Arrows of the Queen

This book is fantasy in two senses: first, it's a book about people in cloaks and magical powers. Second, it is clearly someone's daydream. Our main character goes from a sexually repressive, religiously constricting polygamist society where women are abused all the time, to a magic school where not only is everyone nice to each other, but there's free love, music, running water, and birth control. Seriously, the MC daydreams and reads books about Herald Mages, and then just as her family is about to sell her into marriage...guess what? She gets picked up by a telepathic horse and taken to magic school where she finds out she's the most important person in the entire kingdom.

I'm not kidding. This is what people mean when they say “eighties fantasy.” Strangely enough, even though Mercedes Lackey was (arguably) the most popular fantasy author immediately pre-Wheel of Time, I don't think this kind of thing was typical, not even from the same publisher (DAW). It's certainly not the best. If you want good “eighties fantasy” I recommend Tiger and Del (Book 1: Sword Dancer) by Jennifer Roberson or The Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn. No disrespect to Mercedes Lackey, but I have yet to find one of her books I could really get into; this one is just wish fulfillment.