Required to attend school due to the royal edict, Skif eats breakfast there and becomes efficient at hiding food to dine on later. His ability leads him to meet Deek, a pickpocket, and from that encounter, Bazie, an adult who cares what happens to his charges. Skif joins Bazie's family of young thieves and becomes one of the best at robbing from the wealthy as he could sneak in and out of a home like a ghost can walk through a wall. When Skif steals a horse left unattended, the "magical" steed abducts him instead. Now his adventures take a new spin especially when someone murders his beloved mentor and Skif must work with the Heralds and Alberich if he is to see justice is served.

For long time fans of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series, TAKE A THIEF is quite a treat as Skif first appears in the mid 1980s Heralds of Valdemar trilogy. The story line is well written and fits quite nicely in the Valdemar Universe circa 1376 AF. Skif may be young, but is a survivor who given the opportunity heroically thrives. The support cast provides depth to the plot while insuring continuity to the main tales. Ms. Lackey's latest fantasy epic lacks nothing except many sub-genre fans will scramble for other books describing life during the reign of Queen Selenay.

Harriet Klausner

This story definately fills a gap in Skif's his history that I'd hoped Lackey would fill, but it isn't as good as her other books. While it definately expands Skif's character some, it doesn't go as far into his life as I'd have liked. When Skif was introduced in Arrows of the Queen, he was a character that grabbed my attention right off. I'd always wanted to learn more about his early years as a theif.

This story takes the reader from Skif's childhood working in his uncle's tavern, through his years as a thief, his attempt at revenge, and--finally-- into his first years as a Herald.

The ending was a bit abrupt, but overall was good. I'd only recommend to people who've read at least Arrows of the Queen, Arrows Flight, and Arrows Fall. If you haven't read those, this story won't hold your attention.

Mercedes Lackey is in fine form in this "prequil" to the Heralds of Valdemar" trilogy. Skif, Talia's best friend and confidante, finally has his story is told, how it came to pass that he tried to "steal" his Companion, and found himself stolen away instead. This is one of the faster of the Valdemar books to read, I finished it in 3 hours of actual reading time, it is a comfortable book to read, flowing nicely.

Misty did have one problem with continuity, since she previously protrayed Haven as a place where all people, no matter how poor, were equally protected, but in this book child abuse, slavery and even child prostitution is common in the poor parts of the city where the City Guard ignores most crime and the Heralds never bother to go.

I have to own that as a Lackey fan since "Arrows of the Queen" I was rather disappointed in "Take a Theif". The book's central character Skif has peppered many of Lackey's earlier works of Valdemar with his presence and has become something of a favorite to her readers. I felt he deserved better treatment than to be recast as Dicken's Oliver Twist. It's all in there, poor orphaned boy in an abusive environment where he is little better than a slave moves on up the social ladder to become the theiving fingers for a Fagan like character named Bazie. After that he climbs further up the social ladder to a place of wealth and comfort where he will mingle with the social elite of Valdemar's nobility and even royalty.
Not only is the plot very Dickensian, but the setting is much like a grimy recasting of Victorian London. The characters populating the city of Haven even speak in a terrible cockney cant reminiscent of England's lower class. Anyone who has read Dickens will also recognise a tiresome over attention to the most minute details. Dickens could drone on for pages about the description of a single chair and one finds depressing echos of that writing style evident in this novel.
I also feel the need to speculate why at this late a date, Ms. Lackey chose to make the character Alberich, also known from her earlier works, speak in Yoda like broken english. Just a little further down the timeline of Valdemar, Alberich has a much better grasp of the language and it's hard to reconcile the difference in speech with so short a lapse of Valdemaran time.
All that said, the story was still enjoyable to a degree and despite it's rather slow moving action it is an easy read. Not a total loss, but also not what this Lackey fan has come to expect from her favorite author.

After the disappointing Brightly Burning, I really hadn't expected much out of this book. I wasn't even going to buy it, except I got it as a gift for Christmas. I was pleasantly surprised. This book was much better than I was expecting, and a thousand times better than the last Valdemar novel I read.

Skif's story doesn't have the emotional impact of earlier Lackey works like The Last Herald Mage or The Arrows Trilogy. His story is engaging though, certainly engaging enough to keep the reader interested. What I think is lacking from his character is there just isn't enough there for a reader to relate to. He's an orphan. He's been abused. He's alone. Nowhere in the story do I get a sense that he's really unhappy with his life; in fact, he seems to enjoy it all in all. I think that element steals a little something away from an otherwise good story.

Unlike other reviewers, Skif's mode of speech didn't really bother me. As far as dialects go, it was fairly well done. Alberich's transposed mode of speech did throw me, though, especially since it was done consistently.

I was happy to see Lackey veer back to a character driven plot rather than the "save the world" plots her last few books have featured. I think that might be why I enjoyed this novel so much. Rather than fighting great evils, the plot basically centers on Skif's need to find out who was behind the fire that killed his adopted family.

This is a good read, but not Lackey's best.

This book has the usual well crafted story which makes it better than many other authors' best works. However, I agree with other reviewers that this book is lacking that extra spark that made the "Arrows" and the "Magic" trilogies great. The books I enjoy the most are the ones that make me feel the most when I read them. This book doesn't do that as well as Mercedes Lackey's early books. For example, in the later part of the book Skif says that Cymry fills a void and that she is what he has been searching for. Skif did not appear to me to be lonely or searching for a life companion before he met Cymry; abused and angry, yes, but not lonely.

I've heard it said that the young feel things more intensely and unfortunately it seems to be true for authors and their works. As with the Valdemar series, I find the later works of other series such as Anne McCaffrey's Pern books, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books, and Piers Anthony's Xanth books lacking the emotional intensity of the early works.

I felt that this book was excellent. While Lackey might do well to insist on a better editor for her books - the usually editorial errors like missing punctuation and such - the writing was excellent.

What I like about Lackey, in general, is that she tends to write to the age level of the character. While some view the fluctuations between higher and more complex text and plot negatively, I find it wonderful. Books in which the character is mostly a child or innocent tend to be written to be accessible to younger readers, while books with older or more experienced characters - and often in more adult situations - tend to be written at a higher level. This does not make the "younger" books less accessible for adults, just more so for children.

I enjoy these views into the histories of characters and of Valedemar itself. There is only so far you can take one story line, without running out of steam, running out of the world, or going past the point where the story should have ended. Instead of wearing out one story line, I think that filling in the little back stories does a lot to develop the readers impressions of the entire world and gives us an opportunity to see how little things often interconnect. In its own way it is advancing the major story line - it is just filling in and enriching our past understanding.

These forays, in books like Burning Brightly and Take a Thief, are also nice, easy to read books. Tidbits to tide us over until the next book comes out. Books that can stand on their own. A book that someone unfamiliar to Mercedes Lackey or Valdemar could read, understand, and have stand satisfyingly on its own. Many of her books, without reading many or all previous, make little sense, as the back story in almost always necessary. I love them, but don't think they do much to draw new readers. Books like this one do that.

The story is compassionate, heart-wrenching, and compelling. The reader feels empathy for young Skif, as he struggles to survive. We scream at the injustices in his imagined world - and are forced to acknowledge them in ours. If child slavery and starvation and abuse can happen in Haven, the capital of the Heralds, than we cannot deny its presence in our world. Yes, it is appropriate to young adult readers, but as it should. It deals with issues many of them can understand as well - and it teaches all of us that there are options other than giving in to the corruption and pressure we are confronted with.

A very fun book. As you have no doubt read already, it is the story of Skif, a peripheral character from several of Mercedes Lackey's novels. Well, this is his story, going from roughly when he became a thief to his first year as a Herald. Not only is it a good story in itself, but there are lots of fun little camios made by chara from her other books, like Dirk, and Kris, and Alberich, as well as one by the author herself! You'll have to look hard for that one, though. Anyway, it satisfies all the prerequisites for a Valdemar tale; otherworldly white horses, magic, etc without being too much like the other books in the series.