Owlknight (Darian's Tale, Vol. 3) (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Larry Dixon (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Owlknight follows Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon's two earlier novels about Darian Firkin, Owlflight and Owlsight. By now the boy who ran from barbarian invaders is both knight of Valdemar and a master mage; he is governor of a small province and in love with Keisha who returns his feelings, but he still has problems and responsibilities. For one thing, he has never solved the mystery of what happened to his parents. For another, Keisha refuses to marry him lest his role as governor and hers of healer come into conflict--and there are still barbarians beyond the border who threaten one day to come back.

The story of how these problems are all resolved is told in a quiet tone unusual in this sort of epic fantasy. Darian has as much to look within for the solution to these issues as to struggle in the outside world. The woodland journey during which he does this is much of the time a celebration of the renewal of the human soul by the natural world.

Lackey and Dixon have found a courtly, meditative way of telling an attractively simple story. Darian's growth to final maturity is inevitable, but still fascinating. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

The latest collaboration between the creator of the Valdemar universe and her husband concludes the trilogy begun with Owlflight and Owlsight. Grown to maturity in the multispecies woodland settlement of k'Valdemar Vale, Darian Firkin has become a knight as well as a Master Mage to increase both his influence with neighboring tribes and his prestige within Valdemar. Darian's work in government gives way to travel when he finds hints that his parents, whom he believed dead, may be alive in the North. He sets off to discover their fate. Keisha, Darian's lover and a town healer, joins him, along with a crew of companions, but she remains of two minds about the future of their relationship because of her belief that marriage demands a woman's subordination. More action is provided by the lovers' encounters with various threats, including with a marauding tribe, the Wolverines, who are both vicious and intelligent. Valdemar is now an immensely well-developed world, and the book is full of dry wit and rich detailAabout, say, the bathing habits of gryphons and the sarcastic, telepathic dyheli, deerlike sapient beings. The effect is marred by too much New Age sensitivity and didactic feminism, however, making the novel cloying for all but Valdemar devotees. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: DAW Hardcover; First Edition edition (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0886778514
• ISBN-13: 978-0886778514
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #928,909 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 3 in The Owl Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent addition to the Valdemar universe!, October 7, 1999

By	Olaf Keith (Dortmund) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Darian's third adventure is a pleasure to read. And I disagree strongly with some of the other reviewers below. The three novels in the DARIAN`S TALE sequence are not as tigtly plotted as some of the other books in Misty Lackey's Valdemar universe, but they offer a lot of insights into everyday life in a Valdemaran village, a hawkbrother vale and even a Northern clan village. There's is no big LET`S SAVE THE WORLD YET AGAIN conflict that carries these novels. These three books are carried only by the characters and their slow maturation and growth. If you read all three books in the DARIAN`S TALE sequence in a row, you will realize what I mean. In these books Misty Lackey and Larry Dixon haven chosen to do without royal polticis and court intrigues, and I am really greatful for that. Darian's slow maturation in the course of three novels from an unlikeable and totally irresponsible teenager in OWLFLIGHT to the responsible and caring adult in OWLKNIGHT is a pleasure to read. And Mercedes Lackey announced that a fourth book in this sequence is planned.

63 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lackey's work is tapering off, January 6, 2000

By	An annoyed Lackey fan (Somewhere in Illinois) - See all my reviews

It seems I've always been a rather large Lackey fan, and I've reread the Arrows trilogy and the Last Herald-Mage trilogy...and the first book of the Mage Wars trilogy over and over again. But it seems recently, when Lackey has been co-writing with Dixon, that the work is of almost lesser quality.

Okay, enough with the eloquence. THIS IS driving me, to quote Talia, "rather noisily mad"! What happened to the classic scenes that were in earlier books? What Lackey fan hasn't sobbed and reread Kris' death scene in Arrow's Fall fifty million times, and gone back and read it again? (My page of that book is tearblotted, hot-chocolate stained, and spaghetti-sauce stained. It's pretty pathetic.) What happened to solid, INTERESTING characters like Elspeth and Tremaine and Vanyel and Stefen and Tylendel? All we get now is a hairbrained idiot named Darian who's taking on waaaaay too many responsiblities, and his errant lover Keisha. The only reason I really stuck with this Owl trilogy was that the character of Shandi fascinated me, and Anda wasn't that bad for a secondary character. But I have to say, this book was still better than half of the science-fiction/fantasy junk that is out there.

I agree with another reader with a review below mine--why can't we read a trilogy about King Valdemar (that was NOT cowritten by Larry Dixon)? Or, jump ahead a hundred years...see what happens to Valdemar? Or explore Rethwellan a little more? (Tarma and Kethry and Kerowyn are fabulous characters. Why can't we see more mercs? They dropped off the face of the earth after By The Sword!)

Ah well, this is getting long-winded. Just wanted to give my opinion.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A strong author, turning shallow, December 30, 1999

By A Customer

Where Ms. Lackey's books initially had great depth of chacacter and plot (especially Arrows of the Queen and Last Herald Mage, her first two trilogies), her writing has become increasingly more of a travelogue. It's disappointing to see an author who'd written so well about relationships and major conflicts sink to multi-page descriptions of clothing, housing and parties. Whether the influence is her co-author or just the need to crank out books for the money, I'd like to see a return to the quality and substance of her earlier works.