Skimmed the last 25%It started out promising but then it crashed, hard and fast, and somehow just kept getting worse. This book is like that awkward kid who tries too hard to fit in with the cool kids: cringe-worthy and embarrassing. I can see what it was trying to do, but to say it's been done better before is putting it mildly. I don't even know where to start with this one, so list!(view spoiler)[1) So. Much. Rape. Most of it's off-page, but it's like Lackey thinks this is the only threat wom...

I wouldn’t recommend this book.Update: The author recently made some horrifically ignorant and anti-trans comments on her blog. Trigger Warning: There are mentions of one of the characters rape that takes place in her past. Nothing too graphic, but there are no warnings for it in any of the blurbs I've seen. It's best for people to be prepared. Note: This books is a bunch of loosely connected short stories collected into one book. It does not contain the story of Tarma and Kethry's first meeting...

What I was hoping to get in this book: the entertaining exploits of an asexual swordswoman, her badass sorceress adventure-mate, and their animal companions.What I actually got in this book: Rape, so much rape, misogyny, and transphobia. (Being a woman is not a punishment, rape isn't an appropriate punishment for any crime, and having breasts and a vagina doesn't make you a woman. End of story.) I LOVE the partnership between Tarma and Kethry, but there was very little else about this book I fou...

Feb 2018 - bought the Kindle edition, since the pb one I have is pretty elderly by now. Am reminded just how annoying it is when the italics (ML uses them for mental dialog and mindreading, etc) are messed up in the middle of sentences, when the page-scanner screws up so many words ("Warrl" becomes "Ward") or words are broken into nonsensical parts because they were hyphenated in the scanned copy ("reshea thing"), and when the breaks within a chapter, to indicate a change of scene or time passin...

At the time I first read it, this was the first Mercedes Lackey book set on Velgarth I'd come across. I would later pick up Arrows of the Queen, but at that point all I'd read of her work was the Bardic Voices series - which I'd quite enjoyed.As introductions to fantasy worlds go, this is by and large a good one. The characters of Tarma and Kethry remain some of my favorites in any Lackey book. (Kethry's granddaughter Kerowyn is probably my ultimate fave.) They're dynamic and engaging, have an i...

What did I think? That's a hard one. The Oathbound was published 30 years ago. Let's think about that: Mercedes Lackey was certainly a pioneer of her field. In 1988, Mercedes Lackey managed to get a traditional publisher to publish her series starring TWO women with agency. A swordswoman and a sorceress who also wields a sword. The two become mercenaries and there's nary a man to be seen. That part is amazing. What wasn't so amazing was the small things: the causal (off page) gang rapes (there w...

Continuing with my Valdemar read!I was less impressed with this one because it really felt like a few vignettes strung together to become a novel. There wasn't really a cohesive, overarching narrative.What I did like were the two main characters, Tarma & Kethry. This is basically a quest narrative starring two women - a warrior and a mage - which was pretty refreshing. I also loved Warrl, Tarma's familiar, which I pictured as sort of a lynx/wolf hybrid. Next up is Oathbreakers, which revisits Ta...

I really wish I liked this book more than I did. The idea promised by the cover - two oath-sisters, wielding magic and the sword, whose purpose is to protect women - is super badass. But I feel like the word that best fits the actual book is "odd".The structure of the book is odd: multiple times, there'd be a fun leadup to a cool scene/adventure (e.g. there's someone to fight!/they got hired as bodyguards!) but then the actual meat of the thing would be skipped and the next scene would be the bi...

This one's a nope from me. Made me very uncomfortable in a bunch of ways

This was technically a reread, but I remembered so little of what happened it might as well been a first time read. And unfortunately, it was not to be. I couldn't bring myself to reread the whole thing.The Oathbound is a book with numerous issues. It's not even in the "problematic fave" category I'd put Vanyel's trilogy in, it's just plain terrible. First things first: the pacing is horrid. The first 15% or so is entirely an infodump on magic, on the characters' backstories, on everything. The...

I expected to absolutely adore this book. It has lots of things that usually inspire my absolute devotion and love, magical creatures, powerful kick-ass female warriors, rape-revenge plot lines, but I was honestly a bit disappointed in this book. It started out as a series of short stories and you can definitely see where the seams are in the novel it is ultimately presented as. Both Tarma and Kethry have their appearances and backstories referenced in multiple chapters in ways that feel much mo...

I'm heavy into RITA award reading now and can't share those books, so I'm doing a bit more of my #readinghistory! I loved this whole series, but Tarma made a huge impression on me, back in the day. She started my interest in a true warrior woman.

In this book the author does something quite different, with something closer to sword and sorcery literature, but adding something different: a feminine look. You see, instead of the usual cynical barbaric male protagonist we have two women, a warrior and a sorceress, who see things differently. The other differences start from this starting point. Our two heroines have a tender relationship of love and mutual help and together they engage in adventures, having a deeper purpose but along the wa...

I always skip this series when I feel like reading Valdemar novels, I think because I'd heard they weren't actually set in Valdemar proper. And I was right; they aren't, and somehow for me that just made them less enjoyable. I prefer Companions and Heralds, and while this wasn't bad, it just wasn't what I love about Lackey.So it was good, but not great. I will read the next two as I have themin the same new paperback edition, but this won't be a series I'll return to like I do with other books i...

I've read this series so many time since the titles first became available. My copies are all mass market paperbacks that were purchased way before GR and ebooks. It's only now that they make it onto my list but the titles are amongst my forever favorites.

I don't know why I went into this book believing it to have a feminist vibe— albeit some 70s first wave feminism, complete with slut shamey, creepy fetichistic and essentialist vibes, as well as the good ol' rape, which the author uses and... Well, you know the rest.Warning : spoilers ahead.And boy is this book rapey. Both of the characters are raped in their childhood, which sets both of them onto their path of warriorhood, and on the path of this book's disgusting relationship with womanhood a...

TW: (view spoiler)[Rape (hide spoiler)]This one was pretty alright for the most part. The premise? Tarma is a nomad whose tribe was slaughtered by brigands and she swears vengeance by the sword. Kethry is a noble woman who escapes marriage and flees to a school of magic and becomes a sorceress. Their paths cross and by, Tarma’s goddess, they become Oathbound to each other and venture forth on a blood vengeance for the nomad's tribe.So… I was thinking this book would be about an amazing, magical

I will say this -- my favorite aspects of Vows and Honor duology/trilogy/whatever is that the main relationship is between two women and is platonic*. The Oathbound is about two women, Kethry, who used to be a noble of a poverty-stricken house, but after her brother practically sold her into marriage, she took up the path of the mage, and Tarma, a swordswoman from a Nomadic Horse Clan, who became a servant of her peoples' Goddess in order to get revenge on her clan's murder. The two became partn...

There was an awful lot of rape in this book. All of it non-graphic, thank god, but holy shit, man. Does a character need a tragic back story? Rape! What threat can we hang over our heroines' heads? Rape! How should we punish evil? Rape! I understand wanting to create tension and establish that this world is a dangerous place, but at a certain point it starts to feel lazy. Second problem with the book: too straight. There are nods to queer romance here or there, but good ol' Mercedes takes great

Re-read 2019This isn't my favorite trilogy in the Valdemar series. I believe the chapters were originally short stories that go together. So parts of it are choppy and I occasionally feel like I'm missing something. The book does deal with some hard topics including rape, brutal loss of a family, and domestic violence, and you can tell the era they were written during due to how the author deals with the outcomes. I do like that these books give us a view of some of the people from outside Valde...

I've been going though the books I adored as a teen to see how they hold up, decades later. This is a bit of a mixed bag, in part because I am spoiled for choice for interesting fantasy novels with nuanced female characters, thanks in part to Lackey and those who followed her. On the good side, this passes the Bechdel test with flying colors, and while both protagonists are straight, one is asexual/agender (although it's portrayed as being a reaction to assault, rather than her natural inclinati...

I really wanted to like this because I love stories that center on two women with a strong bond, whether that's familiar or platonic or romantic. However, there was so much sexual assault and threat of it in this book that I just couldn't like it. Being a woman isn't and shouldn't be a punishment, even though in this story, it literally is. I think Tarma's status as an asexual warrior could have been really cool, but her body is described as physically changing to be "more asexual," whatever tha...

There’s no going home again, especially with books from your childhood. Not the case with “The Oathbound”. I loved it as much this time as I did in the eighties.Reminds me of “The Witcher” in the sense it’s more a collection of intertwined adventures than an overarching story arc. Although you’ll take a liking to Tarma and Kethry a lot quicker than Geralt. Honestly, I thought it was going to feel campy, reading this many years later. Not even close. Quite the opposite. In fact, it felt more real...

Sooo...I was planning on doing a full review of this series once I'd read the two novels and the book of short stories/novellas. But after reading this first book and then letting it sit...I just don't care to continue. I liked the duo of strong female leads and the world-building was alright...there's potential in the magic system too. But honestly, nothing hooked me enough to make me want to continue on. And there's an awful lot of rape happening to our leads or mentioned in the past and it wa...

2021 reread:I love coming back to these stories. I forgot how much of a central role Thalkarsh plays in this first book. I loved rediscovering how they defeated him time and time again. However, what with trans rights, gender identity, and decoupling of gender and sex all becoming far more pertinent issues in modern life, and having educated myself on them, I find it pretty jarring that they keep referring to the bandit with the sex of the body he inhabits, rather than the gender he feels he sho...

Oathbound is my first foray into the writing of Mercedes Lackey. If I was to characterize this novel, I would say that it was a competently executed, workman-like piece of fantasy fiction. The story wouldn’t be described as epic in scope and I think Ms. Lackey never intended that it should…the parameters of this story are fairly narrow. The two main characters…Tarma and Kethry…are engaging enough, but not overly memorable. If the depiction of men in this novel is any reflection of the author’s v...

Oh, I like this a lot. It's not perfect but I really like all three main characters (even though Tarma is my favourite) and their adventures.This hit my buttons regarding friendship and found family/family of choice quite often. It made me squee under my breath (because I mostly read it on my commute on the train) and just happy. <3I also like some of the little things - the mention of Valdemar, meeting the Hawkbrother, the fact that Warrl bonded to Tamra and so many things more.I like the adven...

Tarma and Kethry are Oathbound sisters. A strange pairing with Tarma being a Sworn Sword and Kethry being a mage. However, the goddess saw fit to bless the ties that bind them and so they travel together as mercenary's. The story felt more like a collection of short stories, each chapter a different adventure.Kethry carries a gea, in the form of a sword called Need. Need calls to Kethry when women, and only women, are in trouble. Once the sword calls to Kethry there is nothing she can do, but an...

First in the Vows & Honor fantasy trilogy for Young Adults and revolving around a woman warrior and a sorceress. The couple focus is on the adventures of Tarma and Kethry and her geased spellsword, Need. It is part of Lackey's Valdemar universe and is set in Valdemar - 1270 AF (After Founding).If you're interested, there is a chronological listing of the Valdemar books on my website.My TakeIt's a feel-good story with great characters . . . okay, versus some bad guys. Ya gotta have some conflict!...

This read like it was comprised of a number of short stories just stuck together, which apparently it was! It doesn’t have much plot, chapters are disconnected and often the narrative builds up to a climax... then it completely skips the event to the characters talking about what happened later on which is frustrating.Not great. A number of people have commented on the amount of rape and abuse in this story already so I won’t go over old ground but a lot of it is dealt with in a problematic way,...