What do You think about Alta (2005)?
While I agree with the pundit and reader reviews, that the Dragon Jouster trilogy books seem simple, quick reads aimed at the teenage/young adult audience where everyone lives happily ever after, I think perhaps Lackey is attacking the current state of Gaia: the "War on Terror". One can read this as an allegory with the Magi being Bush/Blair and their power hungry cohorts, the Dragon Jousters being those who fight to protect the civil liberties of all and the terrorists being everyone else who disagree with the Magi. I started thinking about this about halfway through Alta and the more I read the more obvious it became. Perhaps Lackey, like Tolkien, squirms at the thought of being allegorical. Perhaps I am just reading in my own bias. In any case, it is a fun read and I recommend the series for all Fantasy fans and most especially Lackey fans.
—Kernos
This is a sequel to Joust, the first book in Lackey's Dragon Jousters series, and follows former slave Kiron and his dragon as they start a new life and train a new wing of dragons in Alta. Even though these books take place in a setting similar to ancient Eygypt, and the dragons and their riders share no telepathic connection, readers of these books probably can't help comparing them to a more famous and in my view, better set of dragon/rider tales by Anne McCaffrey. Alta was better than Joust, but not by much.
—Kerri
Again, this is very typical Mercedes Lackey in all her tropes. Evil mages have taken over the government by corrupting the rulers using powerful blood-magic, and the young band of friends has a slowly-building plan to overthrow them from within. Plus, everybody gets a soulmate and they'll obviously be sorely tried before they fix everything to end the war. I still liked the dragons, and she spends a lot of time describing how each one differs in physicality and personality, and how each character responds to them very differently. It was amusing to see her fall back on the same magic structure as Velgarth: true magic (which is easily corrupted), mind magic such as prophecy, telepathy, and telekinesis (which is the province of those Chosen by the gods), and Healing magic. (view spoiler)[I was impressed by the straight-up coldness with which she dropped the Prince's death. I was not expecting him to be dead without any chance to save him. It also drove home the change of pace between the first part, where they thought they could change the system from within, and the second part, where they would have to leave and become something else. (hide spoiler)]
—Hallie
