Horses Rule In Lavay Byrd's Radical Equine Fantasy -- Review of her "Light Horse, Dark Horse: Book One -- The Miraculous Birth: The Light Horse Has Come"

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Reviewer: Forrest Schultz schultz_forrest@yahoo.com 770-583-3258

Blog Address: http://newsciencefictionandfantasyreviews.blogspot.com

April 25, 2011

Horses Rule In Lavay Byrd's Radical Equine Fantasy

A review of

Lavay Bird Light Horse, Dark Horse: Book One -- The Miraculous Birth: The Light Horse Has Come (Create Space, 2011)

$16.95 76 pp ISBN-10: 1456484028 ISBN-13: 978-1456484026

Reviewer: Forrest W. Schultz

Lavay Byrd likes horses so much that she is planning a career in equine management and she is writing equine fantasy -- the Light Horse, Dark Horse series. The recently published first book of this series makes it crystal clear from its very first page that this is a radical equine fantasy: the Deity of this fantasy world is a Horse -- actually a Divine Trinity of Horses! And this Equine Trinity has the same attributes in that world which the Christian Triune God has in ours!!

And, at the creaturely level, there is a special class of horses which is the counterpart of our angels, and another special horse class analogous to humans. And there is a Fall and Salvation: the Devil of this world is The Dark Horse; and the Christ of this world is The Light Horse, whose birth and infancy are the culmination of the first book.

Lavay Byrd also likes to draw pictures of horses. This is clear from the many illustrations of horses she has drawn for her book, including the front cover. These illustrations are totally equine, each one portraying horse characters in various scenes in the story.

The Light Horse, Dark Horse world is comparable to C. S. Lewis's Narnia in having a Creation/Fall/Salvation scenario, in being a serious story, and in having an animal as a Christ-figure: The Light Horse in Byrd's fantasy, and Aslan the Lion in C. S. Lewis's. But its radically equine nature is very different from Narnia, which has many different animal (and human) characters.

Byrd is now at work on the second book of the series, which should be published soon. Information on Byrd and her books can be found at www.lighthorse-darkhorse.webs.com

Byrd lives in Coweta County, but she will soon be moving to Texas for her equine management studies.