vass: Mercedes Flunky

Vass (

vass) wrote,
@ 2012-12-15 09:39 pm UTC

Current mood:	amused
Entry tags:	books: lackey mercedes

Mercedes Flunky

For reasons connected with this post by

rachelmanija, I have been doing some searches for Mercedes Lackey.

- DuckDuckGo offers helpful alternative searches, like substituting "flunky" for "lackey". In the unlikely event that I ever do roller derby, I want Mercedes Flunky to be my derby name.

- On mercedeslackey.com, the page on If I Pay Thee Not In Gold by Lackey and Piers Anthony simply says "If I Pay Thee Not in Gold is the first and last collaboration between the two authors." No context, no explanation given since both authors are still alive and working. It was THAT bad.

- I first read Magic's Pawn 18 years ago, and only noticed now that Yfandes is a GIRAFFE. Even when I was ten, an average-sized horse's head did not clear my head by that much, and Vanyel is in his teens. There is also something very wrong with their relative leg length, but I can't work it out.

I guess Vanyel was right when he kept yelling at Lord Withen that Yfandes is NOT A HORSE, DAMMIT.

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	no subject st_aurafina 2012-12-15 10:59 am UTC (link)
	I thought you'd like to know I've just had to explain the specifics of your icon to lilacsigil. She hadn't read that one. (You should see her face right now!) (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 5 comments) (Show 5 comments)

	no subject lilacsigil 2012-12-15 12:20 pm UTC (link)
	I will demonstrate. DDDDDDDDDDDD: (for context: I sadly never encountered any Lackey books as a teen, and read a few of the classics in my early 20s.) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 4 comments) (Show 4 comments)

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vass
2012-12-15 12:45 pm UTC (link)

Thank you for the demonstration! I'm now imagining Hermione in your icon encountering Brightly Burning for the first time, poor thing.

Lackey... works a lot better if you first encounter her at 13 or so. It's like this: you are lonely, misunderstood, ostracised, and abused. Then one day you meet a group of people who not only accept you just as you are, but desperately need someone with exactly your qualities. You see, you're special, and that's why you could never fit in with the other people - you had this special thing about you that they couldn't see, but which will let you save the world. And now that you're with that group, they will love and support you unconditionally forever, and one of them will be your Destined True Love, and you'll also probably have a psychic animal friend who chose you as their friend because you're such a good, self-sacrificing person.

...At least it's less gross than Anne McCaffrey's main plot? :/

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	no subject minoanmiss 2012-12-15 01:52 pm UTC (link)
	Maybe the difference is only bad people commit rape in Lackey books (though all of them do)? (I say this with all love as someone who still has all the paperbakcs up to Elspeth's trilogy lined up on a shelf. You description is SPOT ON.) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

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vass
2012-12-15 03:02 pm UTC (link)

McCaffrey's rape thing bothers me less than her thing of "I am a strong, independent woman who is too headstrong and tempestuous and intelligent for anyone but an even stronger and more independent man, who will brutally overmaster me and overcome my resistance and then completely erase all my intelligence, strength, and independence, leaving me silly, brainless, weak, and hysterical, at which point I will be perfectly suited to the task of bringing up human beings. When I get this and my few other remaining duties wrong, which I will do frequently, he will lovingly correct me and pat me on the head."

I still have my Lackey books too. I even reread them every few years.

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	no subject lilacsigil 2012-12-16 01:02 am UTC (link)
	Yes, by the time I read Lackey I was old enough to see all the workings of it and enjoy it, but not FALL INTO IT HEART AND SOUL. I did love the Menolly books from Pern for exactly the same reason, though. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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laurajv
2012-12-15 04:56 pm UTC (link)

well, I'm short, so a great many horses are taller than I, so that never even occured to me about Yfandes!

I am 5'2", which is 15.2 hh, and there are plenty horses out there taller than that, and that's height at the withers, so their heads are a great deal higher quite often. I think racing Thoroughbreds most places are around 16hh, so their withers are 2" higher than the top of my head.

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	no subject vass 2012-12-15 05:38 pm UTC (link)
	I'm 5'9, so 17.2hh. Back when I did a lot of riding I hadn't hit puberty yet, but I was still usually the second or third tallest in my class. I don't think the books say how tall Vanyel is, except that he isn't physically imposing. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject laurajv 2012-12-15 06:34 pm UTC (link)
	yeah, your height would make a huge difference in how you relate to horses! I was always "I CANNOT SEE OVER THIS PONY" when I rode as a child, and I got to my adult height by the time I was 13...and, well, I can see over ponies now. :D (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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brownbetty
2012-12-15 10:52 pm UTC (link)

I kind of thought, on glancing at that cover, that the horse's forelegs were off the ground, maybe part-way into a rear? Which means the dude is probably going to get his feet stepped on, when what goes up must come down.

Man, pay thee not in gold was a book I snuck out and read when I was young enough to have the idea that I probably shouldn't be reading this, but there was something so thrilling about this book!

Really, I should be a lot weirder as an adult, considering my influences.

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	no subject vass 2012-12-16 05:29 am UTC (link)
	Yfandes would never step on Vanyel's feet... okay, she totally would, but not at that stage in their relationship - I'm assuming the cover art is of the scene where Vanyel's soulmate's committed suicide, so Vanyel's about to go do the same, and that's when Yfandes shows up. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject norabombay 2012-12-17 03:25 am UTC (link)
	My worshipful appreciation of the works of Mercedes Lackey was vastly enhanced by the fact I know fuck all about horses. If it has four legs and a mane, it's a horse. Companions seemed perfectly reasonable by my standards. Actual horses? It was hot. They smelled. And it involved being outside in the heat in the Florida summer. I think not. (Reply to this)

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