Kristen Britain

Green Rider — Publisher: Karigan G'ladheon, unjustly suspended from school for drubbing a bully, runs away instead. On the road she encounters a dying Green Rider, or king's messenger, F'ryan Coblebay. Hunted by evildoers, and pierced by two black arrows, the Rider makes Karigan swear to deliver his vitally important message, then gives her a magic brooch that renders her all but invisible. Karigan also acquires Coblebay's mount, The Horse, who seems to know better than she does how to find Sacor City and King Zachary. While enjoying various adventures, she's chased by agents of Lord-governor Mirwellshe'll eventually learn that he's supporting the rebel Prince Amilton's bid to seize the throne. Worse, another conspirator, a magic-powered, elf-like Eletian renegade called Shawdell, has broken the D'Yer Wall, whose spells protect Sacoridia from the evil creatures of Blackveil Forest. Finding within herself unexpected talents and survival skills, Karigan eventually reaches King Zacharybut the message she brings is worthless. Then she remembers that Coblebay also entrusted her with a love letter. Its this that contains the real message, a warning of the plot against Zachary. A fresh, well-organized fantasy debut, with a spirited heroine and a reliable supporting cast.

Green Rider: Decent debut

There is much good in this first novel and, unfortunately, much that's not so good —thus the 3 star rating.

The good first: Kristen Britain writes well and creates a likable, if not complex and well-developed, heroine who should appeal strongly to young female readers. Britain also has a nice eye for imagery, the most powerful being the gray-clad rider and his sinister pairs of black arrows. And she, on the whole, creates a clean, refreshing fantasy setting. These traits will serve her well if and when she publishes again . . .

And now the bad: As can be forgiven in a first novel, the plot often becomes a mess, either bogging down or running haywire. The former occurs near the beginning with the whole, weird episode with Miss Bayberry and Miss Bunchberry, whose presence simply throws the otherwise late-medieval setting entirely out of alignment by stuffing it with things Victorian. The latter occurs, as might be expected, at the climax, where KB conducts something of a gambit with a super-magical chess game, the foundation for which is not entirely laid. A strong sense of resolution is also lacking.

That said, Green Rider is readable and does draw you in nicely at times. While Kristen Britain's work by no means approaches that of, e.g., Robin Hobb's, it has potential. Writing is a long ride, as Kristen Britain (referring to herself as a "Green Writer") might realize. Time will tell what kind of journey this writer takes.   —R.R.

Green Rider

I was, I admit, a little skeptical in the very beginning of this book because the setting feels a little confusing. My experience with fantasy authors is that they tend to stick to one pseudo time period when it comes to their worlds, but with Britain you’ve got some mixing and matching, and a character that has a modern feel to her ‘voice’. I like this. And Kristen Britain proves that you can make a good book of it, too.

There’s plenty of typical fantasy concepts here, but I enjoyed the way Britain handled it. She digs a big deeper than the just plain evil villains and the just plain reluctant heroes. Actually, I found Karigan to be fun in spite if the reluctant heroine roll. There’s always railing against destiny with this sort of situation, but that’s all it is: A whole lot of whining about how said hero or heroine won’t let destiny control them ensues. Karigan’s plight feels more akin to having a parent who insists you go to the college they graduated from, even though you have your own plans for your life, thank you very much. It makes her more relatable, along with qualities such as not being the smartest character, the prettiest, or even really the nicest. She has her moments of crankiness, though she isn’t a total brat, either.

The plot also has its typical fantasy elements, but Kristen Britain is a good enough writer to pull it off. She balances and tempers these elements well. She also adds in a bit of intrigue which is handled nicely. And the book gets off to a break neck start, too. For some, this might make the slower moments feel too slow, but the slow moments in a well-written book serve their purpose. Green Rider is definitely well written. It’s one of those solid books. No, it’s not the most spectacular thing to come off the shelf, but it’s still good, above average even. It’s definitely worth taking a look at. —B.J.

First Rider's Call

First Rider's Call has a lot of themes that have been done before, but this is one of the best incarnations I've read of old themes in a long time.

The Journal entries of Hadriax El Fex do a wonderful job of weaving the story together. That sort of history can be difficult to keep track of; distant, but not so distant that everything in the world would have changed. Ms. Britain does a beautiful job of it, though. The names of the Clans remain similar to what they were a thousand years ago, changing just enough to represent the passing of time. Even the First Rider's name is slightly different, as though the correct dialect has been lost over time. Such attention to detail shows an author who loves and takes pride in her craft.

The story moves at an incredibly fast pace. As with Green Rider before it, the book does have its lulls, but these are rarely too slow. Britain manages to write about some of the more normal, mundane aspects of life, some of the more human things, without overdoing it as a lot of authors do. These parts can do a lot to make the reader familiar with the characters, give them something they can empathize with. And the fast parts tend to move fast, so you get to know the characters through rough times and easier times, which Kristen Britain, as usual, balances very well.

There's been comparison to the Valdemar series, but actually, those similarities are surface at best. The Green Riders don't have in born magical abilities...they receive them from their brooches, and each Rider to inherit that brooch has that talent. The horses are smart, yes, but they can't speak like Companions, they don't choose their Riders, and there is only one small implication that they were past Riders, and not a strong implication at that. Especially when you consider that most of the past Riders are ghosts that appear in this story.

Also, I found Karigan to be so much more realistic than say, Talia or Alberich, on the whole. Talia lives on the border of a country that barely pays attention to what happens to her. Alberich is in the country of the enemy. But suddenly they have an inexplicable willingness to throw themselves in front of an arrow for their country. Karigan's reaction is much more human and much more realistic.

No book is free of flaws, but the ones here really don’t take away from the story. It’s a book that’s easy to sit back and enjoy. One thing I will say, and I mean no disrespect, but Kristen Britain should NEVER, EVER consider a career as a lyricist.   —B.J.

The High King's Tomb

From early on in The High King's Tomb, alarm bells started going off in my head. It doesn't take very long, if you've read the other two books (and you should have), to realize that a "grab the reader by the throat" event is conspicuously absent from the beginning of the story. There's one in the first book, there's one in the second book, but The High King's Tomb starts out on a noticeably meandering path.

And it continues to meander, without a great deal of urgency, for a long time. A lot of events happen, some of them interesting in relation to the world Britain has created, but overall none of them seem hugely relevant to solving the tensions of the main plot arc. In fact, they just seem to add in a bunch of new tensions without solving any old ones. Uh oh.

It takes a long time for the reader to understand why this book is called The High King's Tomb. By then, a lot of the elements of the book are coming together and making more sense for the plot of this book, but no amount of smoke and mirrors can distract the reader from the fact that it didn't really offer any resolution on the plot of the series as a whole. With almost 700 pages, more should have been resolved. I reiterate: Uh oh.

Kristen Britain has always gotten away with certain things (like Deus Ex Machina solutions) in part due to the strength of her characters. This time I'm not sure it'll be enough to pull some readers through. Main character Karigan mostly annoys me in this book. She doesn't get off on a good foot, with her diatribe about brothels early on. Pages of inner monologue about how wrong it is to sell your body, you should only be with the one you love, blah blah blah, oh! oh! oh! how terrible...I want to scream. Eventually I started to feel like Britain is trying way too hard to keep Karigan from being perfect that she's sliding towards backwards and unlikable instead.

Other returning characters are a mixed bag. Estora, who had struck me in the previous books as being a strong, elegant young woman with a lot of bravery, hits romance heroine levels of stupidity in this books. She redeems herself a little by realizing that she's being stupid, but her demeanor here just seems like an excuse to make the book's storyline work. Alton and Merdigen, at the wall, both retain fairly high levels of interest, though. And then there are a number minor characters whom you'll likely wish had had slightly larger rolls.

New characters play out similar. You have Damien Frost and Lady who are interesting, in spite of being quite obviously based on Tom Bombadil and Goldberry from Lord of the Rings. Yet you also have Fergal, a Green Rider trainee with an abusive past, who does things so cruel and idiotic that his "redemption" feels forced. And there's Amberhill, who has two aspects, the first being that he's dumb as a brick. This makes him unbelievable in the role of a mysterious, charming thief ala Zorro...not to mention sad evidence that Britain seems to think it's necessary to stuff in every fantasy staple possible.

Though in a lot of ways I enjoyed the book and the alarm bells quieted some, they didn't go away completely. And Kristen Britain saying that she will "let the needs of the story dictate its own length" scares the bejeebus out of me. If the series ends at four books then fine, I can deal with the transition book that The High King's Tomb obviously is. But if it doesn't? Fantasy writers need to put a tighter rein on themselves, need to plan better before jumping into their works, or we're going to end up with a whole slew of unfinished Wheel of Time type series on the shelves. — B.J.