Alta, First Rider's Call, the Quest Begins

I've done it again.

Booklist for this post:
The Quest Begins by Wendy & Richard Pini
Alta by Mercedes Lackey
First Rider's Call by Kristin Britain

First Rider's Call took me until last Thursday- the nineth to get around to finishing. It's rather large continuation of Green Rider, which I am quite fond of. I love a good stand-alone story, and the only thing that gets my goat is when its painfully obvious you are reading a sequel that is leading into another sequel. I lay more blame on Alta in this category than FRC.

FRC was hard to slip into because of the confusing transistions- journal enteries as seperate pages in between chapters. I've never been fond of this kind of foreshadowing and personally think it's a useless crutch to weave into an already enormous story. Luckily, it doesn't give away too terribly much, and it is more of a pet peeve than a legitimate complaint.
I like FRC because it added a lot of history to the world, making it a lot more solid and facinating. I did feel frustrated with the obtuse and heavy emphasis on how Karrigan perceives her personal relationships- for a couple of chapters it seemed that she was backsliding in her character development.
Overall, this is a unique story, and the reader is definitely getting their money's worth in the length and bredth of the pages offerings. For those who picked up Green Rider in paperback the first time, you can probably stand to wait for First Rider to come out in paperback as well. Definitely a good summer read.

Alta..was a good continuation of Joust, but like I stated earlier it ended much too soon and had already dropped hints that there was still more to tell in this too short hardback that continues abruptly into the newest release of Sanctuary. However, Vetch/Kiron shows great character development from the wet-earred dragon boy into a leader of his own dragon wing. He steps up to the challenge of leading boys his own age to set an example for Jousters in Alta- and keeping his newfound friends safe. Alta is not the haven that Kiron dreamed it would be, if not just as corrupt as Tia. I'm not sure if this is a trilogy- but if so, this is definitely the Empire Strikes Back of the books.
I enjoy the Jousters series very much, it is quite different than McCaffrey's Dragonriders and has its own alien flavor.
But I have two major gripes.
First, the heavy emphasis on the 'taking' of magic without the permisson of the weilder. It draws too heavily from Mercedes's Obsidian Trilogy with the humans/elves/etc versus the demons. A tri-magic system that is based on debt of use of the powers granted, either by deed, energy, rite, or life. The demons, of course representing the harsh and unpermissable taking of powers without price to themselves. Only, in Alta, instead of Demons, it is Magi. Poor marks for borrowing against one of her/or James's ideas from a seperate series.
Second, I HATE real world elements being introduced into a fantasy storyline. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it detracts from the storytelling. Patriotism. There is a section near the end of the book to the effect of- anyone who was deemed unpatriotic was regarded with suspicion by the citizens. The offending fellow would then redouble efforts to be 'patriotic' to avoid persecution. Is it too much to hope for an author to not comment on their personal stance on real-wrold events while in a fantasy context? I would understand if this were allegory or satire. But it's Fantasy.

Elfquest. I adore Elfquest. Simply put anyway. The origin of Elfquest was in comic books and then progressed into compliations of graphic novels. Somewhere in the late 90's, the Pinis adapted their beloved story into prose. I can find no fault, and I enjoy the prose versions as well as the comics for the insight that is given into the characters that is sometimes sacrifices for time and space that can be limited in an artistic sense. At least in a media like comics. It doensn't skip a beat or extremely go beyond the storyline that was esstablished over twenty five years ago. So if you already have the graphic novels, there is no real need to go out and grab the prose novels. But it is defnitely for the fans or to someone who likes fantasy but isn't 'into' comics.