I just love Mercedes Lackey. I love her Wiccan detective and her urban elves and her grown-up fairy-tales and her bird-named bards, but much more than any of them, I just love Valdemar.

These tales of sentient, spirit-filled white horses with their soul-deep bond to their Chosen, and the good -- and bad -- folk that surround them are endlessly fascinating to me. Her plots (most of them in trilogy form) come in almost every fantasy flavor: Coming-of-Age, Rightful Heir, Tragic Hero, Diamond in the Rough, Noble Enemy etc., and they are always, always, always a good time. Lackey’s prose is easy-going and friendly, yet can bring the pain and the intensity as powerfully as the darkest Dark Mage; her characters are fully-realized, multi-faceted and completely accessible; her magical world is one of intrigue and interest, with thousands of years of its history explored (in greater or lesser degrees) through the medium of many an exciting adventure and/or romance during the continuing series.

Would that I could read a new Valdemar novel at least once a month. But, as prolific as Lackey is (and she really is: she has released 26 Valdemar books since her first in 1987, and 90 total – though frequently in collaboration), there is only so much hot white-horsey action one woman can provide. Which is where the Valdemar anthologies come in.

The first one was Sword of Ice (1997), and then came Sun in Glory (2003), Crossroads (2005) and Moving Targets (2008). These anthologies, like many such, have always been a little hit-or-miss, which is bound to happen when you have other writers playing around in beloved lands. Lackey's deft hand with the fantasy world she created is difficult to emulate; however, almost all the aspirants to her perfection manage at least a modicum of success in Changing the World... with two notable exceptions.

Of which, more (much, much more) anon.

First, the Good News: Elisabeth's Waters's "A Storytelling of Crows" and Kristin Schwengel's "Waiting to Belong" and are two excellent additions to the canon. Waters’s Maia and Schwengel’s Shia are both small town girls with extraordinary hearts and abilities, and are as enchanting as some of Lackey’s best.

Michael Z Williamson's "Wounded Bird" brings back sworddancer Riga, first seen in Moving Targets, and shows her as a compassionate and canny trader who doesn’t need a sword to win the day; she returns to vivid life within the pages of a fine story well told.

In other past-anthology-sequel news, Brenda Cooper’s talented twins and Fiona Patton’s fun- and family-filled Iron Street Watch House (both first appearing in Moving Targets) return triumphant. From Crossroads, Tanya Huff’s Herald Jors and his grumpy Companion are back; and in their third anthology outing, Stephanie D. Shaver’s still-lovesick Bard Lelia shows up, as do change-child Ree and his human friend (and later lover) Jem. The latter pair feature in two stories (the first, “Defending the Heart” by Kate Paulk, substantially better than the next, “Matters of the Heart” by Sarah A. Hoyt).

And Lackey herself kicks off the anthology, as always; this time with “The One Left Behind,” a bitter-sweet story of a woman who has hatred in her heart for Companions, their Heralds, and all they stand for; her reasons seem sound enough, but all is not what it seemed, and Marya soon finds out that it is not the evil of the Companions, but the evil that men do, that kept her heart-broken for so long. It’s a very good story.

And now the Bad News:

Judith Tarr’s positively infuriating "Twice Blessed” is well-written, but maddening, spoiling as it does the usually heart-warming thought of being Chosen by having two lifelong rivals being forced to share one Companion. Share a Companion? Oh, that is so, so upsetting a thought; much better not to be Chosen at all. However, Tarr is just that kind of novelist: her characters are often as conflicted and depressingly flawed as even the residents of the Colonial Fleet. Perhaps it’s merely that I don’t happen to enjoy her work in general that I am so disgusted with it here. I doubt it, of course, but I do concede the possibility.

When it comes to the worst sin committed by Changing the World, however (or the worst sin committed by any Valdemar anthology, or indeed any anthology ever), there is no room for doubt. It has nothing whatsoever to do with my feelings for the writer: I quite liked the two stories he contributed to other Valdemar anthologies. But it is the fact that Tarr’s heinous disregard for the sanctity of Choosing is as nothing compared to the appalling outright sacrilege of Benjamin Ohlander's thoroughly ridiculous "Interview with a Companion."

There is so much wrong with this story that it is not just a car wreck, not merely a train wreck, but more like the disaster that would result if the Main Street Omnibus collided with the Disneyland Railroad. Oh, and then one of the spaceships came flying off the Astro Orbiter and forced all the wreckage into the water where it made the Mark Twain River Boat sink. And then it transpired that it was as all due to a terrorist plot. Basically, I’m talking evil unleashed in what was previously a pretty darned happy place.

We begin with would-be journalist Dave Matthews (“no relation”… yeah, why would he be?) arriving somewhere in Kentucky, driving his Chrysler and consulting Google Maps. So we’re clearly not in Valdemar anymore. We’re not in Karse, or Mournedealth, or the Vales either, so already I’m feeling pretty cross. Unless it transpires that 21st Century America is actually what’s been going on inside the borders of the mysterious land of Iftel all this time, I can’t help but think that this story is dumb.

Which, oh, it so is. And proceeds to get way, way dumber. (Possibly its pets’ heads begin falling off.)

It turns out the journalist thinks he’s out in racing country to get the scoop on a jockey scandal, but in fact, he is really there to meet a Companion. Yep, a fricken Companion is there, and starts Mindspeaking Dave. Apparently, Dave had received a passel of books in the mail -- “chick fic” “pastel pony stories” written by the Companions’ “publicist… a woman in Oklahoma” (which is, of course, where Mercedes Lackey lives). The Companion is über-sarcastic and really very nasty to poor bedeviled Dave (although his bad mood could be attributed to the nicotine patch he’s wearing: what the fuck?), as the struggling reporter tries to make sense of fantasy suddenly becoming reality. He asks some questions, gets some expositiony answers (plus this whole digression into a Herald-Mage as battle cruiser/Windows ME simile that could not have been more asinine), and finally asks the question the answer to which pissed me off so much I threw the book across the room with enough force that I think I made a dent in the wall.

“What’s with all the orphans, sneak thieves, and wretched refuse that get pretty ponies?” (ie. Chosen), Dave asks.

I can’t even begin to type the response this question got. I physically cannot do it. Also I would prefer to spare you the pain. Suffice to say, if you are a fan of Mercedes Lackey -- or of any fantasy in general -- I would be very surprised if Benjamin Snide-Idiot Ohlander didn’t make your People I Most Wish Would Die Horribly List (if you, uh, have one) just from reading that passage alone.

There’s a whole slew of other nonsense -- especially this moronic bit about Companions playing a major role throughout Earth’s history -- but I just can’t even think about this travesty anymore. “Interview with a Companion” is categorically the worst piece of fan fiction -- professional or otherwise -- that I have ever read, or would have believed existed. There are 13 year-olds’ ill-spelled, un-capitalized, delusional Twilight re-imaginings (in which Edward dumps Bella and hooks up with an, ahem, 13 year-old girl) that I would read before ever subjecting myself to such a piece of utter excrescence as this actually published so-called Valdemar story.

It is both badly-written and cringe-inducing, a kind of attempt at parody that is neither entertaining nor witty, but is merely mean-spirited and completely idiotic. Parody can be self-aware and self-mocking, and yet can have the power to make one chuckle at the vagaries of fandom; this is not that kind. This is the kind of parody that tarnishes. It has tarnished my feeling for the Valdemar series, and I would never have considered such a thing possible. It is evil and wrong and bad, bad, bad.

If you are a Valdemar fan, then by all means read Changing the World (and if you’re not a Valdemar fan, explain yourself!). There are some excellent stories in here – the aforementioned “Waiting to Belong” is more than worth the price of admission -- but please do yourself the favor of NOT reading the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned final story.

I certainly wish I hadn't. (And perhaps you do now, too.)

  -- Rachel Hyland