Alta

Dragon Jousters Series, Book 2

By: Mercedes Lackey

Narrated by: Ryan Burke

Nationally best-selling fantasy legend Mercedes Lackey created a vivid, dynamic fusion of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms of ancient Egypt with the most exciting, authentic and believable portrayal of dragons ever imagined. In the second novel in Mercedes Lackey's richly conceived Dragon Jousters series, the dragonrider Vetch escapes to Alta, the subjugated land of his birth. There, he hopes to teach his people to raise and train dragons - and build an army that will liberate his homeland.

©2004 Mercedes R. Lackey (P)2019 Tantor

No 2 of Dragon Jousters Series

Vetch returns to the land of his birth, an area Mercedes Lackey has made very much like Earth's ancient Upper and Lower Egypt, only here "there be dragons. "
In Alta Fetch again finds life living with Dragon Jousters, but as an equal, not a serf. He refused to drug dragons into submission but searches for hawk and horse enthusiasts that try to bond with all the intelligence of each. They find that dragons can almost read their riders intentions.
Fetch also learns there is some process the mages are putting people through that drains the gifted population of their powers. He comes up with an idea to isolate a hatching and all needed to care for their growth but requires help of a top donor to support his ideas for both the new training ideas and examining the mages new efforts.
I found the added growth of many new plot ideas to add to the improvement of Alta!

Don't you...

I want a dragin too. An excellent part two plenty of twists and suprises to hold the reader in a finely detailed world.

Great except for...

Loved it but could not really hear when the narrator dropped his voice for Vetch to speak to himself. VERY annoying.

I'm a sucker for romance and dragons...

...and this book has plenty of both. Where as the first installment to the Dragon Jousters series had more to do with the struggles of an individual, Alta focuses on Kuran (Vetch) as only a piece of the larger puzzle. From beginning to end, the trials and tribulations of bringing his wing from their infancy to maturity will keep you laughing, crying and whooping for joy to the last.

The narrator does a phenomenal job of imparting emotion into the many characters, and does well to not let them blend together into a single entity.

I look very much forward to the continuation of the series in Book 3 - Sanctuary.

Great book, Great world building, odd accents

Just like Joust, this is a great story that I hold close to my heart, However I have to question the accent choices again, especially with this book and Accents are talked about in the text. ( mild spoilers a head) There is a specific scene where an Accadian healer is confronting a Magus, the narrator talks about the healer thickening his Accadian Accent to make Magus sound like Maggot. Is the Healer given and Accadian (modern day Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Syria) accent? NOPE Thick Scottish burl, the narrator doesn't even try to make Magus sound like Maggot. Also the pronunciation of the main character's name Kiron keeps changing and getting lazier and lazier, almost completely dropping the 'K'. This makes it a little hard to know who's talking as this book introduces a significant amount of new characters. I love these books, but i don't see the direction getting any better as we're 1/2 through the series and changing it all now would be even more jarring.