After reading the awesome Dance of Dragons by George R.R. Martin, any other book I read would pale in comparison. Boy, was I right. The book in question is The Green Rider by Kristen Britain. If memory serves me right, I had wanted to read this since my uni days but never could find it or never got around to it. I saw the books recently; I think it’s a new reprint with a beautiful cover of a winged horse. I must say the cover attracted me more than anything else this time around. Perhaps it was all the good reviews placed at the start of the book or the fact that it says "New York Times bestseller" on the cover, my expectations were high. It was a little naïve on my part. I mean, we all know bestseller doesn’t equate to a good book, just like blockbuster doesn’t necessarily mean good movie.
The book starts off by introducing its protagonist, Karigan G’ladheon who had just run away from school after beating silly a boy from an aristocrat family. She then stumbles upon a dying Green rider, messenger to the king. He asks that she deliver his crucial message to the king for there are others desperate to waylay him. Not knowing what else to do, she accepts the message and inadvertently accepts the quest put upon her. The starting is interesting enough but I just didn’t feel anything from the book. The descriptions of the towns and the country of Sacoridia could be any medieval city in any fantasy book. The characters themselves could be any generic fantasy character. The Merlin TV series have the same generic setting but the chemistry between the characters make up for that. As for George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, the description of the characters and places are very distinct and real. You can almost smell the stink of the city when he describes King’s Landing or similarly, when Discworld author Terry Pratchett describes Ankh-Morpork.
Since I had already bought the 2nd book, Rider’s First Call (I bought it before I found the first book), I decided to read it even though my impression of the 1st book was pretty average. The writing has improved and there is more going on BUT there were too many elements taken straight out of Tolkien’s The Lord of The Rings (the 1st book had it too). I wanted to pull my hair out when Karigan found herself among elf-like beings (called Eletians in the book) and was given a bowl of water to gaze into what was, what is and what may be. It’s Frodo and Galadriel all over again! That’s not the only LOTR element I found in the book but I won’t delve further. I speed read whenever I came across any of those scenes.
I also felt that the author wrote from the point of view of too many characters. This doesn’t give you much time to get to know the characters, so you end up not caring much whatever happens to them. In Song of Ice and Fire, Martin focusses on a few characters in each book. It may be frustrating when you’re desperate to know what happens to a character that will only appear in the next book, but it allows you to empathise with some of the characters and understand the real story behind their motivations. With too many characters, you just don’t know who to root for. I suppose in Rider's First Call, we’re supposed to root for Karigan but a lot of the time she gets help, so it seems like all she’s done is not through her own effort. I prefer reading about characters who really struggle and work hard to achieve what they want.
Nonetheless, I still want to read Rider’s First Call till the end since I bought the book. It wasn’t money well spent but it could be worse. I would say the 2nd book would be much better than the first if not for the many LOTR references used throughout the book. I know no one can write anything purely original but there are ways to make it your own. Clearly, that wasn’t the case in this book.
I guess overall the books are okay, there are some interesting bits. I like the idea of Green riders, they're kinda like Heralds from Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series. I might have liked it more if I read it during my uni days though (and if it had less LOTR elements).
