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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780743436083
ISBN number: 0743436083
Label: Baen
Manufacturer: Baen
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 512
Printing Date: May 01, 2003
Publishing house: Baen
Sale Popularity Level: 396810
Studio: Baen
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Product Description:
Eric Banyon has more to worry about than passing his courses at Julliard. The evil elf lord Aerune, whose love was killed by mortal men, is determined to destroy the human race. Eric's only hope of stopping Aerune is to trap him inside a magical maze, from which there is no escaping. But for the plan to work, Eric and his friends must cross the land of chaos and survive, then travel undetected through a gate between worlds straight into the heart of Aerune's realm and trick the elf lord into entering the maze. Stopping Aerune once before was difficult. This time, the quest seems nothing less than impossible.
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Rated by buyers 
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As I've greatly enjoyed the "Arrows" and "Herald Mage" series by Mercedes Lackey, I'm disappointed to find the "Bedlam's Bard" one so lackadaisical. This installment has Eric attending a Naming ceremony for his daughter in the elven Underhill, which was a nice diversion, however, the events outside were lackluster. An elf lord has managed to enslave a human servant and plans to use her to destroy the world. (Yes, again.) A character from the very first two books, Kayla, a teenage Empath who is attending Columbia, makes an appearance, and is a spunky addition, but like other reviewers have pointed out, she would be closer to thirty years old, if the author had been true to the timeline. Also, there are a LOT of descriptions of what everyone is eating and wearing - warning: the book may make you ready for a snack or at least a bottle of designer water. This book wasn't really any worse than the others in the series, but then it wasn't really much better either.
Rated by buyers 
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The book, despite the inconsistencies that have been pointed out by other reviewers, moves along with an interesting and well-paced plotline. Well....for two-thirds of the book, that is. Sadly, Goblin Market was much too similar to the Bazaar from Robert Asprin's Myth series. The pathetic nod to Fritz Leiber's Fafrhd and the Gray Mouser was enough to make one retch at very first read. And then the storyline devolves and becomes something right out of the X-Files with a good splash of Tolkien and Chinese myth tossed in for fun. Mercedes Lackey is well known for her character depth -- not in this one. A very bad writing indeed.
Rated by buyers -
So Eric Banyon is still living in New York and going to school. I don't know if I'm the only one who noticed this, but in "Beyond Worlds End" he had come out of hiding after the events in the very first two books in the series. Well, since time gone differently, it had been somewhere between 10-20 years in our world, so he hadn't really aged much because he was in Underhill. He said the authorities would be looking for someone much older than he was, like in his 40's, but in this book, she messes up COMPLETELY. After saying it had been years and years and years, Kayla comes to New York, and is still a teenager. She was 17 in the very first two books, and now she is preparing to go to college. Wouldn't she be in her 30's if the plot was actually CONSISTANT? There are other various things in this book that just don't go along with previous storylines, and it's just boring and doesn't really drag me into it like the "Last Herald Mage" series did. I know Mercedes could do better than this, but there were such glaring oversights it makes me wonder who her editors are, and if she ever thinks out the plot lines.
Rated by buyers -
In this world, Eric Banyon is a New York Subway Busker and Julliard student. But you don't have to worry about that, because instead of actually attending college, mostly he hangs out with various magickal people and entities, both this-worldly and other-worldly. Eric is a practitioner of Bardic Magic, you see, and it gets him into sticky situations as well as occasionally helping him save the world.
Maybe it's that I haven't read any of the other books in this series, or even in any of the related series, but I had a hard time getting into this book. From the beginning, there are too many characters and too much backstory that is only implied or hinted at, making the very first few chapters really confusing. I also had a hard time getting past the fact that everything in this book is really derivative. The setting reminded me of a cheap, American imitation of Charles DeLint's _Moonheart_, the characters were flat Urban Fantasy knock-offs without any true personality and there was absolutely nothing new to say here about magic, elves, the hollow hills, or anything else. All of this is wrapped up in a Pagan-Fem ethic and aesthetic that I find at best naive and at worst nauseating and irresponsible.
Once the story gets going it stops taking itself so seriously and is somewhat entertaining, provided you can overlook glitches like the secret government installation called the "Black Lab" (Woof!) and the PhD folkloricist who has never heard the word "Sidhe." (Doh!) There are quite a few good one-liners. I liked the dragon. I liked the haunted banjo. Trouble is, there were just too many plot threads going and none of them was developed particularly well. They all came together...kind of...but to me, it seemed that the books consisted of a bunch of random action and then all of a sudden MAJOR CONFLICT!
_Spirits White as Lightning_ is a short, easy and relatively mindless read with some amusing scenes. But get it out of the library.
Rated by buyers 
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"Spirits White as Lightning" is a very intriguing book, set in the "Bedlam's Bard" series. Throughout the books, Eric Banyon (the bard in question) has grown, changed, and become a better person. He started out as a sort of young, angry-at-the-world kid, and has now matured into an older, more thoughtful and introspective man, without losing his ironic look on life or losing any of his earlier appeal. This is tough to do; I applaud Mercedes Lackey for doing it (as she started the series, and has continued it).
Rosemary Edghill is the co-writer for this book, a direct sequel to "Beyond World's End." Eric's trying to learn how to teach Bardcraft; he takes in a young student, Hosea, for training -- even though Eric is a flutist and Hosea plays the banjo. Thing is, once he gets Hosea back to his place, he finds out Hosea not only has the potential for bardic magic -- he also has the potential for Guardian magic (Guardians watch over cities and countries; bards mostly influence people more directly. Something like shades of the same thing, but the magic is normally wielded differently.)
There is also a subplot about the Unselidhe Sidhe (basically, the Dark Elves) and their meddling, and another subplot about Beth and Kory and their quest to have a natural child together. This isn't as easy at it might appear at first; Elves and humans normally do not crossbreed, and need magical assistance.
While there's lots of derring-do being derring-done (and done quite well), the main points of interest are Eric and his relationship with his new apprentice bard, Hosea, the reappearance of Kayla from earlier books, and the subplot about Beth and Kory (one of the earliest books showed their romance, which at the time seemed very star-crossed and miserable; nice to see things have settled down a mite for them).
In addition, most of the people drawn as evil aren't totally such (making it a bit more understandable to see how they trick mortal followers; they play on the instinct mortals have to believe in the best of anyone).
And there's a lot of witty by-play throughout, further enlivening the story.
I think Ms. Lackey and Ms. Edghill did a very good, thorough job here; it's a highly satisfactory sequel, which makes me want the subsequent book, "Mad Maudlin," all the more.
Five stars. Recommended.
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