I like the books Mercedes Lackey writes, she is good at creating a believable world and people to populate it. While her writing is not the strongest I do find it engaging ang and enjoyable. I like a series I can live inside of and her books are ones that have characters I feel invested in and a world I believe could exist. ( )

This is the final book in the 'Mage Storm's sequence and we get to see the points of view of the party stuck in Urtho's tower as they desparately seek for a device that would absorb the coming cataclysm, Duke then King Tremane of Hardorn as he comes to terms with the power binding him to his new land, and the leaders of the Empire of the East as they try to protect their power bases against an increasingly deranged Emperor Charliss.

The chaarcters in this book become even more characturesof the virtues, or evils that Lackey wants them to portray with little room for shades of grey ( )

Storm Breaking doesn't work quite as perfectly for me for a couple of reasons, but it's still fairly solid. This is in large part due to Karal, who is just a delightful viewpoint character, and his sections work well with the Hardorn bits, which I also enjoy.

The main problem with the whole series is that each book ends with exactly the same climax, just with slightly higher losses. Nothing really innovative happens, and it sucks some of the climax out of the last book when it becomes obvious that we've seen this scene before. It doesn't quite overshadow all the lovely small bits, but... well, don't read this book for the plot.

The lesser problem is the Empire POV scenes. They're wedged in and just don't fit - they'd make an interesting companion novella, but they don't work for me at all as interludes in this book about people I actually like. The Empire has ceased to be the villain, or in fact relevant at all, and this last gasp effort to bring them back flat doesn't work.

Overall, though, I enjoy the trilogy quite a bit. ( )

The Mage Storms trilogy wraps up in an exciting way that was much more tense and action-oriented than the previous novel in the series, which I'm glad to see. The reader gets to see the world as it's known change drastically. Iftel opens its borders, Hardorn gets a new King, the Empire suffers yet more turmoil (and not just from the increasing mage-storms) and most importantly, the structure of magic itself is shattered and must slowly reform. It's all a very fitting finish for this chapter of Velgarth's history, one that does justice to both the large and the small issues of all the major players in the tale.

(Poor Valdemarans, just rediscovering magic and then having to witness it getting scrambled up before they can really get a handle on it.)

But like all things, it has a drawback. In this case, the drawback is the fact that this book -- or rather, this book and the book before it -- were clearly not meant to be read independently of the Gryphon series, which was published round the same time. While the Storms trilogy deals with the echo of the Cataclysm, the Gryphon books deal with Cataclysm itself, and the events that followed. Publishing these series at the same time formed a nice symmetry, but things are mentioned in the Storms books that get no explanation, and the only way to really find out about them is to read the Gryphon novels. The makaar are a prime example of this. Normally Lackey is all over repeat descriptions in her novels, but in this case it's almost like she decided to forgo that tactic in favour of getting people to buy both series for a full explanation. Only having read and remembered the Gryphon trilogy kept me from being confused a couple of times.

At the end of this trilogy, though, I have to say that if you're interested in the Valdemar books, this is a trilogy you can't miss. Not without leaving a serious gap in your understanding of the world and how it works. Though the second book may have been slower than the first, the third comes roaring back with more fascinating things, world-changing events, and the return of a few beloved characters that no doubt made more than a couple of people grin with glee. There are a few books in the Valdemar series that can be skipped without much problem, but this certainly isn't one of them. A must-have for Valdemar fans! ( )

This is the conclusion of the Mage Storms trilogy, so you should read Storm Warning and Storm Rising first--in fact I'd go back further than that, and read the Arrows of the Queen with Talia and the succeeding books.

I don't think this is the strongest grouping among the Valdemar books, but if you do love the preceding books, this entry is entertaining for several reasons. For one, Karal is an engaging protagonist, and its interesting seeing Valdemar from his Karsite perspective. I like also how this concluding book in the trilogy pulls together threads from several preceding books in this universe, in dealing with Urtho and the cataclysm that formed a defining backdrop in the previous books. ( )