In this, the second part of the Elven Bane diptych, Shana and the other half elven make their way into the wildlands where they start working on a new fortress to protect themselves from the still mighty, and even more paranoid, Elven lords. As the initial fear of the elves wears off, some of the older half elven wizards decide that things should start returning to normal, i.e., the way it was before they had been uncovered. But Shana, the rest of the former apprentices, and crucially, the dragons, weren't going to have this. Shana finds the politics overwhelming and decides to go off on a scouting trip that was more like a holiday outing. Meanwhile, back in elven held lands, realising they weren't locating anywhere near all the half bloods (and if you thought this was insulting in Harry Potter, you ain't seen anything yet!), the High Lords realise they would have to test all their offspring for illusions hiding their true essence, so one half elven youngster has to go on the run. dragging along his full-elven half sister and her maid who claimed to have intel on how to get them to dragonland. After a fair bit of plot twists that see Shana and her party (a human psi and two dragons) taken ridiculously easily prisoners by the mythical Iron People, then the half elf and his sister also find the same group though disguised as the definitely no longer existing Corn People, former allies of the Iron People as the latter were driven out of their ancestral lands, they are treated better. Meanwhile, an Iron People internal power struggle between the popular War Leader and the older Iron Priest is stirred up by Myre, Keman's twisted little sister, who was also stirring up trouble in the Wizards' new lair.

After quite a few scrapes along the way, Shana's expanded party find their way back home, come up with a plan on how to defeat the High Elven Lords' attack on the wizards and live happily ever after.

After the great deal of detail Norton and Lackey went into in the first two thirds of the book, it isn't unfair to say that that last paragraph was almost as much detail as was given to that part of the story (OK a bit hyperbolic but not too much so!). Upto that point, it is a great book and in places it makes you hold your breath, though nether author ever seriously imperil a major character - if this had been George RR Martin on the other hand...! I had the feeling in the first book that this was our Earth that had suffered the calamity of the elven invasion but in this book, Shana's world felt like a more generic secondary world. ( )

Benevolent dragons. Spoiled brat elves. Evil unicorns.... what's not to like?? ( )

This second book continues right along with the same style of the first. If you didn't like [b:The Elvenbane|176892|The Elvenbane (Halfblood Chronicles, #1)|Andre Norton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316728082s/176892.jpg|2202795], then you won't like this either.

However, if you did enjoy Elvenbane, chances are pretty good you'll enjoy this book. Same set of characters thrown in with a new set so the authors don't have to worry about creating complex, deep characters. Make 'em and use 'em.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book for what it is, a shallow fantasy book that has no pretensions of being epic. You need those sometimes... ( )

Started a bit slow but good concepts, characters and story. Will seek sequel... ( )

Thinking about this book after reading her Alta series, this one falls short. It's the same type of storyline, but with a Pern type twist that didn't quite do it for me. I remember being kind of bored with this series when I compared it to M. Lackey's other work. Maybe the author collaboration just wasn't working for me? ( )