Beyond by Mercedes Lackey

Beyond
by Mercedes Lackey

ISBN-13: 9780756417338
Hardcover: 384pages
Publisher: DAW Books
Released: June 15th 2021

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from NetGalley:
Within the Eastern Empire, Duke Kordas Valdemar rules a tiny, bucolic Duchy that focuses mostly on horse breeding. Anticipating the day when the Empire’s exploitative and militant leaders would not be content to leave them alone, Korda’s father set out to gather magicians in the hopes of one day finding a way to escape and protect the people of the Duchy from tyranny.

Kordas has lived his life looking over his shoulder. The signs in the Empire are increasingly dire. Under the direction of the Emperor, mages have begun to harness the power of dark magics, including blood magic, the powers of the Abyssal Planes, and enslaving Elemental creatures.

But then one of the Duchy’s mages has a breakthrough. There is a way to place a Gate at a distance so far from the Empire that it is unlikely the Emperor can find or follow them after they evacuate everyone that is willing to leave. But time is running out, and Kordas has been summoned to the Emperor's Court.

Can his reputation as a country bumpkin and his acting skills buy him and his people the time they need to flee? Or will the Emperor lose patience, invade to strip Valdemar of everything of worth, and send its conscripted people into the front lines of the Imperial wars?


My Review:
Beyond is a fantasy novel. I've been reading the Valdemar novels since I was a teenager, and I felt like this was targeted at longtime fans (now adults) rather than teenagers. This also didn't follow the typical novel format and seemed more of a detailed explanation of how to escape an evil empire--which will interest longtime fans, but maybe is not the best story for people start off with.

Every time something seemed to go wrong, that just turned into an opportunity to more effectively escape rather than actually set back or threaten their escape plans. Add to that all of the details of how they made the Gate, the types of things they took, how they were going to survive on the other side in the wilderness, etc., and it wasn't very suspenseful until the very end. I was also disappointed that the author changed the air elementals. The "truth" is now simply a deeply held personal belief rather than a fact. In past books, they were used to determine if someone was telling the truth in a criminal case. Under the current definition, though, someone could deeply believe that putting poison in someone's food was not murder because the victim wasn't forced to eat that food. They could "truthfully" answer that they did not poison or murder someone as that person killed themselves. Anyway.

The world building was obviously very in-depth. The characters were engaging, and Kordas was determined to save as many people as possible even if it meant sacrificing himself. Happily, he was also willing to listen to advice and so came up with better plans than his own. Frankly, I found the enslaved air elementals to be the most interesting characters even though I also felt that this story was not consistent with what was previously told about them. There was no sex. There was a fair amount of bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this novel to long time fans of the series.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.