This is a list of books by Mercedes Lackey, arranged by collection.
Some of the trilogies follow on chronologically from each other, while others are set a considerable number of years apart from the others -- overall the books span some 2500 years.
Co-written with Larry Dixon. These are set in pre-history, some 2500 years before the Heralds of Valdemar trilogy. They describe the events which set off the Mage Storms. It involves gryphons, creatures created by the mage Urtho (Mage of Silence). The co-protagonists are Skandranon Rashkae, a princely but proud ebony gryphon, and Amberdrake, a Healer of spirit and mind called a kestra'chern.
The story of the Baron Kordas Valdemar fleeing with his people the oppressive Eastern Empire and founding the kingdom of Valdemar in the western wilds. The trilogy takes place c. 1000 years after The Mage Wars and some 1400 years before the original Arrows trilogy.
See main article: The Last Herald-Mage. These occur some centuries before the Heralds of Valdemar books, telling the life story of Vanyel Ashkevron; by the time of the "later" books he has become legend, thus explaining some of the small inconsistencies. This series was also consistently nominated for the Lambda Literary Prize, with Magic's Price winning in 1990.[1] As of 2021, the novels in the Last Herald-Mage trilogy are in development as the first season of a television show based on the Valdemar universe adapted by Kit Williamson and Brittany Cavallaro with Ted Field, Anthony Tringali, Michael Napoliello, and Maria Frisk at Radar Pictures executive-producing.[2] This will be the first live action adaptation of Lackey's work.
This series marked Lackey's novel-length return to Valdemar after a five-year hiatus. The series takes place about a half a century after Magic's Price and about 500 years before the Heralds of Valdemar books and tells about the time of the founding of the Heralds' Collegium.
This series is a continuation of the story of Mags from the Collegium Chronicles. It covers Mags' journey as a full herald and a spy.
This series is a continuation of the story of Mags after The Herald Spy trilogy. It follows Mags and his children as they learn the family business.
Brightly Burning (May 2000) is a stand-alone novel, set somewhere between Collegium Chronicles and the Heralds of Valdemar books; it describes another legendary character briefly referred to in the latter, Lavan Firestorm.
These precede the Heralds of Valdemar books and center around the characters Tarma and Kethry. These characters appeared first in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress series and were revisited in subsequent short stories. Two of these short stories are woven into the Vows and Honor books as part of a longer narrative. The original Vows and Honor pair of books were linked together with By the Sword (published long before Oathblood) as a trilogy.
The third volume, Oathblood, is made up entirely of short stories in place of a longer narrative. With its publication, nearly all of the Tarma and Kethry stories were available together in a single compiled volume for the first time. The single missing story, "A Dragon in Distress", was co-authored with Elisabeth Waters and was originally published in the Sword and Sorceress series, volume XII. The story, now available as a solo e-book, is missing from the Oathblood collection due to being set in Elisabeth Waters's world, not Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar.
The contents of Oathblood are as follows:
In the books and short stories, Tarma is a sword-wielding Shin'a'in clanswoman. Kethry is a magic-user who carries a sword with unusual properties. The nature of this sword, Need, is explored in later series set in Valdemar. At the time of the Vows and Honor books, all that is known is that it is magic, protects female bearers, and can pressure its owner into assisting other women. The overarching goal for the two women is to accumulate resources enough to regenerate Tarma's almost-destroyed clan. As the titles of the books suggest, emphasis is laid on the importance and consequences of oaths in at least one story from each book. The setting of the books is generally in the lands south of Valdemar such as Rethwellan, although there is a brief sojourn in Valdemar in Oathbreakers. Despite limited time in Valdemar, there were references in the first two Vows and Honor books to the Companions of Valdemar which laid early hints to their nature. The introduction of a fourfold deity (Tarma's Goddess) was something of a novel idea at the time of publication.
This is a stand-alone novel which connects the Vows & Honor sub-series to the Heralds and other trilogies; it introduces the character Kerowyn, who is the granddaughter of Kethry from the Vows and Honor sub-series.
This set consists of the original trilogy, the very first Valdemar books published, and a prequel trilogy.
These center on the Weaponsmaster Alberich (in the first two books) and the thief Skif (in the third book), telling the stories of their not-entirely-voluntary enrollments as Heralds. The order in which they were written differs from the internal chronology.
The first written and published of the Valdemar novels, these center on the character Talia, who from the moment of being Chosen by her Companion Rolan becomes the special and hard-working Queen's Own Herald.
These follow on from the original Heralds of Valdemar trilogy and center on Princess Elspeth completing her transformation from "the Brat" to a fully-fledged Herald. Secondary protagonists include Skif and a new character, Darkwind.
The latter part of Kerowyn's Tale, By the Sword, fills in the events that happen after Arrow's Fall but before Winds of Fate.
This next trilogy follows on the Heralds of Valdemar story and centers around the characters Karal and An'desha as Velgarth is threatened by a repetition of the Cataclysm described in The Mage Wars trilogy. This trilogy also focuses on the threat posed to Valdemar by the vast Eastern Empire and the development of the newly formed Alliance between Valdemar and its surrounding nations.
The Owl trilogy takes place several years after the events of The Mage Storms and follows the character Darian. The story focuses on the repercussions of the mage storms on Valdemar's northern border and centers on new tensions between the Kingdom and invading barbarians from beyond the Ice Wall.
The setting of this miniseries of shorter fiction and a novel to be published in 2023 is a post–Mage Storms military conflict with a "secessionist" movement in Deedun. The series features the character Kelvren Skothkar from the preceding series Darian's Tale.
Various anthologies have been published from 1997 featuring some short stories by Lackey and other authors she invited to write about the Valdemar universe. A companion book was also produced about the universe.
This universe is set in warp-modern time featuring elves and magic.
Lackey wrote the first few in this series with Ellen Guon and the latter part with Rosemary Edghill.
Bedlam's Bard (1998)—compilation of Knight of Ghosts and Shadows and Summoned to Tourney
A Host of Furious Fancies—compilation of Beyond World's End and Spirits White as Lightning
When reading the series in chronological order, Music to My Sorrow follows directly from Mad Maudlin.
The main character, Diana Tregarde, is an American witch, practicing a fantasy version of Wicca; by virtue of her position as a "Guardian" Diana has access to more magical power than many and she is required to give her help when someone asks it of her. Her magical abilities do not pay the bills, however, and so Diana makes her living by writing romance novels. In the stories, Diana must protect others from angry deities, vampires and a sorceress who intends to remain eternally young.
The character Diana Tregarde first appeared in two short stories, "Satanic, Versus..." and "Nightside", which were originally written for inclusion in the Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic roleplaying game. The short stories were first published in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine:
The books were published under Tor's horror imprint rather than its fantasy. At the time of publication, positive depictions of what Wiccans and, more generally, neopagans believed and did were rare. In the mid-nineties, Lackey's books generally were regularly cited as examples of pagan-friendly fiction.[8] Lackey wrote that she had no plans for further books in the series because they did not sell well;[9] nonetheless, she incorporated several elements of the Guardian mythos, including the apartment building where Diana lived, into later books in her Bedlam's Bard series.
In the collection Bedlam's Edge Lackey notes that she placed the Diana Tregarde world with her SERRAted Edge and Summoned to Tourney world with the intention of forcing anyone who believed Diana Tregarde and the Guardians were real[9] to also have to believe in elves, dragons, and other patently fantastical things.
The Doubled Edge series is set several hundred years earlier than the other SERRAted edge books. The storyline is historically based, surrounding Elizabeth I's parentage, birth, and rise to power. In the fictional series, the Light court elves try to bring Elizabeth safely to the throne, while the Dark court elves hope for the misery of religious persecution from her half-sister Mary. This Scepter'd Isle revolves around Henry VIII's illegitimate son Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset, and the later three focus on Elizabeth.
Sacred Ground (1995) is a non-series contemporary novel about Native American magic. The main character, Jennifer Talldeer, is a private investigator. She is also Kestral-Hunts-Alone, an apprentice shaman learning modified tribal magic from her grandfather. She is called in to investigate possible sabotage at a local construction site where Indian artifacts have been found.
In her short story After Midnight Lackey implies that the novel was an attempt to recover the spirit of the Diana Tregarde novels after the fiasco with a few fans believing the novels were based on real events.[11] However, Sacred Ground also did not sell well, and Lackey took a break from dark fantasy.
"Drums" (2010) is a novella included in Trio of Sorcery (2010)[4]
See also: Heirs of Alexandria series. (with Dave Freer and Eric Flint) Set in an alternate "Venetian Empire" in which magic thrives. (Note, a significant amount of text, and a couple of major characters in this work are adapted from stories written by Lackey in the Merovingen Nights shared universe series. That series was started by C. J. Cherryh in her novel Angel with the Sword.)
The first books in this series were featured on various Baen CDs. In 2010 Baen CD 23 featuring included The Shadow of the Lion, A Mankind Witch, This Rough Magic, and Much Fall of Blood of the Heirs of Alexandria series among other books.[12] [13]
The Secret World Chronicle is a series of "braided novels," based on characters and ideas created by Lackey and Libbey in an on-line role-playing environment, transposed into an entirely new setting. Although there are plans to set future works in different eras, Invasion is set in the present-day in a world where "metas" (short for metahumans, that setting's term for superheroes) first appeared during World War II and now play an important role in keeping the world safe. In Invasion, the world is invaded by a mysterious force of armored Nazi soldiers, from the disbanded arcane Thule Society, some of whom are subsequently found not to be human.
While the Secret World Chronicle is not set in the same world as the SERRAted Edge and Bedlam's Bard series, it does share certain elements in common with those books: one of Invasion
The first book of the Secret World Chronicle began serialization in podcast form in September 2006, read aloud by actors Adam Higgins and Laura Patterson. Beginning in 2007, the series continued to be read by voiceover artist Veronica Giguere. In the second quarter of 2009, the series was sold to Baen Books with a publication date of 2011 for the first book and 2012 for the second.[14]
According to Lackey's website, the four published books are Invasion (2011), World Divided (2012), Revolution (2013), and Collision (2015), with two short stories – Secret World War: White Bird and Secret World War: Sgian Dubh – also available. A fifth book, Avalanche, was released in August 2018.
See main article: The Halfblood Chronicles.
See also: Andre Norton. This series of novels is set on a world where both elves and dragons arrived from dimensional portals onto a world where humans were native. The dragons remained hidden and elves subjugated the humans. The story follows the exploits of a group of half-blooded humans attempting to fight the elves.
See main article: Elemental Masters. Set in an earth where magic exists during the early 20th century, these stories follow magicians who control the powers of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. These stories are based loosely—sometimes very loosely—on various fairy tales. Although these books all take place in the same "world" and all include the same established system of Elemental Magick, the first book, The Fire Rose, can be distinguished in that the story takes place in the United States rather than in England, and the set of characters are not interrelated as are those in the following books. The Wizard of London can be considered a prequel to the other stories set in England and takes place during the Victorian Era. [15]
Like her Valdemar universe, two anthologies have been published featuring stories by Lackey and other invited authors. They are:
A fantasy series that deals with the more mature side of fairy tales. In the Five Hundred Kingdoms, the destiny of witches, knights, princesses and such are regulated by The Tradition, a magical force that is one of the primary sources of magic. Fairy Godmothers, Champions, and Wizards are responsible for ensuring that The Tradition is upheld with a minimal loss of life. As with The Black Swan, place-names suggest that these books are set in a fantasized version of late-medieval Europe. The Five Hundred Kingdoms series is published as part of Harlequin's Luna imprint, targeted at female romance-science fiction/fantasy readers.
In addition to the novels, two novellas, "Moontide", first published in the anthology Winter Moon (2005), and "A Tangled Web", first published in the anthology Harvest Moon (2010), are also set in the Five Hundred Kingdoms.
The Free Bards had their genesis in the story "Fiddler Fair", originally written for an Andre Norton shared-world anthology titled Magic in Ithkar, and published in the third volume. Lackey rewrote, changed, and expanded the story into a setting of its own in The Lark and the Wren. "Fiddler Fair" may be found in the Mercedes Lackey short-story collection that is also titled [Fiddler Fair].
The books primarily follow the story of Vetch (or Kiron, from the second book onward), and centers initially around a war between the neighboring countries of Alta and Tia, both of which use Dragon Jousters as their most powerful weapons. The books are based on the predynastic period of Ancient Egypt and (very loosely) the myth of Atlantis. This series began with a short story entitled "Joust" which was published in The Dragon Quintet . This short story was later expanded into the following series with the first novel holding the same name as the short story that began the series.
The world of the Obsidian Mountain, Enduring Flame, and Dragon Prophecy series contains many mythological creatures, and contains several types of magic, each with its own dynamics, strengths, and weakness. The High Magic and Wild Magic are used by the protagonists, while the Dark Magic is an old magic primarily practiced by a race of demons called the Endarkened.
There are several types of mages featured:
All kinds of mages, except the Endarkened, can bond themselves to dragons, creating a mind-link with them and having access to their almost unlimited source of power. Usually both dragon and bonded have to accept the bond, however, Dark Mages use spells to force the bond, so, the dragons used to run away from them.
This series primarily follows the adventures of Kellen Tavadon during the third war between the races of light and the Endarkened.
Set 1000 years after the events in the Obsidian Mountain Trilogy and following an entirely new cast of characters, with the exception of cameo appearances by major characters Jermayan and Idalia, and the continued presence of Ancaladar the Dragon.
Written with James Mallory.
Based on The Bard's Tale computer role playing game series.
Written with Rosemary Edghill, Shadow Grail is a young adult fantasy series about Spirit White, a teenager who has lost her family in an accident and is sent to Oakhurst Academy, where all the students have magical powers.
In a future world where zombies, vampires and werewolves co-exist with ‘normal’ humans on Earth, space ships are staffed by a motley crew of various types of undead or near-dead creatures. Written with Cody Martin.[18]
In 2013, Fiddler Fair and Werehunter were republished as the omnibus Dragon's Teeth,
See main article: Sword and Sorceress series.
Nine Lackey stories written for the Sword and Sorceress series anthology involve Tarma and Kethry as the main characters. With the exception of "A Dragon in Distress", all of these short stories have subsequently been published in a compiled Tarma and Kethry novel called Oathblood (April 1998,). The reason this story was left out of the compiled novel is due to the fact that the setting for "A Dragon in Distress" takes place in Elisabeth Waters's world, not Lackey's Velgarth.
See main article: Merovingen Nights.
See main article: Darkover series.
See main article: Elfquest.
See main article: 1632 series.
See main article: David Arkenstone.