Sunday, March 1, 2015

Oathblood by Mercedes Lackey


This exciting new anthology includes a new novella featuring Mercedes Lackey's most popular heroines, Tarma (one of the sword-sworn and most feared of all warriors) and Kethry (who wields magic and weapons for the greater good), whose fates are suddenly bound together in blood by the powers that control their destinies. Also included in the unique volume is the complete collection of Lackey's short stories about these two brave sisters as they answer the call of their destinies with sword and sorcery!

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I remember being excited when this first came out because I'd wanted to read more about Tarma and Kethry than just the two books about them. I then remember being somewhat disappointed that this was mostly just a collection of the previously published short stories about them, most of which I had already tracked down in their original anthologies via the public library. Still, it was nice to have them all together in one volume, and the new stories that showed us some of their life after the end of Oathbreakers were interesting. Also of note is the fact that this volume includes the story "Sword Sworn" which is the tale of how Tarma and Kethry first met and became oath-sisters.


Ordinarily I like to write little mini reviews of each story in an anthology like this, but in this instance I didn't really feel the need to do so, for some of the early stories are so short and a bit fluffy that I don't really have much of anything to say about them. Instead I'm going to just keep it short here and note that while I quite enjoyed reading through the stories again and seeing glimpses into their later life, you could easily skip over this volume and not be missing much in the grand scheme of things.

This will primarily appeal to fans of of the Tarma and Kethry stories, though fans of classic sword & sorcery type fantasy will probably find enough to like here as well. 3½ stars to anthology that is nice, but ultimately skippable as there's not really much here that's of later importance in the larger saga. Also, be aware that there is at least one story about them I've come across that isn't included in this anthology, so for die-hard completionists you'll want to check through the short stories that are now available individually in ebook form for any that are missing.

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