A review by captnpanda
Spine of the Dragon by Kevin J. Anderson

4.0

A book with a lot of fluff, but not a lot of details leaving you aching for a crumb of more

Spine of the Dragon is a new Fantasy by Kevin Anderson, if you didn't know already Anderson is the author of a good number of Young Adult Star Wars novels. Something that was pointed out to me when I commented on the structure of the chapters in this book.

You start with Adan, King of Suderra as he has the first encounter with the Wreth race, who have awakened from their thousand-year sleep to battle it out with their enemy faction the Frostwreths, now at this point if you aren't getting Game of Throne vibes you will as the Frostwreths start building a fortress of ice as they also prepare for the war and awaken the dragon " Ossus " While the Wreths are the overarching theme, It is the Politics and Conflict between the Commonwealth, who occupy the land destroyed by the first "Wreth War", and the Isharans, who decided to move on to a new land, that gets the most attention. Now Adan and the rest of the human race have to navigate conflict and who really is the main threat as the world as they know it is changing. I mention Game of Thrones again as the focus of this book really is more about the relationships between the characters and their own individual agendas and less so on the Wreth threat. And also much like GoT as well, the Dragon presence in this first book is almost non-existent outside of the mention of "legends".

What Anderson does really well is making it easy to read and digest. This has 101 chapters Yes you read that right. You'll understand quickly as a majority of the chapters are short, and straight to the point. This was great at the beginning of the book with the world-building and setting the stage of faction conflict. It wasn't a slog, and I enjoyed how easily digestible it was.

The further I got invested, however, the more the short chapters irked me. There were some events that I wished got more. It got more cumbersome when building up to a climax, only for the chapter to end and the point of view switching. This happened a lot with Ishara, I tended to skim these chapters as I was less interested in this race than anything else in the book and I really do blame the "cliffhanger chapter into another point of view" structure of the book on that.

Overall, I did very much enjoy this book. The ending frustrated me, and caused me to have strong anger towards particular characters. I also fell in love with Thorn and Elliel and what to see how they progress as the story goes on in the next book. Anderson managed to get me invested, and I can't be mad about it. If you are looking for a fantasy with more focus on human conflict but is easy to follow multiple viewpoints. This is a great contender for that.