When I was a kid, I was as into horse stories as any clichéd teenage girl ever. Also, I still love it when a great horse appears in a novel. Bansh in RANGE OF GHOSTS, for example.
Well, here is a post at tor.com from Patricia Briggs on “five books with fantastic horses.”
Okay, I must certainly look up A WIND IN CAIRO. Okay, I just picked it up. MY GOD MY TBR PILE, it is going to cause a gravitic implosion and most of it isn’t even physical. It’s especially ridiculous because I don’t have time to read fiction right now anyway. Maybe in April. Late April.
Anyway, I, like Briggs, enjoy the ponies in Anne Bishop’s WRITTEN IN RED series, though they do add to the rather high Implausibility Quotient of the series.
Horses that Briggs didn’t mention:
Bansh, as I mentioned above. I see a lot of commenters at Brigg’s post love Bansh.
Copperhead from LMB’s Sharing Knife series.
The pooka from THE GRAY HORSE by R A MacAvoy
The sea horses from Stiefvater’s THE SCORPIO RACES.
While on the subject of violent carnivorous “horses,” maybe the horses from CJC’s CLOUD’S RIDER. Do they count?
Oh, I like Dun Lady’s Jess! From the book of the same name, by Duranna Durgin.
Okay, what other great horses from fantasy am I missing? Bonus points if the horse is a Real Horse and not a Horse-Shaped Human Person.
Please Feel Free to Share:
I just finished reading Tor’s list myself before coming over here! (And yes, I have a few more titles to add to my TBR list now.)
The book that immediately came to mind for me was Diane Lee Wilson’s I RODE A HORSE OF MILK-WHITE JADE, a lovely story with fantastical elements set in medieval Mongolia.
I adore all of the horses you mentioned. Doranna Durgin generally does great horses (and dogs); Sky, the scarred-up bay racking horse from TOUCHED BY MAGIC and WOLF JUSTICE, is another of my favorites. I’ve also always been fond of Ariantes’ horses in Gillian Bradshaw’s ISLAND OF GHOSTS. (Does that count as fantasy? There are certainly divinations that come true!)
I’m going with Bansh and Peachblossom.
“I Rode a Horse of Milk-White Jade” is a lovely title. I will definitely look that one up.
It’s been an awfully long time since I read Touched by Magic or Wolf Justice. I need to re-read those.
YES for Gillian Bradshaw’s horses. They definitely count as far as I’m concerned.