{"id":180,"date":"2002-11-07T17:56:19","date_gmt":"2002-11-07T22:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=180"},"modified":"2002-11-07T17:56:19","modified_gmt":"2002-11-07T22:56:19","slug":"lackey_mercedes_2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2002\/11\/lackey_mercedes_2\/","title":{"rendered":"Lackey, Mercedes: Take a Thief"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> <\/a> <\/p>\n

I’ve mostly stopped reading new books by Mercedes Lackey, but Take a Thief<\/cite><\/strong> looked like it might be acceptably mindless lunchtime reading, so I took it out of the library. When we first met Skif in Arrows of the Queen<\/cite><\/a>, there was a throwaway comment about his past that suggested there was more to him than was immediately apparent. Take a Thief<\/cite> tells that story, describing Skif’s life as a, well, thief, and his first experiences as a Herald-Trainee.<\/p>\n

I actually finished this almost a week ago, but I’ve been very busy and haven’t had time to log it. Of course, that busyness is probably why I came home early with a cold (not an ear infection, according to the doctor, which is something at least). Anyway, this was almost a perfectly serviceable book. The first half or so is the sort of how-to that I find oddly soothing, even if it’s “how to survive on the street by stealing.” The second half is sort of a how-to as well, “how to seek revenge while starting at Herald’s Collegium.” And it’s less twee than much of Lackey, though the big temptation scene at the end is badly overdone.<\/p>\n

However. I hate, loathe, and despise dialogue written in dialect. And almost every spoken line in the first half is, well, here’s a sample from a random page: “What’s doin’s?” “Dunno fer certain-sure. Summun sez a couple toughs come in an’ wrecked t’place, summun sez no, ’twas a fight, an’ ev’un sez summun’s croaked, or near it.” There’s more to that exchange, but I can’t bear to type it. If I wasn’t an accomplished text skimmer, I would never have made it through this, and I can’t say that I’d recommend it to anyone over the age of 13.<\/p>\n

And now the cold pills are starting to kick in, so I think I’m going to go lie down and read something else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve mostly stopped reading new books by Mercedes Lackey, but Take a Thief looked like it might be acceptably mindless lunchtime reading, so I took it out of the library. When we first met Skif in Arrows of the Queen, there was a throwaway comment about his past that suggested there was more to him … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Lackey, Mercedes: Take a Thief”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,15,30],"tags":[278],"class_list":["post-180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-sf-and-fantasy","category-valdemar","tag-lackey-mercedes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}