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bananatricky's review against another edition
4.0
A fantastic start to a new series following on from the totally awesome Dragon Blood series - even better it was free on Kindle.
This first book in a new series focuses on a small team of relatively junior officers who have been brought together by General Ridgewalker Zirkander for a mission to find swords and other magical artifacts capable of slaying the dragons which have somehow opened a portal back into the world and to ultimately destroy that portal.
Telryn 'Trip' Yert and his friend Lu "Leftie" Lymander are dragon flier pilots. Trip has a secret, he gets hunches which are almost always right and sometimes, when he doesn't pay attention, he can break things without touching them.
Rysha Ravenwood is a strange recruit to the elite troops, from a noble family she is scholarly and short-sighted with an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of dragon lore.
The team also includes Jaxi (the soul blade), Captain Kaika the explosives expert, Major Blazer, Duck and a morose Cofah soldier.
If you like fantasy road trip plots with sarcastic sentient magical artifacts and pompous dragons then this is the novel for you. There's plenty of battles, big and small, humour, magic and a cracking plot.
Highly recommended.
This first book in a new series focuses on a small team of relatively junior officers who have been brought together by General Ridgewalker Zirkander for a mission to find swords and other magical artifacts capable of slaying the dragons which have somehow opened a portal back into the world and to ultimately destroy that portal.
Telryn 'Trip' Yert and his friend Lu "Leftie" Lymander are dragon flier pilots. Trip has a secret, he gets hunches which are almost always right and sometimes, when he doesn't pay attention, he can break things without touching them.
Rysha Ravenwood is a strange recruit to the elite troops, from a noble family she is scholarly and short-sighted with an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of dragon lore.
The team also includes Jaxi (the soul blade), Captain Kaika the explosives expert, Major Blazer, Duck and a morose Cofah soldier.
If you like fantasy road trip plots with sarcastic sentient magical artifacts and pompous dragons then this is the novel for you. There's plenty of battles, big and small, humour, magic and a cracking plot.
Highly recommended.
slc333's review against another edition
4.0
A return to the Dragon's Blood world with a new adventure, new heroes and cameos from old favourites. Everything I have come to expect from Buroker - adventure, fun, magical constructs and plenty of banter. A very enjoyable read.
velossfaeniel's review
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
navsy's review
2.0
I went into this book expecting more dragons, more soulblades and more action scenes than Buroker's Dragon Blood series. But here I am, sorely disappointed and really surprised at myself for managing to finish it. The reason that I keep coming back to Buroker's books is the characters and this book seriously lacked in that department for me. I found Trip and Rysha to be annoying and dull at the same time. The humor rubbed off wrong for the entirety of the book (mainly cause I didn't like anyone -- not even Jaxi! Guess I liked her better with Sardelle and Ridge). The ending made up for most of the boring 85% of the book. Although, even the ending wasn't that great or action packed IMO. I'm not sure if I want to continue with this series. We shall see.
bulbasaurusthe7th's review
1.0
DNF at 35%.
Man, this book is not good. Very, very not good.
The author has an astonishing amount of works there, so when it comes to work ethic, I have to salute her, but it honestly feels like she has huge issues when it comes to some other things. Some authors develop in their skill levels very fast, you can see the huge jumps in quality. Here I'm just disappointed. After so many thousands of pages and so many great ratings the whole thing feels very amateur and very... juvenile, honestly. Sure, there are rookie mistakes that are called that because rookies do them and they are common. But she isn't such a rookie. I am disappointed.
Steampunk is something that's either a hit or a miss with people, it's relatively controversial when it comes to subgenres. I personally love it. One of my biggest discoveries last year was Anthony Ryan's Draconis Memoria, I am a huge fan of the Ketty Jay series by Chris Wooding, it all just appeals to me. So I was over the moon when I found an indie author with a steampunk series with dragons. Cool stuff, right?
Would be if the whole execution wasn't so BAD.
Snappy, humorous dialogue isn't easy, I understand. I'm not great at coming up with stuff like that, truly. I have no idea why everyone feels they can ace that shit, honestly. Here it's an absolute disaster in the most childish, "14-year-old sasses in a Tumblr post" way. Sometimes it feels like a lot of authors hinder themselves with spending so much time online and developing the very same type of dialogue writing as you can see in every clone of a clone "I'm so random" blog or comment section. It's derivative, not that funny and... honestly, it doesn't fit the setting. That has to be considered as well; maybe you quip like a god in a casual way with your friends or something, but not every setting benefits from 201X humour. (It will also really date the writing, by the way.)
The humour is not the only thing smashing my immersion, either. The characters are soldiers, they communicate with their subordinates and bosses and NOBODY is ever even just remotely professional. Zero discipline, zero respect. Commanders don't cutesy-cutesy with their wives in front of subordinates they met 2 minutes ago. The way they talk to each other wouldn't fly in any even just barely professional setting.
Sure, you can say it's fantasy, but that doesn't excuse the seemingly nonexistent knowledge the author has about any wartime protocol. It's horrid.
Now we also have the dreadful characters. They are idiots, plain and simple. Priceless weapons just get handed over to random people. Our heroine with 3 uni degrees has no idea how to fix a wobbly table. Important information gets thrown around casually and without proper thinking.
And of course we have to have our "bestestest smartest female character who is such a little victim of men". Not stale at all. She also blabbers like crazy about supposedly smart things that are basic and people are amazed. Then she looks at an attacking dragon and magically calculates everything for the soldiers to shoot it, because she is a Big Bang Theory level of "genius".
I will be honest, this was a dumpster fire. I will not mention it to anyone (except to point out it's baaaaaaad), I will not read the sequels or anything else by the author Epic fail.
Have a nice day and let me storm out now!
Man, this book is not good. Very, very not good.
The author has an astonishing amount of works there, so when it comes to work ethic, I have to salute her, but it honestly feels like she has huge issues when it comes to some other things. Some authors develop in their skill levels very fast, you can see the huge jumps in quality. Here I'm just disappointed. After so many thousands of pages and so many great ratings the whole thing feels very amateur and very... juvenile, honestly. Sure, there are rookie mistakes that are called that because rookies do them and they are common. But she isn't such a rookie. I am disappointed.
Steampunk is something that's either a hit or a miss with people, it's relatively controversial when it comes to subgenres. I personally love it. One of my biggest discoveries last year was Anthony Ryan's Draconis Memoria, I am a huge fan of the Ketty Jay series by Chris Wooding, it all just appeals to me. So I was over the moon when I found an indie author with a steampunk series with dragons. Cool stuff, right?
Would be if the whole execution wasn't so BAD.
Snappy, humorous dialogue isn't easy, I understand. I'm not great at coming up with stuff like that, truly. I have no idea why everyone feels they can ace that shit, honestly. Here it's an absolute disaster in the most childish, "14-year-old sasses in a Tumblr post" way. Sometimes it feels like a lot of authors hinder themselves with spending so much time online and developing the very same type of dialogue writing as you can see in every clone of a clone "I'm so random" blog or comment section. It's derivative, not that funny and... honestly, it doesn't fit the setting. That has to be considered as well; maybe you quip like a god in a casual way with your friends or something, but not every setting benefits from 201X humour. (It will also really date the writing, by the way.)
The humour is not the only thing smashing my immersion, either. The characters are soldiers, they communicate with their subordinates and bosses and NOBODY is ever even just remotely professional. Zero discipline, zero respect. Commanders don't cutesy-cutesy with their wives in front of subordinates they met 2 minutes ago. The way they talk to each other wouldn't fly in any even just barely professional setting.
Sure, you can say it's fantasy, but that doesn't excuse the seemingly nonexistent knowledge the author has about any wartime protocol. It's horrid.
Now we also have the dreadful characters. They are idiots, plain and simple. Priceless weapons just get handed over to random people. Our heroine with 3 uni degrees has no idea how to fix a wobbly table. Important information gets thrown around casually and without proper thinking.
And of course we have to have our "bestestest smartest female character who is such a little victim of men". Not stale at all. She also blabbers like crazy about supposedly smart things that are basic and people are amazed. Then she looks at an attacking dragon and magically calculates everything for the soldiers to shoot it, because she is a Big Bang Theory level of "genius".
I will be honest, this was a dumpster fire. I will not mention it to anyone (except to point out it's baaaaaaad), I will not read the sequels or anything else by the author Epic fail.
Have a nice day and let me storm out now!
evalynex's review
I should like this book. I really should. Magic + Dragons + Steampunk-ish vibes? All the right ingredients. But there were just somethings that kept my from getting very far into the book. Although I really like Trip, his "I wanna be a hero!" aspirations and then his (childish but still actually a thing?) dreams of his childhood hero and now direct superior is weird. His best friend Leftie being afraid of witches, (Trip hides that he himself is a witch), is cliche and is seemingly unnecessary other then angst in the future. Then there is Rysha is the "perfect" academic who just happens to have everything needed for the mission memorized (but all from her previous studies, resulting in 3 degrees), a sword that talks telepathically, Sardelle who is 300+ years old witch but is snooty enough to demand being called a Sorceress or Mage, and witches being the products of dragons and humans breeding (seems dragons can shapeshift into humans....but some dragons still think humans are just food or people to be enslaved) and it all kinda is just a bit too much. I was rolling along with it but the humor just kept getting at me. It just is off, and it killed the book 50 pages in for me - a mission briefing talking about dragons that have been ravaging humankind with military officers (ignoring how green in the tooth they are [which is another...problem]) just rankled.
sarzwix's review
3.0
Huh
I really enjoyed the book, but was a bit thrown by the ridiculously abrupt ending, almost in the middle of a conversation.
I really enjoyed the book, but was a bit thrown by the ridiculously abrupt ending, almost in the middle of a conversation.
kartiknarayanan's review
3.0
The review of the entire series is available at my blog
Lindsay Buroker is a machine. She churns out more books than other authors out there. And, the good part is that all these books are of a consistently decent quality. Dragon Storm is no exception. It is set in the same world as Dragon Blood, has some of the same characters but the protagonists are new.
I liked this book. It was good but not great. There is a lot of setting up and introductions since it is the first in a series. But beyond that, I struggle to remember what happened in the book which shows how it focuses less on plot and more on setting the stage.
If you liked this review, please visit my blog Digital Amrit
Lindsay Buroker is a machine. She churns out more books than other authors out there. And, the good part is that all these books are of a consistently decent quality. Dragon Storm is no exception. It is set in the same world as Dragon Blood, has some of the same characters but the protagonists are new.
I liked this book. It was good but not great. There is a lot of setting up and introductions since it is the first in a series. But beyond that, I struggle to remember what happened in the book which shows how it focuses less on plot and more on setting the stage.
If you liked this review, please visit my blog Digital Amrit