Book Review: Spirits White as Lightning

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Spirits White as Lightning     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Mercedes Lackey , Rosemary Edghill
Class/Genre:   Fantasy
Series: Bedlam's Bard # 4
Baen, Dec 2001, $24.00, 437 pp.

In one realm Sir Eric Banyon, known there as Silverflute, a Queen’s Knight, is a hero who saved the world. On a more earthly plane, Eric is a Juilliard student flautist who flunked Introduction to Music Theory because he missed his midterm saving the world from Aerune. Eric attends summer school to make up the credits and stay in school

Of course Eric has other activities intruding on his studies to include a naming ceremony for his daughter Maeve to being ripped by his professor, a technical genius who has no earthly idea how to teach. This is next to nothing for Eric who has faced deadly enemy in combat, but remains unaware that Aerune and the Sidhe are plotting a rematch with a different ending.

SPIRITS WHITE AS LIGHTNING is a humorous "Bedlam’s Bard" tale that cleverly mixes ordinary life with fantasy elements. The amusing story line never slows down as old favorites and villains return for another world threatening engagement in between homework assignments. Eric is a complex hero who can save worlds, fail classes, and look at his infant daughter and seriously claim she looks like Winston Churchill sans cigar; this Queen’s Knight makes the tale sing. Sub-genre fans who relish a comic fantasy romp filled with New York guardians and Vegas elves will join the chorus line of readers singing praise to Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edgehill for their latest collaboration.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner