The Black Stallion

[osprey_archer]

I was looking up The Black Stallion on Wikipedia, for reasons that need not detain us, and I scrolled down idly to look at the other books in the series - there were a ton of books in this series, by the way, how did I not know this? - and found this:

The Island Stallion Races (1955) - Two aliens from another world enter the secret valley of Azul Island and offer Steve an opportunity for Flame to compete against the world's fastest race horses.

ALIENS. Walter Farley got ten books into his series, which was already pretty bonkers, there's a secret valley on a Caribbean island full of wild horses and also a bunch of plane crashes and a random forest fire - anyway, Farley got ten books in the series and apparently he got bored and he decided to throw in some aliens.

And not just any aliens! Aliens who love horse racing so much that they have nothing better to do than come to earth and make the two fastest and most majestic horses on the planet race for their amusement!

Yes. This is an "aliens made them do it" horse race. Between two horses who are each others' deepest nemesis, who will in a later book be stranded on an island where "their struggle for power becomes a fight for survival when the two horses band together to fight a deadly vampire bat."

A VAMPIRE BAT SO DEADLY IT MIGHT DRAIN TWO HORSES OF THEIR BLOOD. Two horses who hate each other with the fiery passion of a thousand suns! CAN YOU FEEL THE FOEYAY?

...Is it bad that I want to read these now, I can't even decide if I want to read the whole series (my sixth grade teacher read us the first one, I think I might have read the sequel?, but clearly I never got to VAMPIRE BATS) or just go straight for the weird ones.

Comments

[sineala.livejournal.com]

I was a horse-obsessed small child and I am pretty sure I read every one of those books (and have seen both of the movies -- the first one was lovely) and while I don't specifically recall that book I am sure it was amazing. I don't think you need to read them in order. I sure didn't.

(I was always fond of the ones about the secret valley of horses but my favorite one was about the filly who had traumatically lost her tail and refused to run until they got the brilliant idea to give her a FAKE TAIL that she could swish around and then she won all the races yay.)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm kind of into the secret valley of horses thing too. I think I should read that book, because that is clearly the origin story of the second stallion, and obviously the sequels will make more sense that way.

Also, SECRET VALLEY OF HORSES. Who doesn't want a secret valley of horses?

[sineala.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Flame comes from the island. There were conquistadors? Or something? I don't really remember.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia tells me conquistadors. They lost a herd of horses, which made their way to the secret valley and have been living free and wild ever since.

[lycoris.livejournal.com]

That sounds like the best set of sequels ever! Man, crazy strange sequels are just the best. I would have read those with joy!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Clearly at some point he stopped giving any fucks about whether any of this made sense and just started writing whatever he wanted, and it sounds like the results were glorious. DEADLY VAMPIRE BAT. DEFEATED BY AN ALLIANCE OF THE TWO NEMESIS STALLIONS.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

That's amazing! I never got into horse books, so completely missed out on vampire bat power struggles and horse-racing-obsessed aliens. What we've missed!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I KNOW, RIGHT? If only I had known the later books in the series were so weird! I... actually I'm not sure I would have appreciated SUDDENLY ALIENS when I was twelve, so maybe it's just as well.

But still. SUDDENLY ALIENS. Aliens who love horse races!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I reviewed these and was also pretty boggled.

They do not actually band together to fight a deadly vampire bat. The bat figures minimally in the story, though understandably large in the cover copy. However, there really are aliens and they have an invisible alien space ship.

You should go straight to the weird ones.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

No deadly vampire bat of DOOM? Well, that's a let down. But I imagine there's plenty of other weirdness in the book.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

There is a bat, it just has a relatively small role in the story.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I was, momentarily, confused between The Black Stallion and Black Beauty ..... you can see how my confusion would have escalated!

Hells to the yeah, though; enjoy the alien-induced races!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see how that would be confusing. "Wait, where were the aliens in that litany of abusive horse treatment in Victorian England? Are aliens who force horses to race one of the scourges of horse kind?"

[inspirethoughts.livejournal.com]

Oh I havent read these books and no you are making me want to reach them. :)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

You and me both! The summary had me at random horse-race-loving aliens.