Owlflight: Amazon.ca: Mercedes Lackey: Books

Product Description

From Library Journal

Following the events in Storm Breaking (LJ 10/15/96) but without continuing that novel's characters, the stand-alone Owlflight is the latest in Lackey and Dixon's "Valdemar" series. After mage-storms wreak havoc with the laws of magic, his parents disappear, and barbarians sack and burn his village, young Darian retreats into the forest. There he encounters a magical race and discovers his own special powers with birds. This engrossing tale of discovery is recommended especially for libraries that collect the "Valdemar" fantasy series.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Stand-alone Valdemar yarn from the wife-and-husband team (The Silver Gryphon, 1996, etc.). Chronologically, this follows the events of Storm Breaking (not reviewed), but it's otherwise unconnected. Young orphan Darian lives on the edge of the vast Pelagiris forest. Though apprenticed to the wise old wizard Justyn, he's contemptuous of magic in general and unwilling to make the effort to develop his own talents. When invading barbarians burn the village and kill Justyn, Darian flees into the forest and meets the Hawkbrothers, a magical elflike race who bond with birds and bear such names as Snowfire, Starfall, and Nightwind. What ensues is a standard coming-of-age fantasy involving the usual Lackey and Dixon suspects (yes, of course, gryphons). Should entertain the more junior and unsuspecting sections of the audience. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Customer Reviews

56 Reviews

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
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Average Customer Review

3.6 out of 5 stars (56 customer reviews)

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3.0 out of 5 stars Could be Better, Jun 23 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Owl Trilogy #1 Owlflight (Mass Market Paperback)

In this novel by Mercedes Lackey, a young orphan unwillingly Gifted with magic, sees his village demolished by barbaric men. Escaping into the Pelgaris Forest, Darian meets up with the legendary Hawkpeople, who help him overcome his pent-up grief. In my opinion, Darian overcomes his sorrow a bit too fast. In the beginning, Lackey makes an enormous deal about how tragic Darian is, and how misunderstood his entire life was. After a few days with the Hawkpeople, he seems as happy as you could wish. However, the plot is good (if not a little faulty) and the characters are usually quite convincing, especially the gryphon Kel. But I know Lackey has written better novels than this before.

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2.0 out of 5 stars Decidedly mediocre, Feb 9 2003

By

not4prophet (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Owl Trilogy #1 Owlflight (Mass Market Paperback)

"Owlflight" isn't the worst fantasy novel that I've ever read, it's just the most unnecessary one. Rebellious thirteen-year-old Darian is an apprentice wizard in the remote village of Emmond's Grove. One day the town is attacked by barbarians, and Darian barely manages to escape after his mentor, Justyn sacrifices himself to delay the approaching army. Fleeing into the woods, Darian meets a band known as the Hawkbrothers. They talk for awhile, there's a climactic battle, and, needless to say, Darian's courage and new magic powers turn out to be the key to defeating the bad guys, after which everybody lives happily until the sequel. The point is that we've seen this entire book before, countless times. The authors are utterly unable to dredge up as much as one unique element in the entire story. The characters, plot, settings, and everything else seem like they were borrowed from earlier works, and everything is completely predictable, to the point where you're almost able to predict exactly how many paragraphs will be spent on each blazingly obvious plot point before moving on to the next one.

I'll admit that the authors do a reasonably good job of capturing the emotional turbulence of an teenager who's lost his parents, but other than that, the writing in "Owlflight" is embarrassingly bad. The dialogue never even comes close to sounding like normal conversational speech (how many thirteen-year-olds do you know who say 'intoxicated' rather than 'drunk'?) Also, the authors don't maintain a good balance between internal introspection and plot movement. "Owlflight" is 350 pages long and contains only three action scenes. Most of the space in between is spent on characters endlessly wondering what they should say or do, wondering how other people will react to what they say or do, wondering how people have reacted to what they just said or did, and inevitably taking ten pages to communicate even the simplest point.

Some people might defend "Owlflight" on the grounds that it's aimed at a 'young adult' audience, and thus shouldn't be judged by the same standards as real fantasy novels. My response to this is that there are plenty of authors out there who are capable of writing books that appeal to all age groups. I've never understood why some people insist that anyone under the age of fifteen should be satisfied with inferior work. Readers in that age group are actually capable of distinguishing good and bad books. If they get fed only predictable, mediocre nonsense like "Owlflight", they're likely to quit the fantasy genre before they even have a chance to read some of the world's greatest books.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Another Valdemar novel to enjoy., Dec 13 2002

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Myra Schjelderup "Ignolopi" (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Owl Trilogy #1 Owlflight (Mass Market Paperback)

This is about an orphan, Darian, who is apprenticed to a used-to-be wizard against his will. His parents were trappers, and one day went out during a mage storm and never returned.
One day, his village, Errald's Grove, was attacked while Darian was out picking herbs. The wizard Justyn, who did much but was not appreciated by the villagers, sacrificed himself so the people could get away.
Darian fled into the woods, and was caught by some of the enemy men. He was rescued by a Hawkbrother, Snowfire, and taken to his vale (the homes of the Hawkbrothers, their are many of them).
After a while, he was adopted into the clan as Snowfire's little brother. After a while, they found the villagers had not escaped, but were slaves of the ones who attacked the village.
Darian wanted to go free the villagers, but would the Hawkbrothers help him?

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Story! Excellent Characters
Owl Flight is the story of Darian, a precocious teenager, unwillingly apprenticed to mage Justyn after his parents (trappers) fail to return from one of their extended hunting... Read more

Published on Oct 29 2002 by Serene

3.0 out of 5 stars Liked the story, hated the writing.
I'm a big fan of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books, and this is the first one I read that was co-written by Larry Dixon. Read more

Published on July 12 2001 by entmaiden