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Read Alta (2005)

Alta (2005)

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Rating
3.98 of 5 Votes: 5
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ISBN
0756402573 (ISBN13: 9780756402570)
Language
English
Publisher
daw books

Alta (2005) - Plot & Excerpts

"I liked it."I'm not sure just how much I have to say about this book. It was better than Joust, but also a lot less fun. It was nice to see some of the old-fashionned Mercedes Lackey style 'killing off a character you never thought she'd kill moments after you thought everything was gonna be okay,' stuff showing its head because she's gotten a little soft in her old age. I was seriously shocked when that character died and couldn't believe it really had happened until they were actually buried.The plot was interesting but once again, Misty writes a lot better when she's introduced a specific villain to be afraid of. She's never topped the Mage Winds books from her Heralds of Valdemar series because Mournelithe Falconsbane is the most legitimately fucking terrifying villain ever in fantasy. Writing comically evil is only acceptable when you put a face to that evil and it becomes less comic. The Magi made ineffective villains because they were just a faceless body.Anyways, has the old Lackey flaws -- badly needs an editor, rambling prose, weird passage of time, skipping events that seemed like they shouldn't have been skipped. But it has the old Lackey strengths, too, the loveable characters, the romping plot, the hilariously cliched and foreshadowed romances, the token gay character who is way better than everyone else ...So, yes.

A surprising improvement over the first volume, which was far too much a "paint by numbers" coming of age heroic journey saga that really wasn't particularly original. In this one, Lackey takes things to a much more sophisticated an interesting level, layering Vetch's (now Kiron) struggles to assimilate into his long-lost homeland's culture and structure, with his efforts to train his dragon and add that training to his home, but also dealing with a corrupt and dangerous government and building a credible and interesting conspiracy.Lackey is a gifted storyteller and it's nice to see her stretching a bit more beyond the rote work that was in book one (that she probably could have written in her sleep). It's definitely a middle volume, but it's still a very nice transitional book and quite enjoyable. I'm much more enthusiastic about reading book three than I was about book two, and that's a good sign.It's a light and fun read, perfect as the weather turns warmer.

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

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