Lotus Watcher reviewed By the sword by Mercedes Lackey (DAW book collectors -- no. 840.)
By the Sword
By the Sword, by Mercedes Lackey, is a fantasy novel about a woman named Kerowyn who turns away from the courtly roles reserved for her gender and instead pursues the life of a mercenary. The beginning of her story happens quite rapidly, drawing on events from other books in the series. She gains the use of a magic sword, called Need, which responds to women in danger, becomes trained as a military officer by family she never knew she had, and is quickly established as an expert mercenary and war horse specialist. It should be noted the setting has women soldiers as common practice, but they don't overlap with women of court. What follows are stories of her training years, her discovery of additional talents she didn't know she had, dealing with relationships, isolation, military campaigns, and survival against overwhelming odds.I didn't realize this book was part of a series, …
By the Sword, by Mercedes Lackey, is a fantasy novel about a woman named Kerowyn who turns away from the courtly roles reserved for her gender and instead pursues the life of a mercenary. The beginning of her story happens quite rapidly, drawing on events from other books in the series. She gains the use of a magic sword, called Need, which responds to women in danger, becomes trained as a military officer by family she never knew she had, and is quickly established as an expert mercenary and war horse specialist. It should be noted the setting has women soldiers as common practice, but they don't overlap with women of court. What follows are stories of her training years, her discovery of additional talents she didn't know she had, dealing with relationships, isolation, military campaigns, and survival against overwhelming odds.I didn't realize this book was part of a series, making it a tough jumping-in point, but I enjoyed it as a light fantasy novel, with tactical overtones, centered on an emotionally mature person dealing with gender pressures. I do have some criticisms.
I have two main criticisms of the book: opportunism and over-reliance on karma. First, Kerowyn has a bounty of opportunity, special skills, and supernatural advantages, making her in another league from anyone else grappling with the same problems and pressures she endured. This gets balanced a fair bit by her character and emotional vulnerability, so it feels easy to root for her, but no one but Kerowyn would have persevered as consistently and completely as her, over and over again, and it diminishes the impact when she does overcome. Second, there is a pattern of good things happening around Kerowyn because she is a good person. I don't mind the notion of karma as a narrative device, but as with my first point, the good things that happen to her are exceptionally good, and nearly impossible odds happen with her with regularity. Again, this is mitigated by Lackey connecting the reader with her, and sharing her doubts and fears with the reader, but at some point it becomes a barrage of The Most Awesome Person Who Ever Womaned On A Horse And Deserves Everything All The Time.
My last criticism is more circumstantial; there are nations I don't know, magic I don't understand, and other psychic stuff which I guess is different from magic. The book does a decent job introducing them quickly, but there is a lot of missing context. As this is from a long series I can't really fault it for that, but it was annoying.
Even with the criticism I enjoyed reading it, though the primary takeaway I got from the narrative is that karma is real but... it's mostly reserved for people born with instinctual moral fiber of the correct variety, and you'd better be fortunate enough to have enough resources to deal with the repercussions of moral decisions or you're gonna get the shaft. Not a great message, but it was a fun ride.
