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A review by debz57a52
The Dragons of the Cuyahoga by S. Andrew Swann
2.0
So, I picked this book up because of a blog's 2015 Reading Challenge. One of the check boxes said "a book set in your hometown." Since I'm from Cleveland, the first thing that came to me is the Les Roberts series of mysteries. I've read a few, probably over a decade ago, but it's been a while, and I'm not usually a mystery fan anyway.
However, I started looking on Goodreads for other books set in Cleveland, and this one intrigued me. Cleveland, but with magic and Dragons? Awesome!
While the idea is still awesome, the execution was not as much. First, I read the book on my Kindle, and the text did not seem to be very well-proofed. I found roughly one spelling, spacing, grammar, or usage mistake per chapter, I think. Second, the book is not fabulously edited. If someone actually read the book (hopefully aloud) before it went to press, some of the repetition - not parallel structure, mind you - and wordy sentences could have been edited to be more powerful.
That aside, I think the fact that I had Les Roberts to compare to made it tough for me to like this book with a setting in Cleveland. When Les Roberts writes about an integral part of Cleveland, he uses his research to move the plot along. The information he shares, for example, explains the turf war whose dividing line is the West Side Market, or we learn about the history of the salt mining industry in Cleveland before ending up at a salt mine for a very important moment. I didn't feel like the information about Cleveland shared in The Dragon of Cuyahoga was integral to the story - it was just a convenient setting to wishfully explain why Cleveland finally got some respect and economic stability. I imagine that this book could have been moved to any major city with a failing economy and a nearby body of water and been good to go.
I don't know if this would bug me if I read it ten years ago, but the anachronisms bothered me while reading this book. Kline kept calling his laptop his "notebook," a phrase we stopped using because it was confusing. His cell phone doesn't send or receive texts, which is odd even for 2004. He owns an all-digital big-screen TV (which would be more like a mid-size TV now), but he talked about how expensive it was. Stuff like that, usually around technology.
Finally, as another reviewer mentioned, there were layers upon layers of conspiracies here, and I seriously had trouble keeping them straight. At some point, about 40% in, I didn't think it was worth it to continue, but I trudged on. At 80% in, I felt like the end was close enough that I shouldn't give up then. At 90%, I questioned the pacing of the book - shouldn't we be in the thick of the climax by now?
I see on Goodreads that this is #1 in a series. I don't plan to go looking for the others.
However, I started looking on Goodreads for other books set in Cleveland, and this one intrigued me. Cleveland, but with magic and Dragons? Awesome!
While the idea is still awesome, the execution was not as much. First, I read the book on my Kindle, and the text did not seem to be very well-proofed. I found roughly one spelling, spacing, grammar, or usage mistake per chapter, I think. Second, the book is not fabulously edited. If someone actually read the book (hopefully aloud) before it went to press, some of the repetition - not parallel structure, mind you - and wordy sentences could have been edited to be more powerful.
That aside, I think the fact that I had Les Roberts to compare to made it tough for me to like this book with a setting in Cleveland. When Les Roberts writes about an integral part of Cleveland, he uses his research to move the plot along. The information he shares, for example, explains the turf war whose dividing line is the West Side Market, or we learn about the history of the salt mining industry in Cleveland before ending up at a salt mine for a very important moment. I didn't feel like the information about Cleveland shared in The Dragon of Cuyahoga was integral to the story - it was just a convenient setting to wishfully explain why Cleveland finally got some respect and economic stability. I imagine that this book could have been moved to any major city with a failing economy and a nearby body of water and been good to go.
I don't know if this would bug me if I read it ten years ago, but the anachronisms bothered me while reading this book. Kline kept calling his laptop his "notebook," a phrase we stopped using because it was confusing. His cell phone doesn't send or receive texts, which is odd even for 2004. He owns an all-digital big-screen TV (which would be more like a mid-size TV now), but he talked about how expensive it was. Stuff like that, usually around technology.
Finally, as another reviewer mentioned, there were layers upon layers of conspiracies here, and I seriously had trouble keeping them straight. At some point, about 40% in, I didn't think it was worth it to continue, but I trudged on. At 80% in, I felt like the end was close enough that I shouldn't give up then. At 90%, I questioned the pacing of the book - shouldn't we be in the thick of the climax by now?
I see on Goodreads that this is #1 in a series. I don't plan to go looking for the others.