The Arkadians

Lloyd Alexander, of Black Cauldron fame, is the modern-day master of the quest story. The Arkadians is a classic quest, with our poor clerk/hero, Lucian, picking up such companions as mystic healer Joy-in-the-Dance and talking donkey Fronto along the way. The story is reminiscent of Chaucer, with each new companion bringing along (and telling) a tale as the group travels. All the "told tales" sometimes have the effect of kicking the listener out of the action of Lucian's quest, but the energetic cast doesn't allow the reader's attention to wander far. You may find yourself adjusting and readjusting your volume, however, as some performers are quite loud, while others are soft- spoken, or even whispery. M.C. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

May 29, 1995
Lucian flees corrupt palace officials in pre-classical Greece, his flight becoming a quest to discover his role in life. Soon, he's trying to help a second-rate poet turned donkey regain human form. Roaming the land, he also gets caught up in the great conflict between followers of the mother goddess and believers in the Olympian pantheon. Fortunately, he has the help of Joy-in-the-Dance, a young prophetess, in a relationship strikingly similar to that of Taran and Eilonwy in Alexander's five-volume Prydain Chronicles. And like the Prydain novels, this adventure draws heavily on a great body of myths and legends. Perhaps to accommodate the constraints of a single volume, Alexander relays many myths in comic, de-bunked forms-he shows poets transforming a clan of horse-riders into centaurs, a skilled mariner separated from his barmaid love into the epic hero Odysseus. Even with much of the raw material developed only minimally, the result is a good, involving story. Readers already acquainted with Greek literature and legend will enjoy picking out familiar threads. Ages 10-up.