Voyage Of The Fox Rider (Paperback)

The Pysk Fox Rider Jinnarin arrives at the home of the Mage Alamar, seeking his help: her mate, Farrix, has gone missing and she's having a recurring nightmare that seems to be linked to his disappearance. Alamar decides that the three (him, her, and her fox) should seek out the legendary elf captain Aravan and his motley crew on his magical ship. Aravan agrees to bring them on a search for a green sea, a dark ship, and a crystal castle (the three main images in Jinnarin's dream). They end up picking up Alamar's Mage seer daughter Aylis, and finding out that the cause of Farrix's disappearance is a very old and very bitter foe...

I was very relieved that this book does not involve the more *ahem* Tolkienesque elements of his other books, like the Warrows and the Elves at large. Gave it more of an original feeling than the Iron tower trilogy or the Silver Call duology. What's the problem? Well, I'm honestly wondering if this book was edited. At all. It could have been pared down two or three hundred pages without any negative impact on the plot. It takes FOREVER for anything to happen; it's over eighty pages before Alamar finds Aravan.

One of Mr. McKiernan's old weaknesses crops up here: The need to tell us all parts of travel, no matter how boring they are. The characters meander all over the ocean on various dead-end leads, and we are told (occasionally in boat jargon) continually just where and how they are going; in the meantime, the various characters will talk a lot, amble around the boat, and worry if Jinnarin doesn't have her nightmare regularly. And enough with the theology and philosophy! At the slightest hint of depth, the characters plop down on their bottoms and begin long, rambling conversations about gods, the nature of good and evil, immortality, dreams, and so on. No matter what crisis is looming, this is what they'll do. The conversations tend to ramble -- while it may be realistic, it's also dull. The more regular dialogue is uneven, but sometimes very funny. The painful conversation between Aylis and Ontah managed to kill the dreamwalking scene, what might have been a spellbinding and very important turning point.

Repetitive action hits yet again -- if a character does one thing (grits their teeth, gets amorous, tries to read the future, dreamwalks, has a crying fit) they'll do it over and over. And (you may groan now) we get more of the enviromental message in this one, where Jinnarin rants for several pages about the horrors of fox-hunting and the presence of human beings, who are SOOOOOOO destructive.... (I get the message, you don't need to beat it into my head with a bat)

This has relatively limited potential for romance, since there are only two female characters on the boat, and one of them is both married and only twelve inches tall. Aylis, then, is the logical choice; we have more luv-at-first-sight (oh groan) with Aravan. In keeping with the Hel's Crucible romances and their less-than-squeaky-clean presence, they both hop into bed (did we REALLY need to hear about that?) over and over, though no details are given. I found the entire relationship contrived and dull, especially when the author has a "spark" between their hands when they first touch.

Characterizations range from excellent to groanworthy. Most of the sailors never gain a personality, with the exception of Jatu. Jinnarin, despite supposedly being MILLENNIA old, shows the maturity of a six-year-old, continuing the tradition of if-they're-little-then-they-can't-be-bright. Alamar is brilliance, earning the book an extra star -- he's crabby, funny, grumpy, and utterly lovable. Yet he also has a darker and sadder past that endears the reader to him. Aravan and Aylis have no real reasons to be attracted to one another, and don't have any real individual characteristics except Aylis's weak concern for her father. The bad guy is bad because... well, because he IS.

Even some of these things wouldn't have been so bad, except that in the continuing not-so-subtle hint that the Mithgarian books are supposed to be a "lost history," we have somewhat recognizable elements. This sort of thing should, ideally, be relatively vague and culturally be unfixed in time. How long ago is this supposed to be? Untold thousands of years ago. Yet in this book, we encounter one of Aravan's sailors who speaks snatches of modern Spanish ("Que?"), the Mages speak Latin and a smattering of Greek, and it's obvious to anybody with a quarter of a brain that Ontah and his people are Native Americans.

This is one of those books that had plenty of potential, but which lost it in the characterizations, the worldbuilding, and the ridiculously slow pace. Better, but no cigar.

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