Alta Dragon Jousters 2

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I have read a great deal of Mercedes Lackey books. By and large she has very creative and imaginative story lines. I have read at least17 (that is right SEVENTEEN) of her novels thus far. First off, parents should be made aware that her books should be screened or censored for adult content. Some of them, not all, have vivid adult material as in "The Fairy Godmother" and the "Magic's Pawn" (Heralds of Valdemar) trilogy. Overall I enjoy her stories even though I have found her severely lacking in the craft/technique of writing. For the most part I read her books for the creative talent I see in them and try and muck through everything else that should've been cut. Mercedes Lackey had at one point stated on her website that she has a goal to surpass the number of novels written by some author whose name escapes me. Anyhow, the number of books was somewhere around 50 which apparently was what she thought was the greatest number of novels written by a single author. This was incorrect as there have been a few authors who wrote past 100 novels in their lifetimes. Seeing how I can no longer find this statment on her site, I assume she may have later learned of that and removed it. As far as her novels go her publishers/editors ought to be fired as there are many grammar and typographical errors. Where did her editor go? She could go so far with a good editor. There is also a great deal of exposition rather than the "show don't tell" rule of truly great story writers. It would be nice if writers now a days slipped their political views into a story in a more skilled manner than simply expositioning the main character's thoughts or conversations. Over all there were many times in her novels when vocab words were used improperly, there was lots of redundancy, and once she switched minor characters' names and roles mid story (obviously by accident). I could easily see her becoming one of the masters in fiction story telling if she'd simply slow down enough to clean up all the expositions and repetitions . Then find herself someone competent to do all the editing and fix the grammar errors. By and large I blame her editors. (Who's repeating herself now?) Really. It is truly a shame as her story lines and talent are good and her writing skill, though in need of polish, is pretty vivid. As for the book "Alta" of the Dragon Jousters series: I enjoyed it enough to check the series out from the library and am on the waiting list for the last one, "Aeyrie". I've decided that until Lackey takes the time to improve her over all writing skill I will not spend my money to buy her books. ("To Take a Thief" was probably one of the better written books of hers I did purchase). Hope this helps.