Four word summary: Better than I expected!So while my wife, Millie, was in labour with our daughter, I read four books (it took a while). It's been a bit trickier to find time to get those four books reviewed since then (we also have a hyper toddler). I doubt many people will read Aerie without having first read the preceding three books in the trilogy. I jumped straight in here because Millie was still reading book three, Sanctuary, so she'd bought this with her, and I needed something/anything to keep me distracted after finishing Deepness in the Sky.For a young-adult story about dragons 'n' that, my expectations weren't high. But you know what? It's not bad at all!Books 1 and 2 are very good (I'm reliably informed). Book 3 is pretty solid, but book 4 (this one) is the weakest of the series. If that's the case, I'm kind of tempted to read the whole series - except I'm not taking on any new series until I've cleared what I've got on my plate - because this was a pretty solid three.This book follows a group of Jousters - dragon riders. I gathered enough from Aerie to fill in a lot of the backstory. Slave-boy finds a dragon egg, hatches it and raises it by hand. In doing so, he revolutionises the dragon-rearing and riding community - most dragons are caught fully grown and resist their human riders. He then plays his part in uniting two warring kingdoms against meddling evil mages, and wins the love of a high-born priestess who can talk to dragons (and became a Jouster). At some point there's also the founding of a new city and the discovery of an abandoned ancient system. Somewhere in that, Slave-boy also becomes Chief Jouster.Which brings us to this story. What impressed me most, is the dragon-love, which shines brighter than the plot or the characters. The characters have all finished their main growth-arcs, and are settling into the day-to-day work of the plateau - good, but nothing special. The plot is a kind of post-trilogy tack-on that escalates too quickly, to try and out-do the previous climaxes, but doesn't have sufficient conflict points along the way to build enough momentum - instead it just ramps up abruptly. But the dragon-love is spot-on!You know how young-teen girls can become enraptured with every aspect of horses? Riding, grooming, feeding, petting, mucking-out, training, etc, etc. The dragons are the horses, and taking them hunting, grooming, training, housing, etc - all these aspects of dragon-care seem to earn just as many lines as the adventures they go on together.It's light. It's breezy. And I don't regret reading it - win! After this I read: Hideous Creatures
Dreadful. It took over two hundred pages for a conflict to appear and once it had, it struck up out of nowhere. It had no connection to the previous books and made no sense. It was more like she tossed it in for the sake of a conflict, to render the fourth book significant when she could have ended it earlier. There was no build up for it and no hint of it in other books, either. In addition, the introduction of Peri felt forced, especially since she had no character development. She appeared like the "perfect" match for Kiron, and then was flung out just as fast. The only traits I could tell for her was that she knew Kiron's mother and she spent her time as a serf. Other than that, she didn't appear to have any personality whatsoever. A lot of the conflict between Kiron and Aket-ten also appeared out of nowhere and left me scrambling to figure out what was going on. She omitted things she should have included, could have worked to put the main plot in sooner and rid herself of at least a hundred and fifty useless pages. Had she built upon the main conflict and started it sooner, and found a way to hint at it in the earlier books, the book could have been far better. As it was, it seemed very rushed, forced, and I had to force myself through it just so I could say I'd finished the series. I had to know what happened to the characters, but by the time I got through the fourth book, I stopped caring. This is not to say I dislike Mercedes Lackey. I love her. However, I wish in certain enterprises, she'd left the series on a high note rather than proceed to drag it through the mud. To anyone starting this series, leave off with Sanctuary and forget about this dreck. You'll be sorry you continued.
What do You think about Aerie (2006)?
It was good to read this book to see what happened after the dust settled. Kiron was a delightful character as always; intelligent, unassuming, and efficient. What I didn't like was that there was a lot of build up showing Aketten being a petulant, willful, insubordinate spoiled brat going over the head of her commander, and it was abruptly and unsatisfyingly glossed over in one bland little conversation much later. Letis was also a disappointment--she could have been a lot more but was just a one-dimensionally irritating character with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever.
—Graylark
This was a nice conclusion to the Dragon Jousters series. I thought book 3 was the end but left a few questions unanswered. I thought about it and realized why I like these books so much. Ms. Lackey, like Ms. McCaffrey, creates an unlikely hero who fights hard to overcome adversity. The moral lessons of right versus wrong, good versus evil is appealing. What is also appealing is how not everyone is evil. Sometimes people blindly fall without question. The internal wrestling some of the characters have to go through is interesting to watch. Ms. Lackey crafts a great story and this climax was nicely done. I loved the joining of "enemies" to overcome the real evil.
—♆ BookAddict ✒ La Crimson Femme
In a word: cheese. Though that's hardly surprising; the real question is how tolerable it is. I hadn't noticed too many similarities beforehand, but in this book, the gods make a little more of a showing, and it's blatantly obvious they're based on Egyptian gods. Not the gods themselves, but so close that every time I see "Haras" I'm thinking to myself "She spelled it wrong again." I would have much preferred she use the original Egyptian gods or made up new ones with different symbolism or myths. Apart from that, Kiron and Aket-ten themselves were very annoying. For no reason I can see, Aket-ten suddenly descends into total bitch mode, Kiron is so saintly I'm surprised he hasn't sprouted a halo, and they both make up to each other in about two sentences and live happily ever after. Meh. The first book in this series was probably the best. This one is good for very light reading, and I'll probably get it just to round out my collection. Not Recommended.
—Aelvana
