What do you think?
Rate this book
Bedlam's Bard #7
Music to My Sorrow
Eric Banyon, also known as Bedlam's Bard, managed to rescue his young brother Magnus from what seemed to be a killer demon (in Mad Maudlin), but now he must rescue Magnus again, this time from their tyrannical parents. Eric does not look forward to the battle, but is confident he can gain custody. His financial sources are virtually unlimited, his friend Ria Llewellyn heads the most high-powered law firm in New York, and in a pinch he and his friends can use to magic powers, even flummoxing a DNA test, it comes to that. What Eric does not know is that his parents are allied with the evangelist Billy Fairchild, who himself is a tool of the evil Unseleighe elves, who feed off human sorrow and suffering. Fairchild specializes in getting "bad" children to shape up, which is accomplished by letting a soulsucker-malevolent creature from the elf world-drain the victim of all talent, creativity, and will, leaving an obedient zombie husk behind. If Magnus and his friend Ace, who is also on the run from her twisted parents, fall into Fairchild's hands, they will join the Unseleighe's zombie ranks. And Eric's bardic magic may not be enough to save them.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2005
About the author
Mercedes Lackey
631 books8,885 followersMercedes entered this world on June 24, 1950, in Chicago, had a normal childhood and graduated from Purdue University in 1972. During the late 70's she worked as an artist's model and then went into the computer programming field, ending up with American Airlines in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition to her fantasy writing, she has written lyrics for and recorded nearly fifty songs for Firebird Arts & Music, a small recording company specializing in science fiction folk music.
"I'm a storyteller; that's what I see as 'my job'. My stories come out of my characters; how those characters would react to the given situation. Maybe that's why I get letters from readers as young as thirteen and as old as sixty-odd. One of the reasons I write song lyrics is because I see songs as a kind of 'story pill' -- they reduce a story to the barest essentials or encapsulate a particular crucial moment in time. I frequently will write a lyric when I am attempting to get to the heart of a crucial scene; I find that when I have done so, the scene has become absolutely clear in my mind, and I can write exactly what I wanted to say. Another reason is because of the kind of novels I am writing: that is, fantasy, set in an other-world semi-medieval atmosphere. Music is very important to medieval peoples; bards are the chief newsbringers. When I write the 'folk music' of these peoples, I am enriching my whole world, whether I actually use the song in the text or not.
"I began writing out of boredom; I continue out of addiction. I can't 'not' write, and as a result I have no social life! I began writing fantasy because I love it, but I try to construct my fantasy worlds with all the care of a 'high-tech' science fiction writer. I apply the principle of TANSTAAFL ['There ain't no such thing as free lunch', credited to Robert Heinlein) to magic, for instance; in my worlds, magic is paid for, and the cost to the magician is frequently a high one. I try to keep my world as solid and real as possible; people deal with stubborn pumps, bugs in the porridge, and love-lives that refuse to become untangled, right along with invading armies and evil magicians. And I try to make all of my characters, even the 'evil magicians,' something more than flat stereotypes. Even evil magicians get up in the night and look for cookies, sometimes.
"I suppose that in everything I write I try to expound the creed I gave my character Diana Tregarde in Burning Water:
"There's no such thing as 'one, true way'; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good -- they're the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren't willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race."
Also writes as Misty Lackey
Author's website
"I'm a storyteller; that's what I see as 'my job'. My stories come out of my characters; how those characters would react to the given situation. Maybe that's why I get letters from readers as young as thirteen and as old as sixty-odd. One of the reasons I write song lyrics is because I see songs as a kind of 'story pill' -- they reduce a story to the barest essentials or encapsulate a particular crucial moment in time. I frequently will write a lyric when I am attempting to get to the heart of a crucial scene; I find that when I have done so, the scene has become absolutely clear in my mind, and I can write exactly what I wanted to say. Another reason is because of the kind of novels I am writing: that is, fantasy, set in an other-world semi-medieval atmosphere. Music is very important to medieval peoples; bards are the chief newsbringers. When I write the 'folk music' of these peoples, I am enriching my whole world, whether I actually use the song in the text or not.
"I began writing out of boredom; I continue out of addiction. I can't 'not' write, and as a result I have no social life! I began writing fantasy because I love it, but I try to construct my fantasy worlds with all the care of a 'high-tech' science fiction writer. I apply the principle of TANSTAAFL ['There ain't no such thing as free lunch', credited to Robert Heinlein) to magic, for instance; in my worlds, magic is paid for, and the cost to the magician is frequently a high one. I try to keep my world as solid and real as possible; people deal with stubborn pumps, bugs in the porridge, and love-lives that refuse to become untangled, right along with invading armies and evil magicians. And I try to make all of my characters, even the 'evil magicians,' something more than flat stereotypes. Even evil magicians get up in the night and look for cookies, sometimes.
"I suppose that in everything I write I try to expound the creed I gave my character Diana Tregarde in Burning Water:
"There's no such thing as 'one, true way'; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good -- they're the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren't willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race."
Also writes as Misty Lackey
Author's website
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 25, 2015
The latest in Lackey's urban fantasy universe. I find that her constant soapboxing makes me roll my eyes, but after the initial very heavy-handed first chapter, the rest was fairly easy to ignore. She can tell a damn good story, despite some fairly serious flaws in her characterization that I'm finding harder and harder to overlook. For the past year or so, I've been picking up Lackey unsure what to expect. I will still read her books but I'm not head over heels for them like I used to be. Her characters are too black and white, her plotting is a little too convenient, and she constantly hammers her pet issues, which sometimes make her books a little hard to swallow. Still, I've loved this series from the very beginning and it is always nice to revisit old friends.
September 2, 2022
It's sort of bittersweet reading this book, as it means I'm basically finally done with the Bedlam's Bard series. I first stumbled across it in college and read the middle two books, and now, years and years later, I've read the whole thing. Well, there is still the Bedlam's Edge short story collection but I'm not expecting to see Eric much if at all in that.
Fortunately, while I found the previous book a little disappointing, this manages to end the series on a high note. Now that Ace and Magnus have been fully established as characters, the authors can do more with them than just have them living on the street. Both kids are trying to escape their pretty awful parents - Ace by becoming an emancipated minor and Magnus by being adopted by Eric. The latter is especially fun because it feels like a nice culmination of Eric becoming more and more of a responsible adult. He's gone from going with the flow and wandering Ren Faires stoned to having family and friends and people relying on him. Plus Eric is claiming Magnus is his son, not his brother, with a backstory of a mistake kid that perfectly fits his early book character.
But of course the parents aren't willing to give up without a fight. Eric and Magnus's parents are countersuing and eventually find their way to using the services of Christian Family Intervention, one of the organizations under the banner of Ace's dad Billy Fairchild. Billy is also determined to get Ace back so he can continue to exploit her magical ability to control emotion through songs. But there's a more sinister figure behind Billy - the unseelie Sidhe, Gabriel Horn. Horn had been a more minor villain in the last book, but now he takes center stage. And in a nice twist that helps me appreciate the previous book a little more, it turns out he's Jaycie's dad, turning the whole story into a parents versus children conflict.
The previous book had a number of different plot threads that took too long to really weave together and sometimes didn't quite manage to do so. But this time, while there are a bunch of different things going on, they all manage to tie back to Billy Fairchild and Gabriel Horn, helping to keep the plot more coherent from the start. Even Parker Wheatley is drawn in when he shows up, joining Fairchild's church and claiming the elves are demons to help sell his services to a new crowd. And in what has become standard for this series, Horn wants to cause as much havoc as he can in the human world, largely for his own amusement. Thanks to his direction, Fairchild has started courting the white power fascist side of Christianity, and much of the commentary in this book from 2005 resonates a bit too well in 2022.
The action and the characters are well done. I'm sad that some of the characters who were important early on, like Beth and Kory, have pretty much fallen by the wayside at this point, but Kayla has some fun stuff to do, especially when she drags the pug she's petsitting into the middle of the conflict. And there's a fun bit towards the end where Hosea meets somebody who knew his granddad and it's revealed grandpa Songmaker was in the OSS. The climax of the book involves something that I'm surprised the story hasn't hit on before now - a rock off between Eric and his buddies on one side and an evil bard and his band on the other. It feels like it really gets to the heart of what the series likes to do with music while also being a great scene.
Overall, this was a great installment and a nice sendoff to Eric and his adventures. I am a bit sad there aren't more books, but then again it's always good to end things right rather than drag it out too long. Plus if I need my modern elf fix in the future, perhaps I can finally try the books in this same setting about racecar driving elves. It's a ridiculous premise, but it's not as if Bedlam's Bard has shied away from wackiness, and there are plenty of books in that series.
Fortunately, while I found the previous book a little disappointing, this manages to end the series on a high note. Now that Ace and Magnus have been fully established as characters, the authors can do more with them than just have them living on the street. Both kids are trying to escape their pretty awful parents - Ace by becoming an emancipated minor and Magnus by being adopted by Eric. The latter is especially fun because it feels like a nice culmination of Eric becoming more and more of a responsible adult. He's gone from going with the flow and wandering Ren Faires stoned to having family and friends and people relying on him. Plus Eric is claiming Magnus is his son, not his brother, with a backstory of a mistake kid that perfectly fits his early book character.
But of course the parents aren't willing to give up without a fight. Eric and Magnus's parents are countersuing and eventually find their way to using the services of Christian Family Intervention, one of the organizations under the banner of Ace's dad Billy Fairchild. Billy is also determined to get Ace back so he can continue to exploit her magical ability to control emotion through songs. But there's a more sinister figure behind Billy - the unseelie Sidhe, Gabriel Horn. Horn had been a more minor villain in the last book, but now he takes center stage. And in a nice twist that helps me appreciate the previous book a little more, it turns out he's Jaycie's dad, turning the whole story into a parents versus children conflict.
The previous book had a number of different plot threads that took too long to really weave together and sometimes didn't quite manage to do so. But this time, while there are a bunch of different things going on, they all manage to tie back to Billy Fairchild and Gabriel Horn, helping to keep the plot more coherent from the start. Even Parker Wheatley is drawn in when he shows up, joining Fairchild's church and claiming the elves are demons to help sell his services to a new crowd. And in what has become standard for this series, Horn wants to cause as much havoc as he can in the human world, largely for his own amusement. Thanks to his direction, Fairchild has started courting the white power fascist side of Christianity, and much of the commentary in this book from 2005 resonates a bit too well in 2022.
The action and the characters are well done. I'm sad that some of the characters who were important early on, like Beth and Kory, have pretty much fallen by the wayside at this point, but Kayla has some fun stuff to do, especially when she drags the pug she's petsitting into the middle of the conflict. And there's a fun bit towards the end where Hosea meets somebody who knew his granddad and it's revealed grandpa Songmaker was in the OSS. The climax of the book involves something that I'm surprised the story hasn't hit on before now - a rock off between Eric and his buddies on one side and an evil bard and his band on the other. It feels like it really gets to the heart of what the series likes to do with music while also being a great scene.
Overall, this was a great installment and a nice sendoff to Eric and his adventures. I am a bit sad there aren't more books, but then again it's always good to end things right rather than drag it out too long. Plus if I need my modern elf fix in the future, perhaps I can finally try the books in this same setting about racecar driving elves. It's a ridiculous premise, but it's not as if Bedlam's Bard has shied away from wackiness, and there are plenty of books in that series.
March 17, 2021
This was a brilliant conclusion to the Bard Tales series, and something that, while dotting all the i's, and crossing all the t's, also gave me a roller coaster of a ride along the way.
Like all of Misty's books, this had great characters, powerful plotlines, and plenty of moral situations to keep me occupied - and the urge to just keep on reading, no matter what - and, once again, keeping me up until the early hours of the morning (in reality, until 5a.m!)
I'll be sad to see Bard Eric and his friends go - though I do have a book of short stories to read next, all set in the urban fantasy world of the Sidhe - Bedlam's Edge - so I guess it'll be another day or so until I start the next series, written by Misty - the Diana Tregarde books, that I've owned for some time now, but still haven't read!
I'm really loving these books!
Like all of Misty's books, this had great characters, powerful plotlines, and plenty of moral situations to keep me occupied - and the urge to just keep on reading, no matter what - and, once again, keeping me up until the early hours of the morning (in reality, until 5a.m!)
I'll be sad to see Bard Eric and his friends go - though I do have a book of short stories to read next, all set in the urban fantasy world of the Sidhe - Bedlam's Edge - so I guess it'll be another day or so until I start the next series, written by Misty - the Diana Tregarde books, that I've owned for some time now, but still haven't read!
I'm really loving these books!
May 20, 2021
This book has an undercurrent of what happens with Christianity and White Supremacy when they combine.
It was chilling at times to read, because it called out many of the things that are currently happening in our political world to a scary degree.
Excellent read!
It was chilling at times to read, because it called out many of the things that are currently happening in our political world to a scary degree.
Excellent read!
August 16, 2020
More happenings with elves.
June 7, 2022
Full review here:
https://jamesgenrebooks.blogspot.com/...
Convoluted, but a thrilling end to Eric and Magnus's stories.
https://jamesgenrebooks.blogspot.com/...
Convoluted, but a thrilling end to Eric and Magnus's stories.
March 2, 2014
Eric Banyon, also known as Bedlam's Bard, managed to rescue his young brother Magnus from what seemed to be a killer demon (in Mad Maudlin), but now he must rescue Magnus again, this time from their tyrannical parents. Eric does not look forward to the battle, but is confident he can gain custody. His financial sources are virtually unlimited, his friend Ria Llewellyn heads the most high-powered law firm in New York, and in a pinch he and his friends can use to magic powers, even flummoxing a DNA test, it comes to that.
What Eric does not know is that his parents are allied with the evangelist Billy Fairchild, who himself is a tool of the evil Unseleighe elves, who feed off human sorrow and suffering. Fairchild specializes in getting “bad” children to shape up, which is accomplished by letting a soulsucker—malevolent creature from the elf world—drain the victim of all talent, creativity, and will, leaving an obedient zombie husk behind. If Magnus and his friend Ace, who is also on the run from her twisted parents, fall into Fairchild's hands, they will join the Unseleighe's zombie ranks. And even Eric's bardic magic may not be enough to save them.
September 27, 2015
This was a re-read of the Bedlams's Bard series. I originally read these books, when they were first published, and devoured them as soon as each was published.
Urban fantasy before it was called urban fantasy I remember being entranced and thrilled with the changes and modernization of fantasy.
Years, Decades later this series still rings true, it is enjoyable Mercedes Lackey style. With a bit of magic, hard looks into cultures and places that were not so common in Fantasy books at the time, Just enough disturbing looks into real issues and the plight of runaways and children mixed with the good Vs evil and struggles of not just the humans, but also the magical and Fae in this world.
I will say I was again a little disappointed when the world moved from the enchanting world of the Re-Faires to the streets of New York - breaking this into 2 series within one.
Urban fantasy before it was called urban fantasy I remember being entranced and thrilled with the changes and modernization of fantasy.
Years, Decades later this series still rings true, it is enjoyable Mercedes Lackey style. With a bit of magic, hard looks into cultures and places that were not so common in Fantasy books at the time, Just enough disturbing looks into real issues and the plight of runaways and children mixed with the good Vs evil and struggles of not just the humans, but also the magical and Fae in this world.
I will say I was again a little disappointed when the world moved from the enchanting world of the Re-Faires to the streets of New York - breaking this into 2 series within one.
September 22, 2014
by Mercedes Lackey AND Rosemary Edgehill.
This is a stand alone book -- or not. Magnus is a teenaged brat who doesn't learn, Hosea speaks in a dialect that wanders but is refreshing, there are characters who are bound by certain circumstances -- unless it's inconvenient to the plot. Lady Day was fun. All the characters don't do anything remarkable until about p. 144. Then the plot becomes a little complicated and difficult to follow if you haven't read much of Lackey's books. A fun read.
This is a stand alone book -- or not. Magnus is a teenaged brat who doesn't learn, Hosea speaks in a dialect that wanders but is refreshing, there are characters who are bound by certain circumstances -- unless it's inconvenient to the plot. Lady Day was fun. All the characters don't do anything remarkable until about p. 144. Then the plot becomes a little complicated and difficult to follow if you haven't read much of Lackey's books. A fun read.
January 22, 2008
An excellent conclusion to the Bedlam's Bard books, giving everyone the satisfaction of a peaceful ending. There are some lovely clever moments in here, but the joy of this book is in the characters; wonderfully sympathetic without being cariactures at all.
April 28, 2008
One of their Bedlam's Bard books, Eric Bannon is back and trying to save his little brother Magnus and Magnus's friend, Ace, from their parents, who are puppets of evil elves. Hosea (another favorite character) is still around, trying to juggle his responsibilities as a bard and a Guardian.
January 8, 2011
I think Ms. Lackey has a thing for the fae. Who doesn't? I have a fetish for them. In this book, we get to see Eric again and I still like him. I love the ren faire tie ins as much as I like the music and how it impacts people and elves alike. This book is good for anyone who likes a bit of romance mixed in with their elves.
November 17, 2007
read 12.30.05
very good series
very good series
Read
January 9, 2010baen ebook
March 2, 2012
Eric, Kayla, Kory, Lady Day, Hosea, Jeanette, Magnus, Grace, Ria - WoW!!!!!!!
November 20, 2013
I don't think I have ever read a Mercedes Lackey novel that I have not enjoyed and this one was no different. Great story, fantastic characters, and an awesome read.
September 28, 2015
Good page-turning stuff.
August 25, 2012
Fanciful series...
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews