I am partway through reading Arrow's Flight by Mercedes Lackey, sequel to Arrows of the Queen, and I already have many thoughts.
Arrows of the Queen wasn't written too well—as in, the writing quality and a bit of the story. A lot of the exposition was conveyed in literal lectures (boring as hell) and the story felt disjointed, springing from one sub-story to the next. The start of Arrows of the Queen was amazing: I loved watching Talia (the main character) be Chosen by her magical horse companion, Rolan, told as if she were halfway between reality and reading the tales of Vanyel.
Arrow's Flight (which I’m halfway through) has better writing. It still has that feeling of disjointedness, but it's diminished. For a while so far I've been a little… offset, I suppose, by the events in the story being so non-confrontational. I think I was going into this book expecting something else: A big adventure, with magic Heralds, swords, and fun horses. It has that, but in the background: The story is slower, more methodical; the story sits with the characters and cares about them. There's a scene with a lot of leadup where Talia is prepping for the Queen or the Queen’s Heir to maybe be assassinated, but nothing of the sort happens. From my experience with other stories, I was expecting there to be a big break—an assassination attempt or maybe something smaller. None of the sort!
The story of Arrow’s Flight so far isn't bad, actually. The writing could be better (it definitely is an improvement over the previous book). I really do love Talia so much. One fault in the story is that there's almost too many characters to keep track of. The characters themselves are mostly bland by themselves with a few exceptions, but their relationships and the dynamics therein, if a little simple, are amazing and I can really feel them. I feel like I have that relationship with them.
The relationship between Talia and Skif is great, and I’m happy that (my own Psapphism intensifies) they’re not fuckin’ and have a more familiar relationship. The meeting between them during the Herald’s revelry is great and tangibly sweet.
A bunch of the story besides the assassination fears is actually really sweet, and I love it. These characters clearly care about each other.
Arrows of the Queen gets a score of a solid D+. Could be better. Arrow’s Flight, so far, is not perfect by any means (it’s rough in a bunch of places, still has too much of the lecture-vibe), but I am genuinely invested.
ALSO! It has the fanfiction dialogue of like "she was all (adjective) and (adjective)" but I am pretty sure that that dialogue trope originated here or is an early instance of it, since Lackey’s books were popular among early fandom (at least, according to the number of filk songs about her stories).