The Black Stallion and the Lost City

This book came into my reading group purely by accident. My sister and I were visiting our childhood library in search of the next Sword of Truth book in the series (which they didn't have), and we ended up in the YA and childrens' sections, looking at books we remembered from long ago. I was absolutely in LOVE with Walter Farley's Black Stallion when I was little, so I of course had to check what was in stock. After he passed away, his son took over the franchise and has put out a few books, the latest being The Black Stallion and the Lost City.

Even as a younger me, I knew when I read Steven's first book, that he didn't have the same touch as his father when it came to writing horses. This latest one was true to his nature and revolved more around the boy and the mythology aspect than the Black. I did, however, enjoy the two or three chapters that were written from the Black's viewpoint, a refreshing change from most books written from human angles.

Another peeve of mine is lack of research, especially when it is right at your fingertips with the internet. Steven mentions an "albino" mare, quite often. The truth is, horses do not come in the color albino as we know it for mice and birds, and even alligators. They have an overo gene that creates a similar look as an albino when homozygous (both copies of the dominant gene), but it is always fatal. I can cut him some slack, as the mare was actually the flesh-eating mythology beast, and not technically a real horse, but it is doubtful that a young reader in love with horses is going to know that, and is going to take that inaccurate information to heart and believe that horses come in albino. (I know I would have believed anything Walter Farley said as stone cold truth. I worshiped him, ha).

The plot was decent, and gave a plausible excuse for them to be halfway around the world. The characters were shallow and not well developed, but I didn't expect much more from a YA book, to be fair.

I do applaud his underlying current of dread, as it gave me the tense stomach feeling of being trapped and not able to escape, similar to movies like The Descent. This feeling carried through to the end, when he mentioned the missing filmographer, who is presumed to have reached the lost city.

I would have liked to see the mythology behind the flesh-eating mares presented a little more thoroughly, as it is not nearly as common as some other Greek myths. There were four mares, but only one had the red eyes, and there was also a gray stallion mentioned that was a maneater. Where did the stallion come from? Why did only the one mare have red eyes? Just questions for curiosities sake, as it felt like the most interesting part of the story was missing juicy details.