So, overall, this was a nice, shallow read that passed the time. And, yes, it is the sort of book that I damn with faint praise.
I have this problem with Lackey's female characters (which partially explains my relationship with the Magic's Pawn etc. trilogy) in that she writes them badly. Its like she has this idea of what women are stereotypically like in fairy tales and it is a woman who is weak and screams too much and is pathetic and her characters will be the exact opposite of that.
THE EXACT OPPOSITE.
EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Every single story has someone telling the main character that she behaves unexpectedly and the main character looking down on not even typical, but stereotypical femininity. There's rarely any reason given and even more rarely any character development to turn these anti-stereotypes into complex three dimensional people.
So, yes, as I knew she would, the heroine annoyed me. Lackey is, overall, bad at writing people and particularly bad at doing thinking people. They tend to think like someone writing out a flow chart, rather than like human beings. They lack...vitality.
But the stories are fun and the premise of the 500 Kingdoms is engaging enough that I'll suffer through the lousy characterization.