Mercedes Lackey: A Bard's Tale

This series was based on the RPG series A Bard's Tale, and the books very much follow a fairly typical RPG style in that a rather mismatched party is collected to fulfil a quest. The books were written in collaboration with Mercedes Lackey and several other authors, and tend to revolve around the character of the Dark Elf Naitachal - ex necromancer and now Bard. He doesn't however, feature in the last book Escape from Roksamur. They are light, fun filled and very fast paced, and while the characters aren't very well developed, they are at least good thumbnail sketches and everyone has a distinct voice. Spoilers and synopses ahead...

1) CASTLE OF DECEPTION (Mercedes Lackey, Josepha Sherman) Good fun old-school swords and sorcery read. Kevin the bardling is looking for excitement, and gets more than he bargains for when the niece of a nearby Lord is seemingly kidnapped. Teaming up with a Dark Elf, a Light Elf, and Amazon and a Fairy, Kevin and co must get to the bottom of the problem - and defeat the evil Princess Carlotta before she ruins the kingdom.

2) FORTRESS OF FROST AND FIRE (Mercedes Lackey, Ru Emerson) Frosty version of the tale of Katschei the Deathless, except this time the Katschei is a white dragon, hoarding all sorts of things in his fortress of Frost. Naitachal the Dark Elf bard has a new apprentice, Alaire, and they set off along with a Paladin, a druid, a Master Bowman, a noble Lizardman and a Dwarven Artificer to discover what is going on in the mysterious valley of ice. Good retelling of an old tale

3) PRISON OF SOULS (Mercedes Lackey, Mark Shepherd) Naitachal and Alaire go off to the mysterious kingdom of Suinomen where the us of magic is strictly monitored. They soon become embroiled in a plot to overthrow the king, and Alaire befriends the young roué, heir to the throne Kai, who has been side-lined by the king. The Prison of Souls is a rather ghastly concept wherein people illegally using magic are imprisoned and their souls drained which causes them to age. An old enemy of Naitachal reappears and is behind all of the problems going on in the kingdom. Quick and fun read, but I hate the cover!!

4) THE CHAOS GATE (Josepha Sherman) Chronologically the second book in the series as Kevin (now a Count) is back, and so are the Amazon(Lydia) and the Fairy (Tich'ki). Kevin is looking for a wife, and he and bard Naitachal go off undercover to meet his potential bride. Meanwhile Naitachals clan of evil Dark Elves are trying to capture him and bring him to 'justice' for having betrayed his kind by turning to the light. The dark Elf Queen has set up a gate to recapture him, but the spell goes wrong, leaving whorls of the gate floating around the forest and sending people through them (confusing I know) Kevin ends up captured by the dark Elves, and Naitachal, along with Kevin's bride-to-be, the old crew and an Arachnia invade the Dark realms to get him back. Fun but confusing. Nice to see Kevin etc again though

5) ESCAPE FROM ROKSAMUR (Mark Shepherd) Alaire and his apprentice return to Suinomen, this time without Naitachal, who is off being a Bard somewhere. Alaire's brother (King Derek) sends him back there as an ambassador (because that worked so well the last time) to find out what happened to the last ambassador - he was murdered. Another brother, Craig - a drunkard - accompanies them. During their journey by sea, they are shipwrecked, and all but Alaire, Craig and the apprentice (whose name I forget) are lost. They are helped by a giant psychic wingrat (!?!?!) and eventually make it to the capital. Alaire and King Kai are soon captured by evil Arachnians who pack them off to Roksamur, carried by enslaved wingrats. The wingrat that helped them before returns to help them again, and they find out that Alaire is the 'Prophesied One' who will return the enslaved humans to the homeland and free the wingrats. Meanwhile, Craig is bespelled and throws his lot in with the evil invading Arachnians, and is fooled by Alaire's apprentice who amanged to avoid being kidnapped. For some reason he thinks its a good idea to send the apprentice back to King Derek, but the apprentice has already sent his psychic owl off, and Derek is already marching to the border with an army. (Yes, it's that ridiculous!) Alaire and co set off a volcano on Roksamur, which destroys the island and return to Suinomen in time to meet his brother anf face the invaders. Luckily, Kai's old Spy/Weaponsmaster has been hiding in the castles secret walls, and has amassed a bunch of weapons with which he manages to open the castle gates to Kai and co before they have time to shell the walls - very conventient. A good laugh and very fast paced. Just a crazy, unbelievable, yet very fun book.