Brightly burning Book

Probably because I've been having a bad month, I've been re-reading books from my youth and trying to determine which, if any, hold up now that I'm much older.

This one didn't hold up at all. Of course, I recall not particularly enjoying it when I first bought it on publication, so I'm not sure what it proves.

The main character of this story is Lavan who, like most Lackey heroes, is a poor misunderstood boy whose family just doesn't understand him. He is abused by someone in authority (in this case, both the head of his school and a group of older bullies) until Something Horrible happens, and then everyone is really sorry. In this case, Lavan uses his latent fire-starting magic abilities to kill his bullies by burning them to death.

Of course, Lavan is then chosen by a Companion to become a Herald, thus proving that even though he did this horrible thing, he's a good person at heart, whose abilities will be of utmost importance in defending the Kingdom of Valdemar from the evil religious fanatics to the south.

Also, he's lifebonded to his horse.

This is basically a very fast re-telling of Vanyel: The Angsting, except that while you have three books to get very attached to Vanyel and see him growing out of his whiny phase into an entirely different whiny phase, Lavan's story is over before he even turns 18.

This book includes: people becoming disabled in order to add to the angst level of other characters, magically healed disabilities, main male characters continually talking about the female characters being too weak or delicate to handle things, a dearth of female characters, "simple" country folk being contrasted with the "uppity" city folk, bad parenting, and angst.

This book does not include: a compelling main character.

I did enjoy Herald Pol, who is Lavan's mentor, but I felt that was more because I was dreading when Lavan's POV was going to return more than because of anything making Pol terribly interesting.

This book migrated from my shelf to that of the thrift store. I hope they get more enjoyment out of it.