individually. With her husband, the artist Larry
Dixon, Lackey continued to expand the history of
Valdemar with The Black Gryphon (1994), The
White Gryphon (1995), and The Silver Gryphon
(1996), set in a time before the events of any of the
previous books. A battle between good and evil
powers, both aided by sorcery, results in the forma-
tion of a new nation. Her next Valdemar novel was
Take a Thief (2001), in which a young man’s
propensity for petty criminality lands him in a great
deal of trouble.
Exile’s Honor(2002) and Exile’s Valor(2003)
show us Valdemar from the point of view of an
outsider. A soldier in the service of one of their en-
emies is captured, during which time he decides
that he has been fighting on the wrong side and
changes allegiances. Although this series has domi-
nated her writing career and contains some of her
most popular pure adventure stories, much of her
best writing is in different settings.
The Lark and the Wren(1992), The Robin and
the Kestrel(1993), and The Eagle and the Nightingale
(1993) make up the Bardic Voices trilogy. A young
woman is determined to pursue a career as a bard,
and to prove her ability she challenges a ghost in
the opening volume, foils a plot to eradicate all the
music in the world in the second, and battles a re-
pressive church hierarchy in the third. Related to
these is Four and Twenty Blackbirds(1997), a story
of magical possession and serial murder. All four of
these are among her very best work.
Joust(2003) and its sequel, Alta(2004), have
much the feel of the Valdemar books. The protago-
nist undergoes a vast change of perspective when
he is chosen to work with dragons, and his un-
orthodox behavior subsequently affects the core
values of his civilization. Several of Lackey’s non-
series novels are also memorable. The Black Swan
(1999) is an interesting retelling of the story of
Swan Lake. The Fairy Godmother (2004) is an
amusing take on a standard fairy tale plot, with the
title character turning a prince into a donkey. The
individual titles in the Elemental Masters trilogy,
The Serpent’s Shadow(2001), The Gates of Sleep
(2002), and Phoenix and Ashes(2004) are each
based on a classic fairy tale such as “Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs” and “Cinderella.” Firebird
(1996) and The Fire Rose(1996) are also retellings
of fairy tales, the latter a variation of “The Beauty
and the Beast.”
Lackey has collaborated with many other writ-
ers, including Piers ANTHONY, C. J. CHERRYH, and
Andre NORTON. Although in general the results
have been less satisfactory than her work alone,
there have been some exceptions. The Serrated
Edge series, which started with Born to Run(1992)
and was written with Larry Dixon, introduced a
borderline world in which elves have infiltrated
our world and interact with humans, although not
in traditional ways. All of the subsequent volumes
in the series have been collaborations as well with
several different authors, including Rosemary
EDGHILL. A similar series about elves and the less
interesting Bard’s Tales series are also written ex-
clusively in collaboration.
Three other collaborative series are more sub-
stantial. With Larry Dixon again she produced the
Owl trilogy, Owlflight(1997), Owlsight(1998), and
Owlknight(1999), a typical fantasy epic about im-
minent war and collapse, enlivened by a well-real-
ized and rather bizarre landscape where magic has
altered the natural order of things. With Dave
Freer and Eric Flint she has written two volumes in
a presumably continuing series about a fantastic al-
ternate Venice, The Shadow of the Lion(2002) and
This Rough Magic(2003), very complex stories of
political intrigues and hidden magic in a 16th-cen-
tury Europe that never was. With James Mallory
she has written The Outstretched Shadow(2003)
and To Light a Candle(2004), a very well written
but overly familiar story of a world poised on the
brink of a magical war.
Oathblood(1990) and The Werehunter(1999)
are both collections of Lackey’s short fiction, which
is generally inferior to her book-length work. Fid-
dler’s Fair(1998) is a much better selection. Lackey
is a very popular, very prolific writer who is at her
best when she moves away from the more familiar
plots and devices of mainstream fantasy and who
has demonstrated a particular talent for transform-
ing fairy tales into new and interesting stories.Lang, Andrew(1844–1912)
Andrew Lang was a Scottish writer who with his
wife, Leonora, edited a series of retellings of tradi-202 Lang, Andrew