Looking Forward to 2021

Ideas of things to come… (plus the Pathfinder Red Dragon, painted by yours truly)

Well, I picked a fun year to reboot the blog, didn’t I?

Let’s not spend too much time dwelling on that, anyway. There have been some plus sides to this year — my publication in Fairytale Dragons, not missing any of my scheduled posts on the blog (give or take a day), plenty of new and exciting books released, lots of writing — and that’s just the stuff from my life. Despite all the chaos in the world, and in the US in particular, there are still plenty of examples of people stepping up to help out others and make things better.

Looking forward, though, we’ve got 2021. A year that promises plenty of its own brand of chaos all the same. But, we persevere, and we’ll make the best of it that we can. I’ve got a few plans in the making for next year, and I’ll share a few of them that seem relevant here:

• More New Books — I’m going to try to get through 100 new books, games, movies, or the like in 2021, meaning that we’re going to see more new books and less re-reads in the blog reviews. Hopefully that will include a few series that I’ve never completed, such as Temeraire, Winterlands, or The Age of Fire, but we’ll see.
• More Self-Published Books — I want to spend some more time digging up worthy self-published dragon books from the spice mines of Amazon. I’ve got a few samples sitting on Hugin, my Kindle, waiting to be attended to… once I finish the Warhammer 40k novel I’m reading… and maybe Rhythm of War too…
• Video Games: I’m a big gamer, and while there are far too few good dragon games out there, I’ve got a few worth talking about. More to come on that later.
• Non-Dragon Things: The tagline of this blog has always promised some non-draconic things, but that’s yet to transpire. Come next year, we’re going to break that. To Sleep In A Sea of Stars, Christopher Paolini’s new sci-fi novel that came out this year, seems a prime candidate to kick that off, but we won’t be stopping there.
• And More!

So for those of you who have subscribed to my blog over this last year, or have enjoyed anything I’ve had to say here, I’d like to say thanks, I hope you had a merry Christmas and will have a happy New Year, and I hope you’ll join me again in the year to come as we delve deeper into the Library.

The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm: A Return To Old Friends

(I know, I know, I’m a day late. My apologies. Unlike many dragons, and some humans, my memory is far from perfect.)

One of my holiday traditions is to re-read one of the Inheritance Cycle books, usually Eragon. If you’ve read my review of that book, I talked about the significance that book has for me, and the first time I read it was around the Christmas season, lo these many moons ago. To crack open the same battered paperback once a year, or else to delve into Gerard Doyle’s pretty good audio rendition, adds a little bit of scaly nostalgia to the season.

I’ve not done my annual re-read yet this year (not even sure which book I’ll select this time around, or if I’ll be kept too busy by other things) but this seems as good a time as any to jump ahead in the series a little bit and talk about its latest installment: The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm, a collection of three short stories plus a framing narrative set after the events of Inheritance.

(Why am I jumping ahead? Frankly, because I’ve been busy reading Rhythm of War and Warhammer 40k novels and I need to go by memory this week.)

I’m going to give some spoilers for this one, to be honest. This book came out on December 31, 2019, so it’s been long enough, and it’s been even longer since Inheritance capped off the main series. Plus, while I appreciate this book as someone who’s interested to see where Alagaesia goes in the future, if you don’t, then you likely aren’t going to care. And if you do, well, maybe my light spoilers will get you to pick it up.

Anyway, the framing of this book is Eragon wandering around his new dragonhold out beyond the edges of the map, dealing with problems and hearing stories from various sources. The first story gives us a glimpse of what Murtagh has been up to since the end of the series, which I enjoyed given he was one of the more interesting characters the first time around. It also explains the origin of a fork Paolini has mentioned before as being created to be just as powerful as a Rider sword, which only really works because of who makes it. But it is funny.

Second, we get a scattering of random chapters from a memoir Angela has been working on, which raises more questions than it answers — but not necessarily in a bad way. This part was actually written by Paolini’s sister Angela, who was both inspiration and namesake for the character, so that’s a nifty cross-over.

The last story is a folk-tale of the Urgals, which gives a little background on their culture. This one I appreciate both for being an example of in-universe storytelling and rounding off the Urgals a little more, a process that Paolini began in the later books in the series.

Overall, though, it’s just nice to see Eragon and Saphira again. It’s nice to see some familiar names, to see how the world has progressed, and to dip my toes back into a world that’s had just as much of an impact on my life as Middle-Earth, Hogwarts, or Luthadel — maybe even more in some ways. Those without prior knowledge of the series aren’t really the target audience for this book, but if you enjoyed the Inheritance Cycle, it’s worth a read. If you know someone who loved the other books, and you need a last-minute Christmas gift for them, maybe this could do the trick.

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If you’re looking for some of my own fiction, the “Fairytale Dragons” anthology features two of my stories and is available now on Kindle! Click here to find out more.

Fate of Dragons: More Like Fate Of Humans

Yeah, Priory of the Orange Tree isn’t done yet. I went and read Dawnshard instead, among other things and procrastinations. I probably won’t get to finishing it until after I’ve read Rhythm of War either, and if you’re also a fan of Brandon Sanderson, you won’t blame me for that.

So for today, let’s reach into the distant past of 2019, and talk about a book I read but haven’t reviewed yet: Fate of Dragons, the first in a series of novels by Alisha Klapheke, which I found on ye olde trusty Kindle store..

In this setting, humans are virtually extinct, wiped out by the sea people out of fear of their earth magic. The one surviving human, a young woman named Vahly, has grown up among a tribe of dragons who are engaged in a war of attrition with the sea people, one that they’re losing. If she’s able to unlock her earth magic, she might be able to turn the tides (aha) of the conflict, but the problem is, the dragons don’t know how to help her do that. Nobody still living does, except perhaps for the neighboring clan of elves. If they can be trusted.

Honestly, the premise of this one is pretty good. The dragons of this setting are powerful and smart, able to shapeshift into humanoid forms when they need to, but they’re outmatched by the power of their enemies, which lets the dragons be dangerous without being overpowered. And the rock-paper-scissors interactions of the magic inherent to each species provides Vahly with plenty of motivation and issues alike, as she’s unable to help her adoptive family, but knows that she could if she could figure out her powers.

But in its execution, I find that I have problems.

Firstly, there’s not enough dragon here, despite half the cast being dragons. Sure, we spend a fair bit of time in dragon-clan territory early on while Vahly is wandering around the place, but we don’t really get a solid feel for how the more society of the dragon outcasts works (which should matter, given the role the outcast characters play), or really even what the dragons look like in their humanoid forms. I find some irony in that — you could argue that Vahly as the POV character isn’t dwelling on the appearance of the dragons given how familiar they would be, and therefore the text features less descriptions, which is exactly how I try to write such things. But in this case, it didn’t work for me.

Also, the elves are too close to the stereotype for me to be engaged by them, considering how much more interesting the dragons and sea people were. Something about them needed to be more unique, like how The Witcher spiced them up with the Scoia’tael, but it wasn’t there.

And thirdly! The chapters from the POV of the sea people don’t fit within the book, never intersecting meaningfully with Vahly’s plotline. It’s not that they’re bad, because they aren’t. They actually do a pretty good job depicting an underwater world and the logistics thereof, but they just don’t seem to belong. Maybe they’re there for context or to explore the world further, maybe they’re just there to set up sequels, I don’t know. But unlike the side plots in, say, The Way of Kings, they don’t carry enough of an arc or intersect enough with the rest of the plot to really belong.

You could argue that I’m being too hard on this book, and maybe you’re right. It’s truly not a bad one, and I’d encourage you to get the free sample and try that if it sounds at all like your cup of tea. Some of the characters are all right, and given that I read it some time ago I may be over-emphasizing my memories of its flaws. Nevertheless, Fate of Dragons left me wanting more, but not in a good way, and that’s far more frustrating than a book that’s just plain bad.

Maybe I’ll try the next entry in the series one of these days and see if things tighten up going forward, but the backlog is long and full of books. Time will tell, I guess.

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If you’re looking for some of my own fiction, the “Fairytale Dragons” anthology features two of my stories and is available now on Kindle! Click here to find out more.