[Mercedes-Lackey] Aerie

[Aya the Vampire Slayer]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2007, Christi Koenig wrote:
> At 09:59 AM 1/24/2007 -0500, you wrote:

>> Didn't a new one on the Dragon Jousters just recently get released? 
>> Book 4, I believe (I have Joust, Alta, and Sanctuary... I think book 4 
>> is Aerie).
>
> Aerie just came out recently, I saw it in Barnes & Noble this week.  I 
> was just going to ask about it, as a matter of fact.  Anyone read it 
> yet?  I've got the first three of the series, but haven't bought this 
> one yet, and I can't remember if I managed to read #3 yet.

Boy have I been slacking off. I've been meaning to write a review for the 
end of the Dragon Jousters series (Aerie) and the end of the Obsidian 
trilogy (When Darkness Falls) for the MLML, but I keep getting 
side-tracked.

So, I will take this opportunity to go ahead and comment about Aerie.
No spoilers.



I have read all four of the Dragon Jousters books (including Aerie), and I 
liked them overall, but that said, they were all a bit on the childish 
side. By this I mean -- don't expect them to be overly complex plot-wise 
or character-development-wise or anything. Most events are pretty 
predictable. Also, there's not much in the way of death (if any) and no 
sex or anything resembling such. These four books, including Aerie, seem 
like they were written with teenagers in mind as a target audience, not 
adults. That doesn't necessarily make them bad, you just have to be 
mentally prepared for it or you may find yourself eye-rolling a lot.


Aerie in particular I find to be the weakest of the four books in this 
series. The plot was mostly predictable, it wasn't part of the main 
storyline really, and it felt largely like an "oops I was contracted for 
four books but managed to conclude the plot in three... ummm let me think 
real quick of something else to write about for the last one."

This book is a Mystery. It has nothing of the "impending doom" or "epic" 
feel to it like the others did. As noted above, the plot also came across 
as very "out of the blue". I was actually surprised to find, after I had 
finished reading Sanctuary, that there was going to be a fourth book. My 
thoughts -- what could it possibly be about? The plot present in the first 
three books concluded with Sanctuary. Well, the only way to find out is to 
order it and read it.


The most interesting part of the series as a whole was the 
characterization and mechanics of the Dragons themselves. This was 
devevloped well through out all of the books. And it is very unique 
compared to other dragon mythologies. All of the human characters, though, 
especially the main ones, are typical Misty archetypes found in many other 
Misty books, all behaving as expected, so there's really nothing new 
there. All the bad guys are clearly bad guys, so no complexity or 
ambiguity with respect to who is the good side and who is the bad side.

The setting for the series is obviously some fantastical sword-and-sorcery 
version of Ancient Egypt. Interesting, different, but not my favorite 
setting, really. It works just fine for the stories, though. Other people 
may like this type of setting a lot so this may be a bonus for them.



Biggest annoyance in this book: Aket-ten. Be warned that Aket-ten really 
starts becoming annoying in a femi-nazi sort of way. Angst is OK, but 
stupid angst is annoying. And she rolled straight into the stupid-angst 
category when she started getting upset over stupid stuff in almost all 
of her scenes in the first 3/4 of the book.

A relative of Kiron's appears in this book and felt like a totally 
unnecessary addition. And this person is very, VERY annoying, too. Be 
forewarned. Also, an old "acquaintance" of Kiron's makes an appearance and 
feels rather "tossed in" or like an "extra". This person is not annoying 
like the relative of Kiron's really, they just seem like an afterthought 
addition to the story, like someone thrown in to make some other plot 
point work out right but with no more substance than that. It's hard to 
explain, you'll just have to read the book to understand what I mean.



This book, IMO, is more predictable than the others. I found the plot 
somewhat contrived. On the one hand we have the Mystery -- the answer to 
the mystery was completely NOT predictable in any way shape or form 
(pulled out of thin air comes to mind). However all the other stuff was 
totally predictable, far moreso than the preceding books. What 
characters/objects would be used for and what they would do given a 
situation, how a plot point was going to work out, etc.

Much of the book is people just doing this and that. Almost like the first 
book, doing a lot of characterization and world-building, which seems 
really unnecessary in the final installation. And you will start to wonder 
after while what the point, the plot, of this book is going to be, until 
you finally get halfway through reading about "this"s and "that"s and 
finally realize that -- Oh, it's a Mystery, right.


Now all this grumping and griping doesn't mean I disliked the book. I did 
like it. I just found it to have some problems that might bother people 
who are thinking about reading it. That said, I generally like any Fantasy 
that Misty writes, so I guess I am making an attempt to be as impartial as 
I can about commenting on it. :)



Anyone else read it and have comments?

-Tara

-- 
"Care must be exorcised when handring Opiticar System as it is apts to
be sticked by dusts and hand-fat." --Japanese Translators

"Keep your fingers off the lens." --Elton Byington, English Translator