Mercedes Lackey!

[chocolatepot]

I haven't read a Lackey since ... the one based on Puss in Boots, I think? And it was decent, IIRC, though it had a depressing number of typos that made it clear that they don't bother having her manuscripts actually read before they're printed. But then at the last booksale, I took Joust because Misty's take on Pern, is that what I'm seeing? And I was really surprised at how engaging it was, because nothing I've read of hers in the past, IDK, decade or so has been that great. But, um, I actually loved it? Especially Ari's paternal/older brotherly relationship to Vetch, it made me completely not notice that there was no romance at all going on.

Okay, here is the thing, though. The worldbuilding was interesting but because I was constantly contrasting it to Actual Ancient Egypt, it felt flat and occasionally nonsensical. So it's Upper (southern) and Lower (northern) Egypt, right, and Upper Egypt is called Tia and Lower Egypt is Alta. For some reason these two countries/regions which are situated right next to each other have noticeably different racial makeups - Altans are white and Tians are not. And I just have a hard time understanding why this would be in-universe (maybe the Altans invaded a long, long time ago, but it was never stated), or why Lackey would decide to go with it when it doesn't seem important to the plot/worldbuilding at all. Because of the Tians constantly encroaching on Altan territory and the Altans seeming to always come off worse, it would have made a ton more sense to have Alta = Kush. Especially because Tia learned all this military technique from people from the south, like a Hyksos parallel, except that the Hyksos came out of Asia Minor, not up from Kush. To completely switch gears, it also annoyed me that Tia has four distinct seasons and Alta has five (or the other way around, can't remember), because Egypt had three seasons: Inundation, Emergence (also called "Growing"), and Harvest. I find this awesome because it's like winter/spring/summer/fall, based on obvious weather patterns and the agricultural cycle, but at the same time it's different. It's not like these are things that have to be completely paralleled, of course, it's just that I don't see the point in going to the effort of being really obviously Egyptian and then switching things around for no reason.

In non-historical issues, I just can't suspend my disbelief over Ari being the only person to have a tamed-from-the-egg dragon. The reasoning is that none of the Jousters are patient enough to want to bother with the effort, and that tamed wild dragonets are good enough that they don't care ... but it falls apart for me because a) Ari and Kashet's superiority is proved over and over again, so I have a hard time believing that nobody else considers their amazing advantage something to emulate, and b) the Commander of Dragons seems like a pretty sensible guy, so I have a hard time believing he wouldn't assign two or three Jousters to do it anyway.

But, really, overall I loved it.

Comments

[lliira]

I haven't read Lackey since she wrote a trilogy in which Valdemar got invaded by a huge empire and it was boring. I think she was tired of Valdemar. But this one sounds like fun, albeit with some typical Lackey issues, I'll have to check it out.

[chocolatepot]

(Fixed my html!) It is pretty fun, and it does feel kind of like she was going breathing a sigh of relief at stepping away from her other established series. Sadly the ILL system doesn't have an ebook of the second book (it's actually pretty shit for ebooks, it's meant more for audiobooks) but I think I'll order it in physical form cos I need it.