#The Last Herald Mage trilogy

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

May Daye/Jasmine “Jazz” Patel- October Daye Series by Seanan McGuire

Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji- Mo Dao Zu Shi/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Vanyel Ashkevron/Stefan- The Last Herald Mage by Mercedes Lackey 

Yadriel Vélez Flores/Julian Diaz- Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[boneskullravenriver]

Me, in the library, looking for some Mercedes lackey books since I wanted to reread the last herald mage.

Immediately turning around, accosted by a whole giant stack of star trek books:

[first-and-last-neocount]

I was talking to a friend about my DnD character, who is based on Vanyel, and it was pointed out that I have a type. I couldn’t rest until I had inflicted this on everyone else. 

(I’ve probably forgotten about others, these are just the ones that immediately sprang to mind, feel free to point out any obvious ones that I’ve forgotten XD)

[kvalenagle]

I was searching the upstairs closet for a lightbulb and I came across what is basically the "lgbtqia+ Millennial who likes to read starter pack." Gotta say, I didn't realize I still had any Silver Gryphon t-shirts left. Takes me back to being a teenager =]

[falconfate]

Had to doodle some horses, so of course I made them Companions… I’ve had Van’s little saddle nap pose stuck in my head ever since I read that scene, desperately wish I was riding often enough to try it out for myself lmao (don’t try sleeping in the saddle at home).

Anyway. Helloooooo Valdemar series fandom. I’m currently devouring these books as fast as I possibly can.

Also I gave Sayvil a Roman nose because even in reincarnation I don’t think you can ever be rid of the Ashkevron nose. (And who would want to be? (can you tell I love a good distinctive nose))

[ryah-wolfe]

Why is being a book lover so expensive 😩 how do I explain to my family that I don’t have too many books, I don’t have enough book! I have another 15 sitting in my Amazon cart just calling to me

[lendelleaves]

vanyel ashkevron my beloved…

the easiest way to get me into a fandom is to introduce me to the doomed-by-the-narrative gay characters

[makingqueerhistory]

idk if this has been asked already but do you know of any mlm fantasy novels that arent ya or coming-of-age? ive already read the last herald-mage trilogy and am part of the way through the luck in the shadows trilogy. i love fantasy, esp high fantasy, SO much, but i havent found anything that really scratches that itch yet. oh bonus points if the protag and love interest are over 23-25 but i do know im probably being too picky ^^; ty for doing what you do!

Yes, I absolutely do! Here are my recommendations:

(Affiliate links below)

The Monster of Elendhaven

Jennifer Giesbrecht

The Route of Ice and Salt

José Luis Zárate (Author) David Bowles (Translator)

Silver Under Nightfall

Rin Chupeco

I hope you find something here to enjoy!

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

Having read some of your older posts on Mercedes Lackey (and thus going in with mostly-full knowledge of Everything), I want to give her books a try…but there are so many of them. Any you recommend as a starting point?

Hmmm. I've probably only read one-fifth of her bibliography, so other people might have different suggestions. Speaking personally, the series of hers I think holds up best is the Tarma&Kethry&Kerowyn arc - Oathbound, Oathbreakers, Oathblood, and By the Sword. The last one technically stands alone, but it's fun to know the backstory.

I think they're some of Lackey at her best - a blend of worldly cynicism and deep moral ideals, willing to let her characters be a bit messy and interesting.

If you want to get into the Heralds of Valdemar... God knows. There was originally a trilogy of trilogies that had the big plot (OG Heralds of Valdemar/Arrows of the Queen, Mage Winds, Mage Wars) but now there are so many prequels and sequels and tie-ins, I think you could potentially pick a series that sounds interesting and dive in there. I personally don't like anything she's written in the last 20 years, but her new books still have an audience.

Other series I know people still love after all this time are Elemental Masters and Bedlam's Bard, though I haven't read them myself.

Other people will, of course, have their own opinions to contribute. That's what we do on Tumblr. Do hot takes and piss on the poor.

[griseldagimpel]

Media Recommendations for Harry Potter Fans

Alright. So you’re a Harry Potter fan. You’re a Harry Potter fan because you love Harry Potter and you love the community you’ve built with your fellow fans, but J. K. Rowling is using her vast fortune to harm people and she says asinine shit about how anyone who likes Harry Potter agrees with her transphobia, and you know that’s not true, but maybe you’re wondering if there’s a different fandom you and your friends could go to, where if nothing else the creator isn’t using a massive platform and massive amounts of money to harm transgender people. This is a guide for you.

You really wish you could have a Harry Potter that’s just not Harry Potter. You want a magical school and aerial sports games and fighting a tyrant and the equivalent of Hogwarts Houses.

Check out The Owl House. It’s about a girl named Luz who wanders into another world and attends a magic school.

You can watch it on YouTube: Link.

You like the idea of a modern-ish fantasy book series (British, pre-Smart Phone technology age) with a big, rambling world to play around in.

Check out The Chronicles of Chestomanci by Diana Wynne Jones. It’s set across a multiverse and follows the lives and trials of young magicians.

Start with Charmed Life, which can be purchased on Amazon: Link.

You want a fantasy series with chosen ones, suffering, and sacrifice where anyone can die. Also, you like magical animal companions.

Check out The Last Herald Mage Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey, which is part of the broader Valdemar series. It’s about the life of Valdemar’s greatest – and last – Herald-mage.

You can find it on Amazon: Link.

You love Harry Potter for the mysteries. You’d be fine with something for a bit of an older demographic, and you love supernatural horror and angst. You want to see the protagonist go through it. But you’d also love it if there was something akin to the Hogwarts Houses that you could define yourself by.

Check out The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir or The Magnus Archives. The Locked Tomb series is science-fantasy set in the far-flung future and has necromancy. The Magnus Archives is a podcast about an institute in London that takes down statements from people who have had encounters with the paranormal.

The Locked Tomb series begins with Gideon the Ninth: Link.

The Magnus Archives can be listened to on YouTube: Link.

Your favorite part of the Harry Potter series is the wizarding war, and your favorite house is Slytherin.

Check out The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. It’s about a necromancer who’s been resurrected. The necromancer in question is like 95% brat-turned-cool-uncle and 5% evil-necromancer.

The volumes are numbered and can be found on Amazon: Link.

There is also an adaptation entitled The Untamed that I have not watched yet, but it can be found on Netflix.

You really enjoy the social satire aspect of Harry Potter and think Hermione was right about House Elf liberation. Also, you’re okay with science fiction instead of fantasy.

Check out The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. It’s about an enslaved cyborg finding freedom, making friends, and healing from trauma.

The first book is All Systems Red: Link.

You like Harry Potter because it’s comfort media. Life is rough, and you want a piece of media that’s engaging but gentle.

Check out the podcast Welcome to Night Vale. It’s presented as the community radio broadcast out of a small, deeply weird town in the American southwest.

You can listen to it on YouTube: Link.

If you want something in print form, there’s The Lord of the Rings: Link.

If you like movies, there’s Jupiter Ascending: Link.

Don’t hesitate to ask if you want more information (such as content warnings) for any of the above.

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Max Owen/Sean Moore - Magical Boy by The Kao

Vanyel Ashkevron/Tylendel Frelennye- The Last Herald Mage by Mercedes Lackey 

Logan Maletis/Rosemary Hale- Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun

Louis de Pointe du Lac/Lestat de Lioncourt- The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice

[chaoticgalaxygiver]

Last-Herald Mage Community

I just finished The Last-Herlad Mage trilogy and was wondering if there was a community on tumblr (or anywhere), especially for fanwriters.

Looking for anyone to just talk AU ideas with or just generally recover from the emotional damage of these books.

[emblazonet]

Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern

THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD!! It's so good! This is 100% my favourite Pern book so far. The characters are all great. The setting felt alive and interesting. The stakes were fucking high. I knew Moreta was going to die, in the way you know Vanyel is going to die in The Last Herald-Mage trilogy, because we're going back in time to explore the life of a characters from an in-universe ballad, and it made me love her more.

It's also about a pandemic, but in a soothing way? Honestly it was SUCH a relief to read a story about people just fucking doing the work of Dealing With A Contagious Flu without much of the bullshittery we've all had to live through these past three years.

This got long, so more under the cut!

There are no psycho anti-vax cults in Pern. The small population scattered over a continent that's constantly being besieged by Thread does not, generally, have the luxury of either the greed we've gotten to witness IRL nor the misinformation campaigns. Characters that hoard are stolen from; characters who try to prevent vaccination are villains in the narrative and the good guys go into their territory to vaccinate—that's Moreta's final heroic moment! She dies, not from the disease but from exhaustion, to ensure everyone gets vaccinated to PREVENT A SECOND WAVE.

I expected to feel re-traumatized by the pandemic conflict. Instead, it felt healing to read about these characters. It felt affirming. It made me feel better about my choice to continue wearing a mask in public. It felt invigorating: ok, so my world isn't as sensible as Pern's, but it's still worth it to fight disease, to fight the depression and apathy—in short, it did exactly what a fantasy book is supposed to do. Inspire. I don't know that this will be everyone's take away, but it was mine.

This book gets so much right, I can't even believe this is the same author who wrote all those other Pern books I've read so far. (How did we jump from the crap of The White Dragon into this? HOW?) All these things:

Despite there being SO MANY characters, the book largely juggles its cast well, and while I often forgot names, the context usually helped me out. Every character actually felt unique and distinct and like they had different lives they were living.

Moreta and Alessan's relationship was so well done. You know it's not a romance that will go anywhere, so it feels precious when they snatch some time together. Also, Alessan is just an attractive dude character? Unlike any other of the male leads in a Pern book, Alessan appeals to me.

The relationship between Moreta and the older queen rider, Leri—UGH MY HEART. At the beginning of the book I was worried Moreta would have the 'not like other girls' vibe... I needn't worried. Leri as mentor, accomplice and friend is everything I could have asked for in a female friendship. And Moreta has other relationships and positive experiences with women, and it's so good, but what she has with Leri is so special.

The way the book builds this yearning for Moreta to be able to fly Orlith again, and then at the end she's with Leri's exhausted Holth, and they die away from their partners in the line of duty—I CRIED OK. It was so much. It was so good.

Only small bits of time travel, smart avoidance of paradoxes, thank you.

I was super invested in Moreta's healing of the Thread-damaged dragon wings. The whole process of healing dragons was super interesting!

Loved that Threadfall kept on happening throughout, it made the stakes even higher in the best way possible.

There were things I think could have been better:

I didn't enjoy Moreta's introduction and it made me feel like the book was gonna suck lol, she was arguing with Nesso and then talking about her body in a way that just felt dated and weird.

Everyone on Pern must have the same blood type I guess? Because they're just using extracted blood to make the vaccine, and the vaccine appears to have no ill effect. Honestly, the book had so much going on I'm pretty grateful it didn't go into Accurate Medical Science, but it did feel incredibly oversimplified.

Telgar Weyr's Weyrleader just sort of like decides everyone's not allowed into his territory and fuck you guys but I didn't really get a feel for that character at all or where he was coming from? So it undermined Moreta's end sacrifice a bit, because the ending felt rushed.

I really wanted Sh'gall to do something so egregiously annoying that someone yelled at him. Sh'gall was basically the comic relief though, I generally enjoyed how useless he was lol.

Overall? 11/10 and I REALLY hope the rest of the Pern books are this good! I'm going to pick back up in January with Nerilka's Story.

[vmures]

No Skip Albums: Tag Game ✨️

Thank you @oldefashioned for the tag! 💜 Music is one of my favorite things.

Rules: share the albums that you can listen to nonstop. those lightning in a bottle-albums that scratch ur brain just right. every single track, an absolute banger. u could not skip one if u tried. no notes. stunning, show-stopping, immaculate. ur no-skip albums.

These are listed in no particular order. Pretty much just as I think of them.

Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter

This is a phenomenal album all the way through and I've been listening to it a whole lot. I love the various music traditions that get interwoven throughout. It's truly a genre defying album while also being very much a country album. It also reminds me of my own Louisianan roots.

2. Taylor Swift - Midnights

Taylor's got a lot of great albums and compelling songs but this one really drew me in and I can just listen to it on repeat for hours.

3. Tracy Chapman - Collection

It was super hard to pic a single album by Tracy Chapman cause many of hers fit this tag game for me. But collection is one I absolutely love. So many great songs. Tracy is one of my favorite artists. Her voice is so beautiful and powerful and her lyrics so thoughtful and potent. It's music that just speaks to my soul.

4. Natalie Merchant - Tigerlily

I probably drove my high school roommates (I went to boarding school for two years) nuts with this one. And all these years later it remains one of my favorite albums. There is something so soothing about it for me.

5. Sarah McLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstacy

Another one from my high school years. It's hard to believe this one is celebrating it's 30th anniversary this year. Where on earth did the time go? This one has so many heartfelt songs that I still love to sing along with.

6. Various Artists - The Crow Original Movie Soundtrack

Love the comic, the movie, and this soundtrack. My favorite song on it is still Jane Siberry's It Can't Rain All the Time, but all the songs are fantastic.

8. Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

Another one from my teen years. Lol. I listened to this one so many times I nearly wore my cassette out. 🤣 It ended up being my soundtrack for the entire Last Herald Mage trilogy and to this day when I hear some of the songs I think of those books. Still a fantastic album and still one I really love.

9. Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams

This is another artist I had a hard time picking a single album for. 🤣 Ultimately this one won because it is one of my favorite of his albums. If you can't tell, I have a fondness for well written lyrics and singer-songwriters.

10. Yoko Kano and the Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop Remixes: Music for Freelance

The entire soundtrack for Cowboy Bebop is amazing, but I have a particular fondness for these remixes. I still love putting this one on and jamming out to it and I enjoy the little segments of Radio Free Mars we get as well.

So there we have it, ten albums I adore and will happily listen to on repeat with no songs skipped.

If you are interested in playing along, please consider yourself tagged! I love learning more about what others enjoy!

Til next time. See you, space cowboy.

[voyaging-too]

2024 December Media

Recs bolded.

Books:

Sheri S. Tepper: Grass. Gorgeous sci-fi about Catholicism, plague, monks, weird creatures, complex space aristocracy social dynamics slightly reminiscent of Barrayar but worse, and a lot of horses. The protagonist is a middle-aged Olympic equestrian lady.

Cornelia Funke: Herr der Diebe (The Thief Lord). I'm practicing my German! This is a great middle grade book about orphan kids running around Venice, the atmosphere of the city is so vivid it covers up the occasional plot hole.

Robert Musil: The Man Without Qualities (vol. I). This book is somehow both boring and terrifying. It's set just before WW1, but the protagonists don't know that, and so they keep having long-winded conversations about how nothing ever happens.

Han Kang: Human Acts. A short, visceral, painful book about the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, and the people, (civilians (children)) who were killed in it. Fiction, heavily based on non-fiction historical research.

Mercedes Lackey: Magic's Price (Last Herald Mage III). The previous two books in this fantasy trilogy weren't good either, but they were at least fun. This one wasn't.

Vivian Shaw: Bitter Waters (Greta Helsing 3.5). Sweet, beautifully written, ultimately plotless addition to the series.

vol 1. of that weird Stalin-era world literature anthology I impulse bought at the second-hand bookstore and am occasionally reading on the toilet to stop myself from doomscrolling.

Films:

Louis Theroux: Tell Them You Love Me. A masterful, disturbing documentary of the Anna Stubblefield case. Trigger warning for... everything, but especially rape, ableism, and horrible people genuinely believing they're in the right.

John Palfreman: Frontline. Prisoners of Silence. After watching the documentary above, I got obsessed with the failure of facilitated communication, and had to watch this one-hour documentary on it. It's thirty years old, so expect some not-so-great language on autism, but the overall points stand.

Kenji Kamiyama: The War of the Rohirrim. Anime vaguely based on Rohan lore in the LOTR appendix. Weak writing, meh plot, middling animation, transparently desperate attempts to recapture the glory of the original trilogy, the only saving grave was Olwyn and her capacity to pass the Bechdel test.

Starkid: Working Boys. Fun short film about Prof Hidgens trying to stage a musical, set in the Hatchetfield universe. Multiverse? Idk anymore.

Podcasts:

Jo Walton, Ada Palmer: Ex Urbe Ad Astra. Two brilliant writers talk about history and fiction, sometimes with guests. They never talk down to the audience and that feels amazing, even when I don't get what they mean at all.

Friends at the Table: Live at the Table. The FaaT gang plays a whole bunch of one-offs and short campaigns. They try a dozen different TTRPGs in a dozen different settings, not all of them work equally well, but sometimes you can listen to them create the best wordbuilding out of thin air.

Gabriel Urbina: Wolf 359 (season 2). Captain Lovelace arrives, space comedy is now officially a space dramedy. Still works well on relisten.

Shelved by Genre: Last Herald Mage unit. These guys are a great read-along book podcast, even when they are reading a book I hate, because they dissect it in really interesting ways.

Gabriel Urbina: Dracula. The Danse Macabre. I'm conflicted, this adaptation of Dracula has tons of great ideas, but they don't gel. The condensed plot isn't really intelligible unless you've read the original novel and know it pretty well, but if you know the novel that well, the arbitrary changes are far more likely to annoy you.

Theatre

Starkids: VHS Christmas Carols. (online ticket) An eighties-style musical adaptation of The Gift of the Magi, The Little Match Girl and The Christmas Carol. Takes itself surprisingly seriously for how funny it is. May be the second best adaptation of Christmas Carol out there.

Sándor Zsótér: Bertolt Brecht: Round Heads and Pointed Heads. A gorgeous studio production of one of Brecht's lesser-known plays. There's no point in me recommending this, because there's no way you guys can come here and watch it, but it was legitimately one of the funniest, most moving, most upsetting things I've seen this decade.