The Phoenix Transformed
By Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
Tor, $27.99, 511 pages
You would think that if somebody spent long enough as a published author that she would eventually learn how to write, and yet here is another five-hundred page shovelful of that distinct Mercedes Lackey brand of tedious dreck. Plot holes, bad grammar, flat characters, lame attempts at humor–they’re all part of that festering stew that is The Phoenix Transformed.
Book Three of the Enduring Flame trilogy, this novel reintroduces the reader to Harrier, a reluctant mage-knight, as he and his company find themselves faced with trekking through an unforgiving desert to do battle with a recently released demoness. Their way is grueling and brutal, a sensation that the audience shares as we have to endure page after page of bad logic and amateurish narration. Many obstacles stand in their way, none of which would be a problem if Harrier would only pick up on the fact that his magical ability to call fire appears to always be the easy solution to his combative problems. The chapters drag on in this style, the plot foregoing any sense of rising action and lacking various other points of Creative Writing 101, to eventually deliver a weak and unsatisfying conclusion. A definite must-miss.
Reviewed by Micah Kolding
