Nightseer by Laurell K. Hamilton (1992, 303 pages) – I really wanted to end my Cannonball Run on a high note, but I wouldn’t recommend this novel for several reasons.
The entire fantasy is one long fight scene. The heroine – a half-elf magic-user with a mean sword arm – seems like a compilation of every Dungeons and Dragons’ character ever played. Her companions are a dark elf prince, a dragon, and a spell-casing knight.
The school for magic-users (yes, no troupe is left unturned) is destroyed and most of the staff is killed. Our heroine, Keleios, escapes with her companions and travels from place to place until she arrives at the fortress of the sorceress who killed her mother.
This brings me to my second stumbling block: constant references to people and places from before the book’s timeline. At first, I assumed this was a sequel, but it doesn’t seem to be. I guess when the entire book is run/fight/run, the background has to be thrown in by handfuls. This makes references to things offstage very confusing.
I found the level of writing to be pretty rough. While mostly third person, this novel slips into omniscient on occasion and jarred me right out of the book. At no time was I concerned about our heroine. She has many, many magic items and no matter how badly she’s burned, sliced, or drained of magic, there’s always someone there to restore her to full power. Very D&D.
Finally, I don’t enjoy reading about bullies. When the dark elf refuses to heal her dying friends unless she agrees to marry him, nothing heroic he does after that point can redeem him. The head of the magic users is a bully. The witch who killed her mother is a bully. Bad guys can be bullies if it’s not overdone (as this is), but heroes should never be unredeemable jerks.
I know Laurell K. Hamilton is a big name because of her vampire series, but based on this novel, I won’t be reading them.
Actually, her early Anita Blake books are quite good – very noir mystery with kick ass heroine – but somewhere along the line she became obsessed with alternative lifestyles and that’s really what the books are about now. I’d give at least the first couple a try.