Subject: Ripley: The Warden of Horses

From: [email-masked]
Date: 16 May 1994 10:56:35 -0400

"The Warden of Horses" is the second book in Karen Ripley's "Slow World"
trilogy, and it should not come as a surprise that it reads like the 
second book in a trilogy.

The first book, "The Persistence of Memory", was quite good.  It begins
with a woman who thinks of herself as Cassidy riding a horse in the
middle of nowhere, with no memory of her past, or of how she got there.
It turns out that she's in a world of people whose memories are in even
worse shape than hers -- to the point where they aren't even curious
about what they're missing, or particularly aware of how little sense
their world makes.  Towards the end of that book she hears of a man
known as the Warden, who is particularly interested in people with
Memories -- and determines to seek him out.  (I've left out most of
the details -- the Villages, the monsters, the telepathic links between
Horsemen and their horses, the reason Cassidy ends up fleeing the
Villagers for her life -- but it doesn't make a lot of sense to read
"The Warden of Horses" without reading the first book anyhow.)

Typically enough for second books in a trilogy, most of "The Warden
of Horses" is spent getting from Here to There, with 'There' in this
instance being the city of the Warden.  Along the way, Cassidy's
memories improve (we learn later that the rule for people with Memories
is that their memories of our world fade with time), and as they
improve, she is increasingly beset by attacking monsters -- as are
the people she is with or through whose land she passes.

At her destination, Cassidy picks up a few more clues, including
a reference to "The Alchemist of Time" (which I've capitalized
because, coincidentally or not, it's the title of the forthcoming
third book in the trilogy).  The book ends with Cassidy and most
of the other main characters the trilogy has acquired to date going
off to seek the Alchemist.

It's hard to evaluate middle-of-series books.  They are almost invariably
weaker than their neighbors, having neither the freshness and innovation
of the first book nor the answers and resolutions of the last.  It often
comes to a question of how competent the author is at writing about
a character going from Here to There.  In this case, 'so-so', but good
enough that I'll be reading the third book when it appears.

-----
Dani Zweig
[email-masked]  [email-masked]

   The inability of snakes to count is actually a refusal, on their part,
    to appreciate the Cardinal Number system. -- "Actual Facts"