Alta

Dragon Jousters Series, Book 2

By: Mercedes Lackey

Narrated by: Ryan Burke

Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

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

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 except for...

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

Characters

I have read this book several times. As this story is based on Egyptian culture, I find the character voices odd. I never Imagined The character voices to sound British, Scottish, and Irish.

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 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.

Even better than the first!

I am so happy with the way the plot turned out. It was better than I was expecting it to be and I cannot wait to get the 3rd book. I love the narration as well.

Excellent

Love this series and I'm so happy to have it on audiobook. This book is even better than Joust!

even better than the last

for only the 2nd book in this series its amazing the story an everything, all the emotions an strategy an character development overall amazing 2nd book

So Much Better

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Ryan Burke at 1.2 speed for my personal listening pleasure as Burke reads somewhat flatly. I’m continuing the series as recommended by a co-worker.

Right away, the audio quality changes revealing Burke recorded in different controlled environments or with different settings.

Lackey goes right back to her “telling” style of writing, but the beginning of Alta does start off with a better mix of dialogue than the first book, Joust, did. And at least there’s a fairly good action scene in the first chapter. About 3/4 of the way through, the book gets to where you don’t want to stop.

There is still a lot of worry by the main character that almost never comes to fruition. If worry is expressed, readers expect more of those worries to be proven right; the main character still comes off as a worrywart in this second book. At least in this edition, Vetch/Kuron grows in a much faster rate and for positive change in the reader’s mind than in Joust.

Another little annoying bit is that the author only uses innuendo when it comes to sexual situations. Even in earlier editions of the story, it was strange to have the main character thinking in innuendo rather than simply even thinking plainly. Even as a youngster the main character’s age, I didn’t thin about how people “danced horizontally,” I called the act for what it was in my thoughts.

Throughout the narration of Alta, Butke’s intonation is a little strange, when one expects the end of a sentence, it isn’t. It’s a little awkward to listen to at times and makes for what feels a little like droning on at times.

Alta is much better than Joust in terms of things actually being done and said. The overall story is leagues better as so much more actually happens. There is also more political intrigue. More characters are introduced. More action takes place. The characters are still a bit predictable, and there is a lot of foreshadowing, basically, if someone thinks if could happen, it generally does; even so, the story is enjoyable.

I recommend this book with or without reading the first book, Joust. If you want the full backstory, go for both, but if you’re fine with the summarizations Lacky provides, then starting with book 2, Alta, is just fine. I, honestly, wish my co-worker would have told me that, and I would have skipped Joust all together because when I was finished with it, I almost didn’t start Alta.