The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley: An Elemental Masters Novel

Elemental Masters, Book 16

By: Mercedes Lackey

Narrated by: Zura Johnson

The sixteenth novel in the magical alternate history Elemental Masters series follows sharpshooter Annie Oakley as she tours Europe and discovers untapped powers.

Annie Oakley has always suspected there is something "uncanny" about herself, but has never been able to put a name to it. But when Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show goes on tour through Germany, Bill temporarily hires a new sharpshooter to be part of his "World Wide Congress of Rough Riders": a woman named Frida, who also happens to be an Elemental Master of Air. Alongside this new performer, Annie discovers that she and her husband, Frank, are not simply master marksman, but also magicians of rare ability.

As they travel and perform, Annie must use her newfound knowledge and rare skill to combat creatures of the night scattered across the countryside, who threaten both the performers and the locals. Annie's got her gun, and it's filled with silver bullets.

©2022 Mercedes Lackey (P)2025 Tantor Media

Critic reviews

2022 Dragon Award Winner

Trilling without being grousing

I really liked the struggle and Annie went through to decide whether she wanted to be a magician or not

Excellent story

I have always admired Annie Oakley and this was a wonderful fantasy take as to why her life turned out as well as it did. Disappointed in the performance - I had to play it at maximum volume most of the time to hear it. Also didn’t enjoy trying to figure out who was speaking as the variation in voices wasn’t done well.

Familiar and Unfamiliar

At first I thought we'd get more of the characters we met in Blood Red and From a High Tower... but no. All the characters are new, although we've heard of Annie Oakley and Wild Bill before and they were referenced in the previous German-based books. It was interesting having a real historical character as the mc in the story, but I had no actual knowledge of Annie Oakley other than that she was a famous sharp-shooter. I don't know how long Annie Oakley toured Europe but this story must have been a number of years later than the previous books since their was a female hunt master and no one seemed to find this noteworthy.

This story had many elements in common with From a High Tower and possibly deserved one less star for that, but I liked all the characters and enjoyed my time with the story so it gets all its stars.

entertaining, well written and performed

the reader's voice and accents were hard to heard in the car at times, but overall I enjoyed this audiobook

Disappointed- slow and undeveloped

I love Mercedes Lackey, but this book was very disappointing. The story moved slowly and somehow I just never got invested in it.