I've been reading Lackey since 1991, and this trilogy is a story I've been waiting for since 1991. As the second book in the trilogy, Into The West has to bridge "we ran from the Empire" to "We ended up with magical horses", which is a pretty big jump, but it succeeds. Starting out, the 15,000 refugees (holy cow that's a lot) are coming to grips with not being able to stay on the shores of the lake they've landed at (I kept thinking it was Lake Evendim, but it's not, it's crescent-shaped?), and they must continue their journey along the river, heading northwest. The book focuses on two characters-- Baron Kordas Valdemar, the leader of this group, and his young sister-in-law, Delia, who's been sent ahead with the scouts to make sure the way forward is safe.

The first half of this book was kind of slow to me-- the chapters are longer than what I'm used to (I've been reading a ton of romance), and it felt very small, even as it's thousands of people taking the biggest journey of their lives. But once the caravan got moving, and the Tayledras showed up, it got fun. I have to point out that Lackey has definitely recognized and incorporated changing social mores and standards when it comes to indigenous characters (or those who don't read as the dominant culture), but it still felt a little off to me-- there's some "Here Is The Correct Way To Be Respectful" stuff that seemed awkward, but it didn't slow me down. As the book closes, there are things familiar to long-time readers starting to appear, and I'm so excited for the third book. This series is a must-read for longtime Lackey fans, but for new readers, I would suggest reading the books in publishing order instead.

(and while I got an advance digital copy, I still purchased a hardcover copy, because I was hoping for a map and there wasn't one. I'll spend my time poring over pixelated maps online until the next book comes!)

4.5 stars. A great continuation of the series. It dragged on a little in the beginning and middle, but the ending was way worth it.

We continue with Baron Valdemar leading his people through the unknown on barges to find a new place to live after the horrible empire. This book starts right after the first book ends and spends a lot of time on the logistics of moving thousands of people on a river. It spends a bit too long on this, and at parts, it drags on about the technical aspects of the move without any action or character development. This part was slightly annoying because I still cannot picture in my mind how you would need a towing horse in the water when you are on boats. I did enjoy Delia, the baron's sister-in-law, becoming more confident about being her own person and less focusing on her crush.

When the party arrives at their destination, the book starts to speed up almost alarmingly. I wanted this part to be where the focus was because I felt like the character accepted changes too fast without explaining why to the reader. This part of the book was most like previous entries in the series and so delightful but too rushed. Also, there was the strange part where some person confronted the baron about influencing him to make the right moves for the future which was never addressed again and was super confusing. I hope this is not just a random part of the book and it is addressed again in the series.

Overall I liked this book, but it needed to change focus on the exciting later half more than the logistical beginning.

Excerpt from full review: Into the West is a middle novel. It’s not the right place for a new reader to start, but that’s rather a given. But the Founding of Valdemar itself continues to expertly walk a line I didn’t think was possible. New visitors to Velgarth can begin this trilogy and find themselves delighted when finding callbacks and clues in other Valdemar series like The Last Herald-Mage, which started printing in 1989. And long-time fans can be surprised by recognizing well-known locations, and understanding exactly what certain ancient events mean for Kordas and his refugees.

For Valdemar fans, Into the West is five magic ponies out of five. 🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎

Valdemar was one of the first fantasy world I visited and it's great to read these prequel as they can work as introduction to the series and as a new trilogy.
There's a growing in all the characters and plenty going on in this second instalment. Mercedes Lackey is a talented storyteller and this book kept me hooked.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

I love getting more of the history of how Valdemar came to be. The characters are interesting and can't wait to see how we go from the settlement to the Valdemar we know.

Thank you to the authors, publisher and NetGalley for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

It’s been a while since I stepped into the world of Valdemar (and I know there are some books I’ve missed) but I have to say it was great to step back in. This world is divided into small series (usually trilogies) and this is book two in this arc. Reading them in order is highly advised, but there is a lot of summarizing and it is possible to read them out of order. I love getting to see the beginning of how Valdemar was formed. The characters were good, but I didn’t love the first king of Valdemar as much as I wanted to. He was surrounded by some great characters. I really liked Delia a lot and I am looking forward to see where else her story branches off to. I love that the Hawkbrothers were in this one as they have always been some of my favorites.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5093638720

We already knew the destination. What Valdemar is, what it became, seemed fully formed all the way back in Arrows of the Queen, which takes place almost 1400 years after the founding of Valdemar and was originally published in 1987. We’ve known the destination for a very long time.

This is the journey. Literally. Just as Beyond was the final push to start that journey, Into the West is the journey itself. Complete with all the cold, mud AND bugs that any adventure requires.

But, where Beyond was a story of running away, Into the West is a story about running towards.

As high as the stakes were, and still are, in the events that opened the way for Valdemar and his people to leave the corrupt Eastern Empire, the story itself built to a big climax – even bigger than Kordas Valdemar himself expected.

That part’s over. They’ve gotten away – at least for the moment. They believe that they left enough of a mess behind that it will take some time for the Empire to get its political shit into a big enough and unified enough pile to come after them.

Leaving a crater where the capital used to be should keep things back in the Empire in disarray for quite some time. At least until the surviving nobles and warlords and military commanders shake out which of them is going to be in charge and possibly charge after the fleeing Valdemarians.

If they can even find them after however much time that’s going to take.

So the big thing that everyone was working towards has been accomplished. Everyone was willing to unite towards that gigantic and hugely dangerous common goal. Into the West is the story of what happens next.

On the one hand, it’s an adventure. They are headed, as the title proclaims, into the west. To the place where the Mage Wars magically corrupted the land and everything on it centuries before. Kordas Valdemar knows that the land is still dangerous, but hopes that the intervening centuries have allowed the land to recover enough to make it habitable for his people.

On the other hand, it’s every bit as much of a political story as Beyond. But like the difference between running away and running towards that is the lynchpin of each book, Beyond’s portrait of the Eastern Empire was a lesson in what NOT to do and what NOT to be. It’s up to Baron Valdemar, the man who will be Valdemar’s first king, to figure out what his country and its people should do and will be in the centuries to come.

All they have to do is get past all the things and people that want to kill them along the way.

Escape Rating B: If you’ve read Beyond – and I highly recommend it – Into the West picks up just where Beyond leaves off. That Valdemar and his people are now beyond the reach of the Empire and are headed into the west.

Which makes this a much different type of story than the previous book – one that isn’t quite as exciting – but is very much necessary – in the opening several chapters.

The big story, of course, centers around Kordas Valdemar, the man who will be the first king of the country that will be named after him. If one has even read a cursory summary of the previous published books in the Valdemar series – which nearly all come AFTER this one in the internal chronology – one already knows that Kordas succeeded. He did become the legendarily good king that the history books talk about nearly a millennium later in The Last Herald-Mage series.

Which, by the way, doesn’t mean you have to have read any of the series previously in order to enjoy Beyond and Into the West. And certainly not that you have to have read any of them recently. Like even in this century recently.

But Into the West is the story of Kordas, not as a myth or a legend, but as a man facing a seemingly impossible job with an all-too-real case of impostor syndrome. He has to do this, He promised his people he’d do this. He’s in over his head and knows it – not that anyone wouldn’t be over their head under the circumstances.

He’s doing the best he can to make the best decisions he can to save not just the most people but the most people with the right ethics and the right moral compass along the way.

So this is the portrait of the legend as a real man, with all his flaws and all his virtues. And by the nature of that portrait, it is also an up close and personal view of how the sausage of government gets made.

For a lot of the story, their journey reads as more of a series of vignettes than a continuous narrative. While there are hints of the everyday drudgery of getting this mass of folks moving, the high points of the story naturally occur when things happen. Sometimes disastrously but just as often when conflicts are avoided or when kindness is paid forward and back along the way.

And then at the end they learn just what it is they’ve let themselves into – and it’s explosive and page-turning and even brutally epic.

But the getting there has a couple of hitches that Beyond didn’t, one which deals with the story in its present, and one which has its impact because of the future that is known but hasn’t happened yet. And one bittersweet heartbreaker to tempt us all to keep reading or go back and read again.

There’s a piece of Into the West that is a coming of age story for Kordas’ much younger sister-in-law Delia. In order to help her get over her entirely too obvious and cringeworthy crush on him, Kordas assigns her to a forward scouting party. It’s the making of her and gives the story a way of seeing the perils, trials and tribulations of this big journey at a much smaller and more easily encompassed scale. But her mooncalf obsession over Kordas really slowed the story down until she finally started to get over it.

The second hitch was the expedition’s winter rescue by the Hawkbrothers. As it occurs, it reads very much like a deus ex machina that shortcuts past a lot of what would have been a hard, killing winter even without the surrounding monsters. Once it happens, it does feel like something that had to have happened because it already did. It also provides a touching pause between disasters just before the newly fledged Valdemarians discover that their oh-so-convenient rescuers weren’t nearly as all-knowing as they pretended to be.

When Into the West wraps up after a truly epic concluding battle, the story is at a point where it could be the end of this Valdemar subseries. But I hope it isn’t, and that’s because of that bittersweet little heartbreaker at the end.

The one signature feature of the entire Valdemar series that we do not see in either Beyond or Into the West are the marvelous, magical, horse-like Companions who serve as guides, friends and even consciences of the best and brightest that Valdemar the country has to offer. But I think we’ve met the people who will become them, and in a scene that just about breaks the heart we get just a hint of what depth of love and kind of sacrifice was needed to make the Companions possible. And I want there to be a third book in the Founding of Valdemar so I can find out if I’ve guessed right.

But in the meantime there’s a new collection of Valdemar stories, Shenanigans, that I’ll be reviewing next week followed by a new novel about Valdemar’s legendary gryphons, Gryphon in Light, coming this summer.

In the sequel to BEYOND, Mercedes Lackey picks up pretty much where Book 1 left off. Baron Kordas and his people have fled the Empire and are now looking for a new home where they aren't going to dispossess anyone already living there. Most of the book felt very much like a 'bridge' book, that awkward book between where things start and how things end that doesn't quite know how to keep up the pace. It is character driven, alternating between Kordas and Delia as each of them becomes used to their new lives on the move, how best to do what needs to be done in order to survive, and what their new role really is in everything. I liked seeing behind Kordas' facade: seeing his concerns and flaws and how very human he is, how unsure he is of what he's doing and how much trouble he has delegating things to others because of how much responsibility he feels. If you've read other trilogies in the Valdermar cannon you know that the myth of the first King is him being pretty much perfect, so it's good to see the human truth behind that myth. Delia was a bit more annoying for me. Her crush on Kordas felt forced, especially since he's married to her sister. But I liked seeing her growing up and coming into her own with her Gift.

The pace was really slow for about 3/4s of the book, with little side quests and plenty of repetitious speeches about who they should strive to be as a people along the way. Then, right when I didn't think I could handle anymore, BANG!, everything changed and I couldn't put the book down.
*Warning: Mild spoilers ahead*
A touch of 'deus ex machina' suddenly makes anyone familiar with the cannon reevaluate everything they've been reading when the HawkBrothers arrive with the perfect place for our refugees to live. If you haven't read the others, that's ok, you're mostly just missing 'Easter eggs'. Now things go from plodding to the more interesting how-to-turn-a-Vale-into-a-city, meeting people who use amazing amounts of magic, different sentient species, and you see how Valdemar is going to start coming together.

I admit, I am still not a fan of Lackey's 'newer' style of writing, which uses a more relaxed writing style, more rambling and tangents, plenty of 'now's and 'well's, as if we are listening to someone talking or thinking out loud even when we aren't. But it has been her style for long enough now that I've learned to deal with it, even though I prefer her older writing style better. The basic plot is still interesting enough that I want to find out what happens and how it will happen.

I definitely recommend reading BEYOND first, as Book 1 in the series will help you get invested in the characters and their journey beforehand.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

ing to be the book that disappoints me or doesn’t live up to my expectations for some reason. Into the West by Mercedes Lackey as so damn good that I don’t think I have the words to properly express just how much I loved this book. I spent my entire day off reading it and then spent the next day rereading it just to make sure I didn’t miss anything the first time through.

Normally when I finish a book I like to sit down and take some time to think about what I liked or didn’t like about said book and why, but that just wasn’t necessary with Into the West. It took maybe three chapters before I knew that this would finally be the book that would replace Owlflight as my favorite book in the series and I knew exactly why I loved it as much as I did. There is just this amazing sense of exploration and adventure to this book and I loved every damn minute I spent reading it. Exploration stories are usually my favorite type of story and Mercedes Lackey did an amazing job giving us such a story with Into the West.

I just loved reading about Baron Valdemar and all his people as they slowly explore westward in an attempt to find a new home for their people. It was honestly just so much fun having to stop reading every once in a while to wonder if that creature they were just fighting was a Wyrsa or if we had just met the people of Lake Evendim for the first time. I don’t know how a book can feel so new and exciting, yet manage to be oddly familiar at the same time but Into the West managed it.

This is definitely a book I would not hesitate to recommend to anyone looking for something new to read, though I would highly recommend people start with Beyond first so they aren’t too confused. Then I would suggest anyone who hasn’t done so go back and read all the rest of the Valdemar books because they are all great reads.

Revisiting the world of Valdemar after being away for such a long time was a wonderful and refreshing experience. Into the West is the second part in the "The Founding of Valdemar" series and was a delightful continuation of the story. It picked up right after the events in Beyond.

After decades of secrets and plotting, Kordas and his people had finally escaped the empire and has travelled into a new land searching for a place they can call their own. Along the way, they were faced by many challenges and the ordeal of relocating a huge group of people in an unknown region while keeping them safe and trying hard not to antagonize the locals. The gritty details of their travels sometimes bogged down the pacing and can be a little boring however, the rest of the story did make up for it.

The book focused on Kordas and Delia and their character growth. It was nice seeing Delia became an integral member of the group and come into her own. The plot where she had romantic feelings for Kordas was something that I really didn't like and I was happy to see an end to it here.

From the previous stories and the myths told generations later on, Kordas was portrayed as great and perfect and just be the embodiment of virtue. It was so good to see how human he was here. We got to see his flaws, the struggles he needed to overcome, his fears, joys and pain. We also saw him be a father alongside the ever developing leader part of him. If you've read the other books prior jumping into this series, you get rewarded by little details that's very satisfying to know.

Overall, this was a wonderful read and I can't wait for book 3.

I'd give this 4.25 stars out of 5 stars.

I received an ARC of this book from Astra Publishing House via NetGalley and I have chosen to publish my fair and honest review.

Though the people of Baron Valdemar’s lands have fled the tyrannical empire, they have more problems ahead of them. With 15,000 people having magically and suddenly appeared on the shores of Crescent Lake, the lake and its surroundings simply cannot support them all for a long period of time. Baron Kordas Valdemar and his leadership circle knew this would be a problem, but now they’re facing the reality of dealing with it. And so Kordas turns his attention to dealing with the situation by pointing his people westward, into a wild land emptied of inhabitants long ago after a massive battle between two nearly all-powerful mages twisted the land and the creatures that lived there. The farther people travel, the stranger things get. They are hunted by impossible-seeming creatures, and soon it becomes apparent that they’re not as alone as they thought they were.

Every good real estate agent knows the three more important parts of finding a new home: location, location, location. The same would seem to be true when you’re traveling through unknown and magical lands, but for Mercedes Lackey in this story, the three most important elements are actually logistics, logistics, logistics. One of the hallmarks of the majority of Lackey’s stories are the hypercompetent people going out and solving difficult problems. As Kordas Valdemar was raised to think of all the possible problems– and the solutions for those problems– that he and his people might face in their travels, the incessant logistics usually make sense (though I’m not inclined to believe that a man with medieval levels of knowledge will know about ecosystems or microorganisms present in lakes). The problem arises from how incessant the logistics are after the first several chapters. Does one really wish to hear about the processes by which the people of Valdemar deal with manure multiple times? Probably not.

Fortunately, the characters rise above Lacke’s logistical obsession. Kordas learns what it takes to rule an independent land, Delia learns that she is a productive member of society and that she can do amazing things on her own. There definitely could be more from the other characters– the Six, for example, or Hakkon or Jonaton are all colorful enough to warrant more page time than they receive, and that’s a shame. Some of the ink devoted to detailing manure disposal or the management of river banks could have been devoted to their exploits instead.

Still, though logistics and social problem-solving are at the forefront of the book, it is still an entertaining read. There is an immense appeal to reading about hypercompetent people solving their problems and making impossible situations work out, and if certain issues are wrapped up very conveniently, well, that is another hallmark of Lackey’s Valdemar novels. There are problems to solve, clever quips to be made, and happy endings to achieve. The clever people are out there doing clever things, and it’s a nice change from reality to watch them go about their business, cut through metaphorical red tape, and just get things done. So while the lengthy discussions of logistics might get a little old after a while, they’re well-seasoned by fun character elements and development, which makes the less interesting bits less dry.

Mercedes Lackey may not be the most adventurous of writers, but she knows how to deliver a satisfying story with familiar beats and tropes that keep her readers coming back for more. Into the West is another entry in a long line of entertaining books that gives readers a look into a world where, unlike reality, a society’s leaders spend the majority of their time thinking of ways to make life better for everyone.

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Thank you to NetGalley and DAW Books for providing me with a free eGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Into the West by Mercedes Lackey is a deeply engrossing read for fans of the Valdemar universe. Lackey's writing is always a treat, and this novel is no exception. We continue to learn about the Founding of Valdemar as begun in the first book of the series. This book is exciting, full of the adventure you would expect for such an undertaking, and giving us a clear perspective on what the early people of Valdemar had to go through and accomplish. I highly recommend this book for fans of Valdemar.

Duke Kordas Valdemar is moving his people into the unknown wilderness to escape the corrupt Empire. With 15,000 people following him what could go wrong. Into the West is the second book in the trilogy fantasy saga..
Mercedes Lackey has a triumph in Into the West. The strange dangers and creatures and the dynamics in Valdemaran society weave a complex story about people with special powers, who still have human foibles. Read and enjoy.

A story that captures the tale of the creation of Valdemar for people very nostalgic for that world.

Baron Valdemar and his people know they need to move on from their temporary haven of Crescent Lake. They built a chain of barges all traveling West into the wilderness destroyed by the Mage Wars thousands of years ago. They run into some unexpected challenges, and someone watching them.

Overall, if you love tales set in the world of Valdemar, getting this glimpse into its creation is awesome. It feels like a very character-driven story, which is a bit unusual for fantasy novels, but I enjoyed seeing the inner workings of some of the characters and how they approached the challenges of the Valdemar Expedition.

For me the biggest struggle of this book was that it all felt very low-stakes. I really thought it was like those video games where you are going on a quest to find a utopia and face a bunch of small side-quests along the way. Although it was enjoyable to read, I definitely didn't really get drawn into the story and I wasn't concerned about the characters at any point. It's definitely not a bad book, but it's also probably not something I'm going to go back to and read again since it just didn't really create any emotional response for me.

If you have spent a lot of time immersed in the other books in the world of Valdemar, I think it's enjoyable to read what's basically the development of their creation story. If this series is your first dip into the writing of Mercedes Lackey, look elsewhere.

Thank you to NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for providing an advanced copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own.

For me two thirds of the book dragged because of the level of detail the author went into describing the logistics of moving a large group of people around. From what they slept on, to how they prepared food and how food was shared out etc. For a long time, it felt like I was actually reading a book about logistics. I do feel the book would have benefited from more edited and summarization. Too much detail overkill. That said, the final third of the book saw them finally settle. There was action, magic wielding and magical forces to contend with and it was more interesting.

This book has the Baron and his people traveling by boat to find a place far away from the mess the Empire is currently in. The story has two groups the main group and the scouts that have his sister-in-law with them checking the river to see if it is safe ahead. Things pretty much go smoothly for such a large group of people on the run with their herds. The Baron’s people bump into the Hawkbrothers and they help them find what they are looking for in a place to settle. This is really a solid middle book of a trilogy and fans will be happy to read about the first-time meetings of the two groups but by the end of the book there are some clues about what will happen in the next book. A good book for fans but may not be the best place for a new reader to start.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley

Valdemar beginnings!

Having passed through a gate into a new land, Baron Kordas Valdemar’s people and those who accompanied them, including the “Dolls” were eager to move forward.
Kordas is trying to move over fifteen thousand people, their equipment, livestock and barges, in the hunt for unoccupied land.
First he has to deal with someone whose brutally attacked on of the Dolls, vrondi elementals trapped in a human shaped body that they animated. That he would not put up with! As the tale progresses we see the remarkable development of the elements. And remember, what one knows they all know. What they become eventually will I’m sure be remarkable.
Delia, Kordas’ sister-in-law, who’s been besotted with him, finally makes the break and comes into her own as a member of the scouting group.
Kordas leads his people along the waterways, beside a dangerous brooding forest, with inhabitants that looked like they’d been part of a change circle.
Then they come to an area that is protected, a vale built by Hawkbrothers, the Tayledras.
Would they be accepted or not, and what does it all mean for the founders of Valdemar?
Another tense tale in the series, citing the beginnings of the Valdemar we know and love.

An Astra House ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.

Into the West
The Founding of Valdemar: Book Two
by Mercedes Lackey
Lacking in cohesiveness that previous book had. This was a rough read. I could not connect to the characters like i have in the prior book. It seems forced.
I like that it shows the world building nature of the story.
I would recommend it for young fantasy fans.

"Into the West" is a fantasy. It's the second book in a series, and you'll better understand this book if you read them in order. This book also spoiled events in the first book.

Unfortunately, about a third of this book could have been cut or briefly summarized without changing the story, and the pacing would have been a lot better. The beginning dragged as we're told in people's thoughts (not shown, but told) how the people have been making do and using every last bit of resources with nothing to waste. We're told again and again the details about how every part of an animal was used for food, arrows, condoms, etc. We're not just told that they made winter clothing, we're given details about how it was sewn together. Details about how the manure left behind was handled and how a quick-growing grass spell worked (though this changed by the end, when dung wasn't apparently needed any more and even the rain was diverted). The author obviously put a lot of thought into the logistics of how to move thousands of fictional people in a magical world, but I just found this boring. Just say they made winter clothing, not half a page detailing how, especially as it didn't turn out to matter how they did it.

The Baron wasn't very interesting or realistic, either. Despite the first few sentences, he didn't really seem to struggle to change his ways from Empire ways to fully noble and self-sacrificing. He rarely made mistakes (though we're told why about halfway through) and everyone loved him (or got kicked out of the group). He gave himself pages-long lectures about how a wise leader acts. He and others thought about every last detailed reason why certain actions were or weren't allowed (like not letting the tow horses eat while working). He had a full conversation with one group of people and then went to a new group and repeated that full conversation. Things were just repeated a lot. When he negotiated near the end, he made everything extremely complicated in his thoughts, and I just gave up and skimmed that section rather than try to follow his reasoning.

However, Delia's sections were fun as she learned to use her skills and grew into a responsible adult. The sections with the fights against the odd, magical creatures were interesting as the characters had to think fast and experiment to see what would work. There were no sex scenes. There was a fair amount of bad language.

I do love Lackey’s books. It’s been what? 35 years since her first book? They will always hold a special spot in my bookish heart for their gentle wholesomeness. I was glad to get to read the ARC. I’ve got the book on back order but it’s nice to not have to wait any longer! It’s definitely a book for readers who are already a fan of the Valdemar books. There’s Easter eggs abounding with tidbits of this and that dropped into the book. I think someone new to the books might find it a bit much but it put a smile on my face. I look forward to the final book.