Here there be Dragons
All right, now we're getting somewhere.
Today I finished a book about a dragon and yesterday I read another book about several dragons. There are many differences: The first dragon is mechanical and most of the plot is about finding it, while the dragons in the other book are very much alive and present. Though they do spend quite some time hunting dragon eggs, for what it's worth.
The books do however have one very startling similarity: They're both part of a series (part 3 and part 6, respectively) and they're both an immense improvement compared to the books just preceding them. Maybe last year was a bad year for dragon writers?
I'm talking about the books:
Dragon Soul by Jones and Bennett.
I don't know if this series - Havemercy, Shadow Magic and Dragon Soul - has a name, but I think they call it the Saga of Volstov and Ke-Han or something like that. The books are the first published works by these authors and especially Havemercy has a strangely "fanficcy" feel to it in the beginning. I only got a few pages in before I checked the authors names and found the on LJ. But both Havemercy and Dragon Soul, which centers on the Volstov Dragon Corps and in large part around the characters Thom (a student) and Rook (a dragon captain), are good, interesting books. I like the mechanical dragons; as an aside, the steampunky look they have on the covers is absolutely gorgeous, especially for Havemercy. The dragons are props, interesting, sometimes conversing props, but they're don't narrate the story nor do they ultimately take much part of the plot. They're built, and in that respect remind of the giant robots from anime.
Still, the characters are engaging, the stereotypes and clichés no worse than usual and especially the quarreling brothers in Dragon Soul really caught me in. Although, I liked the Ke-Han girl Madoka too, I just felt her language wasn't handled as well as it could have been. Part of the problem with shifting first-person POV narrators, I guess, if ones image of how someone ought to speak doesn't match up with how they narrate the story.
Still - these are definitely books I'd recommend to anyone who want fantasy with an epic flair without getting trudged down in 104598 parts of something Robert Jordan-ish, and who enjoys slightly different takes on sexuality and gender to boot (the racial imaginary, alas, is not as advanced. Really, must all desert dwellers automatically act Arabish? Even when they live next door to old China/Japan and Imperial Rome)
But Shadow Magic? Blah. Especially now that I have two novels to compare it to, it stands out as the definite weakest of the bunch. It's about a new bunch of characters, and I thought that was the problem. But no, the new characters in this book are as engaging as the old gang if not more and the plots - runaway prince hunted by evil family + palace intrigues (Shadow Magic) vs. the four-or-more-way hunt for the plot McGuffin (Dragon Soul) - are both equally likely to feel trite or fresh, depending on the authors.
The problem with Shadow Magic is that the characters lack that little something. It has a trite name (I checked at work - we've had four books called Shadow Magic on sale one time or 'nother), a standard plot and the China-Japan mishmash setting stopped excite me even before Liane Hern got around to write her snore-worthy books. What could have made them more, what definitelly pulls Dragon Soul up by it's rather worn Lawrence in Arabia-bootstraps, is that you actually bother to care about the people who do stuff.
Final verdict: Read these authors, but skip the middle book. You don't need it for anything plot-wise, anyway, I think some of the events are even taking place simultaneously.
Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik
I'm not going to bother introducing the Temeraire series to you, beyond saying that it's the Napoleon Era. only with dragons. And the eminintly british captain Will Laurence, once of the Royal Navy, now of the Dragon corps captaining a unusal Chinese breed of dragon.
It's good AU-history fun and here, the dragons definitely shine. Often, they have more sense and compassion than the humans, but in some of the books (including this one) they also outshine all other characters by sheer force of personality. Basically Laurence is almost the only one to hold his own, although the rebelling Australian colony "leader" amused me, minor role that he is.
Yep, in this book, the whole gang are "down under". Even if you haven't read the books so far (get thee and do it, then) you can probably guess that due to the time it all takes place, that's not such a smooth vacation. You are completely right.
Here, the world is really beginning to change due to the influence of the dragons. I do wonder how come it all starts to change now, but what the heck, it's interesting change! It allows Novik to spread her authorial wings and really create a rounded universe of her own, not just "Napoleon-time with dragons" as it has previously been. And I liked it!
Several of the Temerarie books have also been real page-turners, unfortunaterly not the fifth book. For me, it dragged too much. I can take a certain amount of travel by ship and going hither and yon for the latest McGuffin, but when they're sailing across half the world again, I grow weary.
Lucky for me, Novik is back in full spirit, and I couldn't put the book down once I got it in my hands.
Aaaand the rest of my thinky thoughts I'll have to save for the review I'm writing for work. Suffice to say, this was good stuff, well recommended.
ETA: I feel I should perhaps point out, outside of the cut, that the latest Temeraire book is damned good. Case in point: I began reading it yesterday too, and just kept on until I was finished. And then I wanted to go through the series again just to remember the details fresh
Today I finished a book about a dragon and yesterday I read another book about several dragons. There are many differences: The first dragon is mechanical and most of the plot is about finding it, while the dragons in the other book are very much alive and present. Though they do spend quite some time hunting dragon eggs, for what it's worth.
The books do however have one very startling similarity: They're both part of a series (part 3 and part 6, respectively) and they're both an immense improvement compared to the books just preceding them. Maybe last year was a bad year for dragon writers?
I'm talking about the books:
Dragon Soul by Jones and Bennett.
I don't know if this series - Havemercy, Shadow Magic and Dragon Soul - has a name, but I think they call it the Saga of Volstov and Ke-Han or something like that. The books are the first published works by these authors and especially Havemercy has a strangely "fanficcy" feel to it in the beginning. I only got a few pages in before I checked the authors names and found the on LJ. But both Havemercy and Dragon Soul, which centers on the Volstov Dragon Corps and in large part around the characters Thom (a student) and Rook (a dragon captain), are good, interesting books. I like the mechanical dragons; as an aside, the steampunky look they have on the covers is absolutely gorgeous, especially for Havemercy. The dragons are props, interesting, sometimes conversing props, but they're don't narrate the story nor do they ultimately take much part of the plot. They're built, and in that respect remind of the giant robots from anime.
Still, the characters are engaging, the stereotypes and clichés no worse than usual and especially the quarreling brothers in Dragon Soul really caught me in. Although, I liked the Ke-Han girl Madoka too, I just felt her language wasn't handled as well as it could have been. Part of the problem with shifting first-person POV narrators, I guess, if ones image of how someone ought to speak doesn't match up with how they narrate the story.
Still - these are definitely books I'd recommend to anyone who want fantasy with an epic flair without getting trudged down in 104598 parts of something Robert Jordan-ish, and who enjoys slightly different takes on sexuality and gender to boot (the racial imaginary, alas, is not as advanced. Really, must all desert dwellers automatically act Arabish? Even when they live next door to old China/Japan and Imperial Rome)
But Shadow Magic? Blah. Especially now that I have two novels to compare it to, it stands out as the definite weakest of the bunch. It's about a new bunch of characters, and I thought that was the problem. But no, the new characters in this book are as engaging as the old gang if not more and the plots - runaway prince hunted by evil family + palace intrigues (Shadow Magic) vs. the four-or-more-way hunt for the plot McGuffin (Dragon Soul) - are both equally likely to feel trite or fresh, depending on the authors.
The problem with Shadow Magic is that the characters lack that little something. It has a trite name (I checked at work - we've had four books called Shadow Magic on sale one time or 'nother), a standard plot and the China-Japan mishmash setting stopped excite me even before Liane Hern got around to write her snore-worthy books. What could have made them more, what definitelly pulls Dragon Soul up by it's rather worn Lawrence in Arabia-bootstraps, is that you actually bother to care about the people who do stuff.
Final verdict: Read these authors, but skip the middle book. You don't need it for anything plot-wise, anyway, I think some of the events are even taking place simultaneously.
Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik
I'm not going to bother introducing the Temeraire series to you, beyond saying that it's the Napoleon Era. only with dragons. And the eminintly british captain Will Laurence, once of the Royal Navy, now of the Dragon corps captaining a unusal Chinese breed of dragon.
It's good AU-history fun and here, the dragons definitely shine. Often, they have more sense and compassion than the humans, but in some of the books (including this one) they also outshine all other characters by sheer force of personality. Basically Laurence is almost the only one to hold his own, although the rebelling Australian colony "leader" amused me, minor role that he is.
Yep, in this book, the whole gang are "down under". Even if you haven't read the books so far (get thee and do it, then) you can probably guess that due to the time it all takes place, that's not such a smooth vacation. You are completely right.
Here, the world is really beginning to change due to the influence of the dragons. I do wonder how come it all starts to change now, but what the heck, it's interesting change! It allows Novik to spread her authorial wings and really create a rounded universe of her own, not just "Napoleon-time with dragons" as it has previously been. And I liked it!
Several of the Temerarie books have also been real page-turners, unfortunaterly not the fifth book. For me, it dragged too much. I can take a certain amount of travel by ship and going hither and yon for the latest McGuffin, but when they're sailing across half the world again, I grow weary.
Lucky for me, Novik is back in full spirit, and I couldn't put the book down once I got it in my hands.
Aaaand the rest of my thinky thoughts I'll have to save for the review I'm writing for work. Suffice to say, this was good stuff, well recommended.
ETA: I feel I should perhaps point out, outside of the cut, that the latest Temeraire book is damned good. Case in point: I began reading it yesterday too, and just kept on until I was finished. And then I wanted to go through the series again just to remember the details fresh