Tag Archives: Dragons

Magic Eclipse

Book Review of Magic Eclipse (Dragon Born Shadow World #1), by Ella Summers

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Magic EclipseI picked up a copy of Ella Summers‘ Magic Eclipse from Amazon, when it was free. It was still free at the time of posting.

Description from Goodreads:
They were lovers. Now they’re enemies. 

A magic shock wave cuts across the world—fracturing reality, leaving only a dark Shadow World in its place. 

Former monster-hunting mercenary mage Sera Dering is fighting for her right to exist. Labeled as an abomination, she’s caught in a supernatural war that has been raging for centuries between her kind and the Magic Council’s Crusaders. But when people from both sides begin to go missing, Sera has to team up with Kai Drachenburg, the Crusaders’ commander. She soon discovers that the mysterious fog rolling across San Francisco is only half as dangerous as the sexy, powerful dragon-shifting mage who brings out memories in her of a forgotten world. 

As the commander of the Crusaders’ North American army and a member of one of the world’s oldest magic dynasties, it is Kai’s sworn duty to hate Sera. But as they work together to fight the magic fog plaguing the city, he finds himself drawn to her in ways he cannot understand. Their new alliance is tested, however, when they begin to realize that someone close to them is behind the dark spell—and that the fog is more than it seems.

Review:
Oh man, this book made me angry on several fronts. I mean, it’s an ok, if stripped down, read but it’s problematic too. My main issue is that it’s very clearly labeled book one. But a little investigation shows that it is actually book one of a series that is actually a sequel to a four book series, making this book five. And I went and did that investigating because I very early on felt I was missing something, so yes, you definitely feel the lack of those previous four books. It’s readable, but not overly enjoyable for the characters to talk about people and events you don’t know about and for the world to not be explained and the history to be a blank. It’s not even small things either. The whole plot here is that the characters have forgotten their lives, meaning forgotten the events of the previous four books, and they are fighting to get them back. So, ya know, important stuff.

Then there is this note on Dragon born Serifina’s GR page, that’s the series this is apparently a sequel to.

The Dragon Born Serafina, Dragon Born Alexandria sister series and Naomi’s story Dragon Born Awakening can be read independently or together. The Dragon Born Serafina continues with Dragon Born Shadow World

Suggested reading order:
Mercenary Magic (Dragon Born Serafina, Book 1)
Magic Edge (Dragon Born Alexandria, Book 1)
Magic Games (Dragon Born Serafina, Book 2)
Magic Nights (Dragon Born Serafina, Book 3)
Blood Magic (Dragon Born Alexandria, Book 2)
Magic Kingdom (Dragon Born Alexandria, Book 3)
Fairy Magic (Dragon Born Awakening, Book 1)

It starts out ok, with the separate or together bit, but then confuses me with it’s suggested order. So, does that mean I should read seven books before getting to this one? Or is that establishing a pattern, rather than an actual list? Because each of those series is four books long. So, do I need to have read all 12? Come on authors/publishers. I hate this stuff. If a book is a sequel label it as such. This is obviously not a book one of anything! I mean, we’re even told that: “The Dragon Born Serafina continues with Dragon Born Shadow World.” Continues with…. Not a new series then. Not a book one!

As for the story itself? It’s got some humor. But it’s basically the main characters running around and reacting to things. There is almost no development of plot or characters. We’re told repeatedly that they’re at war, but they call each other, have meetings and are on a first name basis. So, not much of a war then? I never felt the tension that was supposed to exist. The ending came about very quickly and it concluded on a cliffhanger, with nothing looking anything like a conclusion. So, I basically started in the middle of a series and ended on one too. What fun! <–sarcasm

Look, this isn’t the first time I’ve complained about this. In a real sense, it’s the publishing industry’s apparent insistence on making this normal enough for it to happen to me repeatedly that makes encountering it again so problematic for. I even wrote a whole blog post about it, earlier this year. This a hot point issue for me, as a reader. I cannot express how much I hate it.

Lastly, because I’m not feeling particular charitable toward this book at the moment, I need to address that cover. Is it just me or is it particularly focused on breasts? I don’t know, something about that picture seems over-exaggerated and unnatural.

Edit: I’ve decided to add links when I get flack for my reviews. Apparently someone thought this one was “illogical and silly.”

Book Review of The Banished Craft (Shkode #1), by E.D.E. Bell

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The Banished CraftI received a copy of E.D.E Bell‘s The Banished Craft from Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Struggling to solve the mystery of her parents’ murder, Cor comes across a mystery much deeper—a secret society who predicted that someday their world would be devastated. That time is now. In a world where women are not allowed to read, live alone, or pursue knowledge Cor presses forward, discovering a new magic and the power to wield it. A world away, Atesh works in the Imperial Labs, devoting his study to the turmoil destroying his home and endangering dragonkind. Instead he discovers a long-hidden truth. Humans are real.

A quirky and modern take on dragons and wizards, The Banished Craft begins the genre-bending Shkode fantasy trilogy about a split world, exploring themes of identity, prejudice, violence, compassion, and the ways we are all connected.

Review:
OMG, I finally finished this, which was in doubt on more than one occasion. I just could not get into it and every page was a slog. I mean, I can read a book this length in a day. But I’ve been reading this one forever and a day…ok, three weeks, but for me, that’s an eternity. I would pick it up, read a chapter (sometimes less), put it down, go off and read something else (usually an entire other book) and then come back to this one for a chapter (sometimes less). It was in this arduous manner I finally chipped away at it enough to finally finish. And do you know what? It ended about where I expected it to start with nary a conclusion in sight.

And it’s not even that it’s a bad book. The writing is pretty good and the characters seem interesting enough. Unfortunately, there are about four billion of them, most of whom don’t seem relevant (though I suspect they will be in future books). And all these characters populate about a million unrelated plots. Though I expect they’ll connect up at some point, just not in this book. I can kind of see the shape it will be taking, but that’s not enough to be a satisfying rad.

It this over abundance of characters and plot lines that did me in. I was just never able to sink into it and float away with the story. Just about the time I settled into a narrative, it jumped to another, and just about the time I got comfortable there, the book was off again. This is stylistic and if it doesn’t bother you then you may like the book. This drives me batty and I wanted to scream…or DNF the book.

There is a pleasant circularity to the two worlds that I appreciated and again, the writing is pretty good. But This one was definitely not for me. I had hoped to read the sequel, but I barely made it through this one.

Book Review of The Dragon Round, by Stephen S. Power

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The Dragon RoundI was granted an e-copy of The Dragon Round, by Stephen S. Power, from Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
He only wanted justice. Instead he got revenge.

Jeryon has been the captain of the Comber for over a decade. He knows the rules. He follows the rules. He likes the rules. But not everyone on his ship agrees. When a monstrous dragon attacks the Comber, his surviving crew, vengeful and battle-worn, decide to take the ship for themselves and give Jeryon and his self-righteous apothecary “the captain’s chance:” a small boat with no rudder, no sails, and nothing but the shirts on their backs to survive.

Marooned and fighting for their lives against the elements, Jeryon and his companion discover that the island they’ve landed on isn’t quite as deserted as they originally thought. They find a rare baby dragon that, if trained, just might be their ticket off the island. But as Jeryon and the dragon grow closer, he begins to realize that even if he makes it off the island, his life will never be the same again. In order for justice to be served, he’ll have to take it for himself.

Review:
Nope, this one was not for me. Or rather the second half wasn’t. If it had continued in the same vein as the first half I probably would have liked it. But there is a definite difference between the first and second half and I found the second half excessively long and boring. About a billion characters were introduced out of nowhere, while the original two were basically dropped. One never reemerged until the last couple pages for no purpose but as a set up for a sequel. So there was no satisfying closure between them and the reader.

Even as unhappy as I was with the latter half of the book, I still would have called the book ok (just not to my liking). Then it reached the end and I was most displeased. I mean, the tagline of the book is he only wanted justice. Instead he got revenge. I don’t feel like he got either and the futility of it all left me feeling like I’d wasted my time reading it.

Add to that the fact that major, life altering events happened with so little fan fair that I occasionally had to read them twice just to be sure I should at least assume they held importance. And the fact that the mutiny happened so early in the book that I didn’t yet know or care enough for it to make sense in context of the characters and the town leaders were such Ebenezer Scrooge caricatures that I found them unbelievable. There were a lot of detractors here for me.

I did appreciate that the relationship between the Poth and Jeryon remained platonic and I thought the dragon had a lot of personality—as did the crabs, oddly enough. (Yeah, there are killer crabs, BTW.) But I’m just glad to finally be done with the book. At one point I thought it might go on forever.