The Wizard of London

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Vaguely entertaining but cliched. - Rated
This book... well, I was sorry I bought it in hardback. It kept me entertained, but I pretty much guessed everything that was going to happen, and the writing was very cliched and sappy in places. I think the main problem was that it was supposedly set in a Victorian sort of England, but was very much the stereotype of England (ie, wrong.) The characters were only vaguely appealing, and things were a little too neatly done - very much like a children's novel, the good guys get good things and the bad guys bad, with no ambiguity. I've always found Mercedes Lackey to be rather hit-or-miss; some things I love, some not so much, and sadly, this one - not so much.

Content of The Wizard of London - Rated
I was very annoyed,and cross to find that ML's "new" book was actually an expanded, previously published, short story. The first third of the book is actually regurgitated, virtually unchanged. I regard this as intellectual fraud, if not actually dishonest as there was no indictaion on the jacket blurb.

I have been a ML fan for a number of years, but feel that the quality of the writing has been falling, with little depth of character development. It strikes me as laziness or greed on her part. To date I have purchased virtually all her books, but would be very reluctant to do so in the future as I feel that this book is a ripoff.

Mage magic continues - Rated
The fourth in the series of the Elemental mage books deviates slightly from the previous three. The novel centers around two little girls Nan and Sarah and their guardians all of whom are psychic in one shape or form (instead of devoting itself to the elemental mages exclusively).
This book is an expansion on the short stories of the parrot called Grey that were produced in the earlier book 'Werehunter.'
Once I started reading this book like so many of her others I found it difficult to put down.