Saturday, January 23, 2016

The Dragon Round by Stephen S. Power

I'm conflicted about this book.  I received a free copy of The Dragon Round, by Stephen S. Power, via Netgalley for a fair review.  I'm a sucker for dragons, even though I'm not a big fan of revenge plots and I knew from the start the plot line revolved around a captain seeking revenge on the crew that had mutinied against, and marooned, him and another character.  These two end up on a not-so-deserted island, complete with over-sized crabs, and a baby dragon, which they decide to train to help them get off the island and get justice for their abandonment.

I'm conflicted because I don't think the characters grew as much as they could have, but they had so much potential.  The book also jumped around from character to character too quickly, with too many of them being thrown at me all at once.  There is a list of characters in the front of the book for a reason.

This being said, the story was interesting, and the politics of the world were also interesting.  The author definitely knows his stuff when it comes to sailing.  There were a few minor characters that interested me more than the mmc.  The mfc definitely interested me more, and I would have liked to have seen more of her character.

So, I'm going to give this a cautious "I liked it", but not enough to pick up the sequel when it comes out.  I hope the author can figure out how to create a sweeping world in his next book without short-shifting the characters he writes, maybe if he concentrates more on just a few and leaves the others and their activities to exposition, that would be better.  I'm also sure some people will love this book, and I hope they do, because I can see the potential.

Hmm.  I just went to the author's site to get his link address and he even mentions exactly what I was thinking as I was reading the book: "The Count of Monte Cristo with dragons".

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