Tracy & Laura Hickman, Mystic Quest: Book Two of the Bronze Canticles (Warner Books, 2005)
The middle book, often like a middle child, is often overlooked when it comes to attention. It is often not as groundbreaking as the first novel, and neither does it offer the answers or revelations of the last book. In essence, the middle book of a series or trilogy has the thankless job of acting as a bridge: while it completes the series, it isn't necessarily as remarkable or memorable as the novels that begin and inevitably end a written saga. However, every so often, there is a middle novel that does more than simply continue where the first one started. Instead, it serves as a medium of improving upon the first novel, as a literary growth spurt (puberty, if you will?) that vastly raises the bar set by the first and, by extension, leaves us with great expectations for the last novel.
Mystic Quest begins its tale a whopping twenty-six years after the conclusion of the first novel, Mystic Warrior, with most of the characters from the original either dead, aged, or mentioned only in passing. While this jump in the timeline permits this novel to be successfully weaned off its dependence on its predecessor, the unexpected contrast in setting may leave some readers thumbing through their dog-eared copy of Mystic Warrior in an attempt to come to terms with the vast changes the last two-and-a-half decades have wreaked upon the worlds.
Galen Arvad, the heroic Mystic who led his motley group of forbidden-magic users to rebel against the tyranny of the Dragonkings at the end of the last book, is now the head of one of many Clans of Mystics who are currently scraping for a decent living in a world that still hates and despises them. The suspicion against the Mystics has only increased since the revolt, as the Dragonkings have long memories and do not take kindly to having their primary food source fight back. The only hope the Mystics have of ever having a life free of fear is with the legend of the lost city of Calsandria, the one place in the world said to have escaped the Dragonkings' rule.
It is then that Galen gracefully retires from the storyline, leaving the workings up to his Mystic son, Caelith. The unexpected arrival of Gavin's former wife Berkita, and Jorgan, the other son that Galen never knew he had, offers the Mystics a chance to find this lost city, and it is up to Caelith and his long-lost brother to work together to find the lost city and offer the Mystics a haven of safety.
In the world of the Faery, things have progressed even further. There is now a fifth faery kingdom, its addition to the fold disrupting millennia of careful Fae politics. It is also not a very attractive kingdom, as it is populated by the hordes of restless dead that Dwynwyn summoned at the end of Mystic Warrior, who have rather morbid tastes when it comes to art and architecture. Dwynwyn has been made their unwilling queen, so when the winged race of Kyree asks for kingdom representatives to join them on a quest to find their ancient homeland, she has to send Princess Aislynn in her stead.
Finally, in the third world of the goblins, the brilliant inventor Thux is thrust into the treacherous current of goblin politics by King Mimic himself, and it is nearly all he can do to keep his head above water while he proceeds to make a startling discovery. As the story unfolds, the three worlds, through tenuous links established through the unique magics of each realm, experience parallels as they gradually begin to bleed into and influence each other.
The first novel, while creatively constructed, was often unfocused and disorganized; Mystic Quest evidently spent more time in the oven and has thus emerged as a much more streamlined, graceful, and complete read. The swooping, disjointed drama of the first has been converted into a stable, persistent, and consistent energy that drives the story along at an even pace. At the same time, Mystic Quest offers equal importance to all three worlds, while the goblin world in Mystic Warrior seemed mainly present to provide comic relief. While the dialogue has also improved, a few anachronisms do pop up here and there, shocking bubbles of the modern day appearing where they have no place (did people in a world set in the Middle Ages really use the term ex-girlfriend?).
Either way, fans of Mystic Warrior will be glad to know that Mystic Quest is not only satisfying, but a definite improvement over its predecessor which leads me to anticipate the third novel with more enthusiasm than I was previously expecting.
