Aerie

Aerie by Mercedes Lackey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the 4th, and final, book in the Dragon Jousters series. It's also the weakest, in my opinion. Not that it was bad, per se, but it took a long time for anything to happen, and the ending was too quick.

In this book, we see the two former enemy nations, Alta and Tia, trying to learn to live together. However, this seemed to be given short shrift by the author, as the book mostly focused on a new character, Peri, who wants to become another female dragon jouster. The first half of the book was about her, and also somewhat about the main character of the books, Kiron, and his relationship with his girlfriend, Aket-ten. So not a lot happened during the first half of the book, other than lots of dialog and interaction among the characters. None of this was really critical to the story, other than further character development. Not that it wasn't interesting, it just didn't move the story forward much, other than Aket-ten's desire to create a wing of female jousters.

Once the action starts, however, it really goes! The mystery of the disappearing town, and who was behind, it was very well done. We get more insight into the religion and gods of this culture. And the climactic battle at the end was truly spectacular and exciting! But, the end of the book happened immediately after, with just a few paragraphs to tie up all the loose ends. I would have liked a bit more fleshing out of the final situation. The current ending felt rushed, and only sketchily done. I was glad to see the loose ends tied up, but it just happened a bit too fast.

Overall, this was a very good series! The dragons are very cool, the cultures nicely handled, and the characters are not cardboard cut-outs. It's not quite as good as Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, but it is still VERY good. If you are into dragons, you will enjoy this series immensely.