I am one of those people who are entirely susceptible to nostalgia and fan service. I admit this with no shame whatsoever. By the time I reached By the Sword, Lackey’s first standalone book in the world of Velgarth, I was so hooked that it could have been about anything. She and her world had…
Fantasy Recommendation: The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy Growing up in a fairly conservative household, the first hints I had that homosexuality was even a possibility were in Mercedes Lackey’s books. There are minor lesbian characters in her Heralds of Valdemar trilogy, which I believe was her testing the waters for her next idea. The Last Herald-Mage…
We rarely get a good example of unrelated women in a platonic, close friendship in older, more traditional fantasy stories. All too often, women are singular additions to a group of men, the love interest of the male main character, or the single character going it alone against seemingly unbeatable odds. While more recent fantasy…
I wrote my first fanfiction story when I was fifteen, and I had no idea what I was doing as far as plotting and planning. It probably exists somewhere out there in the ether of the Internet, although I haven’t checked in a long time. It definitely exists in my files, a reminder of how…
As the first true fantasy series I ever read, many books based in Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar hold a special place in my heart. Introduced to the idea of fantasy as a genre in sixth grade through a story in my Language Arts textbook, I immediately went to the library to find more to read by…
From the name you use to identify your writing as “yours,” to what you’re going to title a piece of writing, to what names you use for the characters if you write fiction, there are many choices to be made. Each choice can affect how your audience perceives you, your writing, and the things you write about.