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A review by hidekisohma
The Dragons of the Cuyahoga by S. Andrew Swann
3.0
Welp, this sure was a book I read. That's probably the best way i can describe this. It was a book i read.
When i read the premise, it actually sounded really cool. A fantasy portal opens up in Cleveland and magical creatures pour out of it and this news reporter has to investigate the death of a dragon. That sounds RIGHT up my alley. The problem is, the author doesn't really DO anything with it.
I WILL tell you what this author loves talking about though, and that's politics, holy crap did the author like talking about the politics of what happened here. Nearly every chapter there's some mention of how the government reacted to this portal opening up. Either with a law passed with congress, the way the police force changed, etc, he just keeps adding more and more stuff.
And world building isn't a bad thing, but he kind of picked one of the most uninteresting things you could think of. This is a portal where elves, unicorns and dragons are all coming through, and you're talking about legal loopholes that give elves citizen-hood. It's like having a box of fireworks and when they're firing off the fireworks, checking out the box they came in. It might be kind of interesting, but it shouldn't be a major focal point.
The main character, Kline, is, in a word, boring. He's your standard news reporter whose personality equates to "i'm a normal 40- something guy" that's about it. he reacts as well as you'd expect a character like that to at the world around him, and, after the first 150ish pages, he just starts getting kidnapped by everyone and is dragged along as the plot is explained to him.
A myriad of characters are added as the story goes on, and i forgot about 3/4 of them. Without giving away spoilers, i'll just say when they reveal the big baddie, i kind of just blinked and went "wait. did they ever mention this character before?" like, the character was so irrelevant to the plot i honestly couldn't even remember if they had mentioned them before.
Kline does some investigative journalism in the first half, but once he gets kidnapped the first time, it's just a giant schlog of him being dragged along to wherever the plot needs him to be. The climax wasn't even really satisfying, as he doesn't do much to resolve the story either.
I feel like this entire story was a wasted opportunity. Despite being a world of where fantastical creatures come through a portal, we meet a few mages, one live dragon, a gargoyle, and some elves. that's about it. There's no world building in that sense. like i don't believe this city is overrun with magical creatures. it kinda feels like a small spattering of them exist here rather than a new large section of the population.
An aspect of the story that could have been cut ENTIRELY was Kline's ex-wife and daughter. They're not even in the same city with him. They both live in California and all these characters amount to is Kline talking to them over the phone 2-3 times so we know they exist. They don't affect the plot, they don't do anything, they just kind of....exist. If you cut them out of the story and just said "he was never married" it would have affected crap all.
The first half of the story when he was investigating gave some promise, if not a bit dull. The second half became a rougher read though and the final 100 pages had me checking the page count a LOT more than normal.
This story really had a good idea behind it. I don't know why Swann chose to tell this PARTICULAR story when a setting of a magical portal in the middle of Cleveland had so much more potential. Also Kline needs a personality BAD.
The actual writing style was fine. it was easy to understand and nothing really left me confused. It was what he decided to focus on that made it more annoying. Still, I didn't actively dislike it, and am moderately interested to pick up the second book (if i can either get it used or at a library. not buying it new) to see if he spends more time on the characters in the world rather than the politics.
2.5 out of 5 rounded up to a 3.
When i read the premise, it actually sounded really cool. A fantasy portal opens up in Cleveland and magical creatures pour out of it and this news reporter has to investigate the death of a dragon. That sounds RIGHT up my alley. The problem is, the author doesn't really DO anything with it.
I WILL tell you what this author loves talking about though, and that's politics, holy crap did the author like talking about the politics of what happened here. Nearly every chapter there's some mention of how the government reacted to this portal opening up. Either with a law passed with congress, the way the police force changed, etc, he just keeps adding more and more stuff.
And world building isn't a bad thing, but he kind of picked one of the most uninteresting things you could think of. This is a portal where elves, unicorns and dragons are all coming through, and you're talking about legal loopholes that give elves citizen-hood. It's like having a box of fireworks and when they're firing off the fireworks, checking out the box they came in. It might be kind of interesting, but it shouldn't be a major focal point.
The main character, Kline, is, in a word, boring. He's your standard news reporter whose personality equates to "i'm a normal 40- something guy" that's about it. he reacts as well as you'd expect a character like that to at the world around him, and, after the first 150ish pages, he just starts getting kidnapped by everyone and is dragged along as the plot is explained to him.
A myriad of characters are added as the story goes on, and i forgot about 3/4 of them. Without giving away spoilers, i'll just say when they reveal the big baddie, i kind of just blinked and went "wait. did they ever mention this character before?" like, the character was so irrelevant to the plot i honestly couldn't even remember if they had mentioned them before.
Kline does some investigative journalism in the first half, but once he gets kidnapped the first time, it's just a giant schlog of him being dragged along to wherever the plot needs him to be. The climax wasn't even really satisfying, as he doesn't do much to resolve the story either.
I feel like this entire story was a wasted opportunity. Despite being a world of where fantastical creatures come through a portal, we meet a few mages, one live dragon, a gargoyle, and some elves. that's about it. There's no world building in that sense. like i don't believe this city is overrun with magical creatures. it kinda feels like a small spattering of them exist here rather than a new large section of the population.
An aspect of the story that could have been cut ENTIRELY was Kline's ex-wife and daughter. They're not even in the same city with him. They both live in California and all these characters amount to is Kline talking to them over the phone 2-3 times so we know they exist. They don't affect the plot, they don't do anything, they just kind of....exist. If you cut them out of the story and just said "he was never married" it would have affected crap all.
The first half of the story when he was investigating gave some promise, if not a bit dull. The second half became a rougher read though and the final 100 pages had me checking the page count a LOT more than normal.
This story really had a good idea behind it. I don't know why Swann chose to tell this PARTICULAR story when a setting of a magical portal in the middle of Cleveland had so much more potential. Also Kline needs a personality BAD.
The actual writing style was fine. it was easy to understand and nothing really left me confused. It was what he decided to focus on that made it more annoying. Still, I didn't actively dislike it, and am moderately interested to pick up the second book (if i can either get it used or at a library. not buying it new) to see if he spends more time on the characters in the world rather than the politics.
2.5 out of 5 rounded up to a 3.