#the founding of valdemar

[checkoutmybookshelf]

You Have My Attention: The Founding of Valdemar Trilogy First Lines

Previously only told in song and diegetic story, Mercedes Lackey finally put the founding of Valdemar down as a canon trilogy. Her fans knew snippets of this larger tale, but she still had to catch new and old fans with this trilogy. Let's see how she did it with the Founding of Valdemar Trilogy first lines.

"Help them through, whenever you can," mutter Kordas, Duke of Valdemar, in a horse-box that felt stifling for the stark, dirty work to be done. he had latched onto that as his personal guide to life when he'd begun equine husbandry, and he must have repeated it to himself twenty times in the past candlemark, to maintain his focus. The Duke was nearly beside himself over the state of his favorite mare, but no grinding of teeth nor fretting would take the place of skilled hands in a time like this. The mare in question was in the throes of foaling, and it was not going well. Knowing that he was very close to dropping, Kordas had ordered her put up in her loose-box just before sunset, and it was a good thing he had. It was, as these things always were, the middle of the night.

-- Beyond

Royal fist met commoner jaw with an impact that jolted Kordas's right arm all the way up to the shoulder. He was vaguely aware that his hand was going to hurt like bloody hells--but that would be later. Right now, he had a good excuse to let his rage take over, and a good target to vent it on. He had the surge of adrenaline powering him, now. A little thing like pain was not going to stop him. Not now. Not when pure rage misted his vision. Not when all the emotion from the pure shit he had gone through the last year was piled up behind him like a tempest and here was a righteous target to unleash it upon.

-- Into the West

When one is accustomed to constant work, anything but work feels strange. Is it unhealthy if one finds the work itself pleasurable? What does one's work take the place of? Kordas's perpetually active mind followed the branching paths of thought. If it does take the place of anything. Done well enough, a labor can be a pleasure. I've always found my work enjoyable, except, obviously, for the lethality, danger, horror, and pain. And to be fair, those weren't part of the work, just the results of the work. Stray musings like this cropped up any time he had a minute of peace. It was very hard for him to keep his mind from racing these days, and this torrent of thoughts was a slow one for him.

-- Valdemar

[random-bookquotes]

We have a penchant for theatrics. We could perhaps appear as a harmless small animal, or ordinary object, but instead we appear as something dramatic, and then say “Fear not!” just after we’ve freshly terrified someone.

Mercedes Lackey, Valdemar (The Founding of Valdemar #3)

[venusbloo]

ARC Review: Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey

**The links below are to the book’s StoryGraph page for reference. I do not receive any compensation for clicking links.** Book: Valdemar Author: Mercedes Lackey Pages: 455 Source: DAW books Publisher: DAW books Genre: Fantasy Publication Date: December 26, 2023 Summary: The long-awaited story of the founding of Valdemar comes to life in this 3rd book of a trilogy from a New York Times…

[soullessseraphim]

Move, Lucio. It's their turn with the fur

Testing things out oouhouhououwowooowhhohw

[greyspirehollow]

Vesuvia weekly ; Watching the courtiers sleep!

Pairing : The courtiers x reader

Fandom : The Arcana visual novel

Warnings : none. Pure fluff.

You were simply walking down the corridors of the third floor of the palace, simply curious about what was there, since you had never visited before. However, you stumble upon their doors slightly ajar...

Valdemar :

You either see them lying on their back with their hands on their chest or on their side. The cover hides basically all of them except for their head. They lay down almost perfectly flat. They do not make a single noise ; if you didn't see their chest softly rising and falling you'd think they were dead.

They look shockingly peaceful and comfortable. You envy them.

They're actually a heavy sleeper (they have to sleep for three days like come on) but they would know if you were to even take a single step in their room and you'd die on spot.

But when they're awake they are like... Awake.

Vulgora :

You hear them before you even see them. They snore. Loudly.

S̷N̸O̴R̵E̶

They're sprawled out onto their bed like a star, either on their back or stomach. The covers are covering barely half of their body.

Ś̵̺Ň̶̲O̸͉͗Ṛ̶̛E̷̤̒

They're a heavy sleeper and move around a lot while asleep.

S̵̰̿Ñ̶͇̜͠Ö̷̞̲͘͝R̸̭͍̆E̴̖͋

They wake up before the sun ; because the sun is lazy. They are better than the sun. They're faster, stronger, brighter, and they have more gas.

S̸̞̹͠N̵̫̖̑͊Ö̷̳̳͊R̶̛̟͕E̷͔̜̓̈

Volta :

She's all curled up into a ball under her covers, like a little bird in its nest. Her breath whistles slightly in the night and she covers her ears with her blanket.

The little pair of wings on her head flutter here and there, and she does move around a lot, but tries her best to hide her face and ears for some reason.

Very light sleeper ; the sound of your breathing could wake her up

Tries to keep herself as warm as she can.

Vlastomil :

He, unsurprisingly, is snuggled up in his covers like a burrito. Reject humanity, return to worm. He wiggles around in his sleep sometimes, in a circular pattern, clockwise.

And when he's completed the circle, he wakes up.

Pretty average sleeper, goes through the normal phases of sleep and actually has pretty restful nights... If you forget about the moisture.

He sweats a lot, despite loving to be wrapped in his blanket like that.

Valerius :

Probably the most normal of them all. You find him sleeping on his back, one arm behind his head and his other hand resting on his chest, the covers up to his torso.

He keeps his hair in a bun for the night

Does have trouble falling asleep sometimes

Bonus! - Cuddling with the courtiers!

Valdemar :

1. Big spoon (to your great surprise)

2. Onto you weighed blanket style

Shockingly gentle yet firm grip ; they love the warmth and softness of you but will never admit it.

Vulgora :

1. Crushes you. Prepare to try not to suffocate. Sprawled out onto you as if they were sleeping normally.

2. The same but while holding you.

Firm grip, but will loosen it when they hear you can barely breathe. Loves your scent.

Volta :

1. Hold her close to you, envelop her in your arms and keep her safe. Loves your warmth too, and insists you're entirely covered in the blanket as well.

2. Small spoon, and clings to your hands.

Doesn't hold on to you, prefers being held by you to feel safe.

Vlastomil :

1. Coils around you worm style.

2. But likes to be held too.

Will profusely apologize about sweating too much.

Downsides : he takes the covers all to himself.

Valerius :

1. Small spoon. I rest my case.

Will act as if he is simply ok with it and doesn't enjoy it as much as he does.

You better not talk about this to anyone, he'll... Do nothing, he loves you too much.

[c0p1astr1cycle]

If Valdemar had a car it would be a vintage light pink hearse

Like this but light pink with cute curtains on the windows

[nabesthetics]

A Valdemar "date" tale except it has two endings: either MC fails to grasp Valdy's interest and they just leave, or MC dies a horrible slow death strapped to the vivisection table as Valdemar decides to "study" their brain.

[emblazonet]

Ah, so apparently there's a recommended Pern reading order and the White Dragon is after several ones I don't have, so I guess I'm gonna acquire them prior to reading White Dragon.

I don't HAVE to go by the author's recommended order, but like, why not if I'm just gonna read 'em all anyway?

Dragonquest is a bit slow going but I am having a good time. Will say, though, there actually isn't much questing going on.

[biichama]

Finished reading Valdemar, the final book in the Founding of Valdemar trilogy, and I am so damn pleased. Like the entire trilogy has been a lot of fun from start to finish—Kordas Valdemar is basically the most character of all time—but this was just a really fun conclusion to it all. And I am laughing forever that we got the actual answer to "what the fuck is up with those roads?"

Also getting the What Actually Happened for Sunsinger + Shadowdancer and Windrider Unchained when we've had the Leslac Version for over three decades was fun too. More spoilery shit under the cut.

OKAY I WILL BE FOREVER AMUSED THAT "DARKLORD" FROM WINDRIDER UNCHAINED WAS JUST STRAIGHT UP A GODDAMN MA'AR. BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY WERE.

Not that the characters themselves had any fucking idea what was going on, of course, but it was made Very Obvious for long term readers what was going on, especially when we found out from their former teacher that they were a fairly normal kid once (for a future Adept) that completely fucking lost it after they tried to call fire and subsequently fucked off into the wilderness for like twenty years. And then in the denouement you get this line about going through their stuff:

And I hope we can figure out what all those notations signed “M” are about.

And I'm just like HAHA YEAH MAYBE IN A THOUSAND YEARS.

Also holy shit, did they lean hard into the body horror for this incarnation. Like holy fucking shit.

Also like. As appropriate for a Ma'ar they were actually here to fuck with the local Hawkbrothers and were just using the Valdemarans as bait to get them to come out—but it's also very clear why they might have had a grudge with the Heralds by the time they were Leareth—or at least a very good reason to need to cripple their effectiveness before they tried to conquer Valdemar in Vanyel's time.

Anyway. Good book. Hangs together well and has a lot of fun bonuses for long term readers. I am forever going to call this incarnation of Ma'ar "Darklord" like they get called in Windrider Unchained because they remain the most edgy bitch in the world.

[palominodragon]

Reading the latest Heralds of Valdemar book (Into the West, book 2 of The Founding of Valdemar) and-

"There are intricacies in our naming," Silvermoon explained, "and our names can change according to life events. Or, in the case of the highly sensitive, our overwhelming moods. These names are sacred to us, but not so sacred they cannot be laughed at. Sometimes, even though their meaning is usually solemn, they're objectively ridiculous. We had a skygazing poet-scout, Wildwolf, who went through an awkward, dramatic stage of life as Moonmoon. They changed it back after a year."

[checkoutmybookshelf]

So Apparently Travelogues Are Back?

Ok, so saying "The best part of this book was watching Kordas sort the logistics of moving fifteen thousand of people across a hostile wilderness" is not a great sell of this book, but it is HONEST. The worldbuilding, characters, and monsters are excellent, but TBH, what made my brain go *happy chemicals* was the logistics. Your girl likes a good travelogue, and that travel writing aspect is a LOT of why Throne of Jade is my favorite Temeraire novel and it's why I thoroughly enjoyed this book. So let's talk Into the West.

This is your usual SPOILER WARNING for spoilers for this book and the previous one below the break.

So, having murdered the crap out of the emperor and watched an earth elemental basically enact the lava portion of the dinosaur section of Fantasia on the former capital, Kordas and the Valdemarans regroup on the banks of Crescent Lake. Some choose to return to the remains of the empire, but for everyone else, it's time to get moving. Crescent Lake can't support all of them, so they have to take their barges and head downriver to find a new home.

And as anyone who has ever done a group project in school knows, trying to wrangle 4-7 people is a goddamn nightmare; Kordas has to wrangle FIFTEEN THOUSAND. In barges. With bare minimum resources. In unknown, hostile territory. If I was lukewarm on The Plan in Beyond, I was fully here to watch how the pulled it off in this book, because just the starting point was already feeling overwhelming and nigh impossible.

Then we get to add, at various points in the journey, the following fuckery:

various lords and factions among the Valdemarans getting shitty and either being firmly called on the carpet or cut loose (but people always had a choice whether to go with their lords or stay with Kordas, so there was no screwing the peasants because a noble had a hissy fit, which I appreciate)

Wyrsa (for those of you who know, you KNOW, and I won't ruin that for those of you who are reading Valdemar chronologically rather than in publication order)

A giant bear-lizard hybrid monster that was the result of rogue magic

Giant-ass mage-created "terror birds" with wings and four legs

A very angry forest

A Boar of Unusual Size (can we make BOUS happen? Is that cool, Princess Bride fans?)

A river monster and a rogue pig that upsets the balance between the river and forest monsters

And that's just the stuff that actively tries to murder the Valdemarans. There are also issues with supply and demand, morale, the *SUPER TOO LIGHTLY SKATED OVER* mage conspiracy in the book that has been leveraging foreseers and empaths to influence Kordas's choices throughout. And no, the "you asked for help and we're what you got" DOES NOT MAKE IT OK. Especially not when the conversation gets wiped from Kordas's head afterward. This was skated over way too quickly, and the ETHICS of this would make Herald Thalia lose her goddamn mind.

We also get a bit of a subplot with Delia being assigned to a forward scout group and learning her own value...but she gets assigned to the scout post at least 50% to get her and her crush away from Kordas, so I was still not loving this.

What I do love is the Hawkbrothers, and we finally get them in this book. The Tayledras are wonderful, enigmatic, playful people and their vales are just stunning. I have never not loved me a Hawkbrother, and the hertasi are also just darling. This also sets up the long-term relationship between Valdemar and the Tayledras, which comes up from time to time throughout the life of the kingdom.

So overall, I think that Into the West is the best of the Founding of Valdemar books. It's never not gripping, the mix of character and plot is exactly on point, and if the book is a little too aggressive about people "being useful," well, they're in a survival situation and frankly it could have been a lot worse. Plus, we're basically in the Pelagirs, so when stuff gets weird, it gets REALLY weird. And really weird is often very fun. So I do recommend this book.

[random-bookquotes]

As he’d reasoned it, that too had a reassuring effect: if you had plans for people’s long-term health, it told the people that they had a future.

Mercedes Lackey, Valdemar (The Founding of Valdemar #3)

[thesaltofcarthage]

VALDEMAR REPRESENT \o/

“Sorry to post about [fandom that’s no longer trending] in 2024 but…”

My friends, you can post about whichever fandoms you want forever.

[soullessseraphim]

"but they're a demon, they don't need to sleep or anyth-"

SHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhh............

quiet. and accept my sleepy Valdemar.

[thearcanagame]

Are there any more original versions of the courtiers we haven't seen? Also, is there any food that volta refuses to eat?

Early concept for Valdemar. We haven't found something Volta won't eat (yet?)