Joust
core novel 2003 Dragon Jousters
Record
| First published | 2003 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.06 (12,479 ratings, collected 2026-09-12) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780756401535 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
In this fantasy retelling of Ancient Egypt with dragons, the rival nations of Tia and Alta have warred for generations, with elite Jousters riding trained dragons into battle as the wars' most powerful weapons. Joust, the first novel in Mercedes Lackey's Dragon Jousters series, follows Vetch, a young Altan serf enslaved in Tia, forced to endure the casual cruelty of a Tian dragon boy's master while doing the grueling, dangerous work of tending captured dragons. His circumstances shift when Kashet, an unusually gentle Tian-raised dragon, is assigned a new Jouster who chooses Vetch as his dragon boy, giving him direct, daily contact with the beasts he has always envied and feared.
Where it sits
- Universe: Dragon Jousters
- Series: Dragon Jousters core; position 1 of 4 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Mercedes Lackey
Notes
- From the series record (Dragon Jousters): A separate short story, "Joust", appeared in the shared-world anthology The Dragon Quintet (2004) alongside the novels; kept out of Core as an anthology piece rather than a series novel.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series Dragon Jousters: position 1 of 4: next Alta (2004)
Sources
← Dragon Jousters dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.