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A review by rogue_runner
Dragon Dreams by Dusty Lynn Holloway
2.0
I was given this book free in exchange for an honest review.
I’ve read a lot of the fantasy genre, but rarely anything self-published, so this was a little bit of a foray into that world. And, Terradin, the land ‘Dragon Dreams’ is set in. Similar to the Inheritance Trilogy (Christopher Palioni) and a little bit like the Last Dragon Chronicles (Chris d’Lacey), a fairly good beginning managed to catch my attention, but it started to wane throughout the book.
The forte of the book is definitely landscape descriptions. Although a little bit stock-fantasy, the descriptions of the forest and various towns and cities are vivid and large-scale. Things fall down when it comes to plot and characterisation however. I found Auri especially dull, and Nachal’s personality never seemed to be properly defined. Dhurmic had more personality, but was childish in his ways around Nachal, and didn’t seem to have any purpose in the book other than for a diversion, and once he joined the ‘group’, comic relief. Liran’s personality switched frequently depending on situation, and seemed to lack consistency, being used most to impart info dumps to Auri. The plot was very linear and lacked at points, with a lot of lulls where the characters did little, and made the book seem quite slow.
It’s written in third person for most of the book, until a somewhat strange (and a bit jarring) blip at the end at the crux of the plot, where the narration suddenly jumps into first person plural ‘we’. This was a bit strange, although I understood where the author was trying to go with it, to infer that Nachal and Auri were at one in one body… but despite this understanding, it felt a bit strange, and I think perhaps could have been handled better through sticking to the third person.
The chapters are relatively short, with lots of nice breaks throughout, which made it easy for me to read inbetween revision. There were a couple of punctuation mistakes, but nothing too jarring. If you’re keen to read on to the next book, there’s also a couple of chapters from the second book added at the end of this one, which is always a nice addition. No map though, sadly.
A good book if you enjoy very high fantasy with elves/dragons/dwarves. However, if you’re used to the genre and are looking for big complicated plots, perhaps go for something else.
I’ve read a lot of the fantasy genre, but rarely anything self-published, so this was a little bit of a foray into that world. And, Terradin, the land ‘Dragon Dreams’ is set in. Similar to the Inheritance Trilogy (Christopher Palioni) and a little bit like the Last Dragon Chronicles (Chris d’Lacey), a fairly good beginning managed to catch my attention, but it started to wane throughout the book.
The forte of the book is definitely landscape descriptions. Although a little bit stock-fantasy, the descriptions of the forest and various towns and cities are vivid and large-scale. Things fall down when it comes to plot and characterisation however. I found Auri especially dull, and Nachal’s personality never seemed to be properly defined. Dhurmic had more personality, but was childish in his ways around Nachal, and didn’t seem to have any purpose in the book other than for a diversion, and once he joined the ‘group’, comic relief. Liran’s personality switched frequently depending on situation, and seemed to lack consistency, being used most to impart info dumps to Auri. The plot was very linear and lacked at points, with a lot of lulls where the characters did little, and made the book seem quite slow.
It’s written in third person for most of the book, until a somewhat strange (and a bit jarring) blip at the end at the crux of the plot, where the narration suddenly jumps into first person plural ‘we’. This was a bit strange, although I understood where the author was trying to go with it, to infer that Nachal and Auri were at one in one body… but despite this understanding, it felt a bit strange, and I think perhaps could have been handled better through sticking to the third person.
The chapters are relatively short, with lots of nice breaks throughout, which made it easy for me to read inbetween revision. There were a couple of punctuation mistakes, but nothing too jarring. If you’re keen to read on to the next book, there’s also a couple of chapters from the second book added at the end of this one, which is always a nice addition. No map though, sadly.
A good book if you enjoy very high fantasy with elves/dragons/dwarves. However, if you’re used to the genre and are looking for big complicated plots, perhaps go for something else.