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ryan_brum 's review for:
The Rage of Dragons
by Evan Winter
This book really deserves 2.5 stars, but since Goodreads only gives me the option of giving it 2 or 3 stars, I'll be nice and say 3.
I had a lot of high expectations going into this book, which is honestly something I should stop doing—things tend to let me down when I get high hopes for them, with only a few rare exceptions (looking at you, Leigh Bardugo). Needless to say, those expectations were not met. At all. It is unusual for a book with so many 5 star reviews on Goodreads to disappoint me this badly, but I guess there is a first time for everything.
THE RAGE OF DRAGONS is advertised as a cross between GAME OF THRONES and THE GLADIATOR. The GoT comparison certainly holds; but not the books—the show, and if I had to compare it to seasons, I'd say the latter 2-3 seasons. So, in other words, not good. RAGE lacks anything of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE's political intrigue, opting instead for the senseless battles and dragon fire that dominated the television adaptation's final episodes. One can almost imagine the CGI when reading the book. There is also (and I never thought I would say this) simply too much action. It's excessive to the point that I could only read this book in small sessions because it was exhausting keeping up with all of the fighting.
RAGE is also told in multiple POVs like ICE AND FIRE, but while George R. R. Martin knows how to give his characters a considerable amount of depth through an even blend of action, dialogue, and world-building, Evan Winter instead falls back on tired old tropes and really cheesy, almost anime-like dialogue. And when I say tired old tropes, I mean that this story is basically your standard "farm boy goes on a quest to get revenge for his murdered mother and father" type of tired. It also features "the Chosen One" quite literally in the form of The Chosen, outcasts from their homeland with insanely broken and OP magic (and dragons!) who make up the core of this book's cast. This overpowered nature extends to the book's protagonist, who was so ridiculously OP by the end of the book, I found myself laughing through parts of the end.
I think the biggest disappointment for me, though, was the worldbuilding. This book is supposed to be an African-inspired fantasy, which is a breath of fresh air in a genre dominated by fantasy reimaginings of medieval England. The problem? When Winter remembers he's writing African-inspired fantasy, he really lays it on thick, beating the reader over the head with a variety of languages and terms inspired by those spoken on the African continent, but without providing context or meaning to what these words are in his world. This can be real headscratching for the uninitiated. Compounding the problem is the fact that Winter frequently forgets he is writing IN an African-inspired fantasy world. RAGE is full of your standard tropy medieval English fantasy, right down to the dragons, which are clearly of the European variety. This crisis of identity makes it really hard to immerse yourself in Winter's world.
So, what good can I say about it? The writing is pretty. In fact, I dare say, if Winter cleaned up his dialogue a bit (that is to say, make his characters sound and talk like actual people instead of DRAGON BALL Z characters), his writing would be some of the best I've seen. But that's about it. It was a real struggle to get through this book the further I went in, and I nearly DNF'd it about three times. Glad for it to be over.
I had a lot of high expectations going into this book, which is honestly something I should stop doing—things tend to let me down when I get high hopes for them, with only a few rare exceptions (looking at you, Leigh Bardugo). Needless to say, those expectations were not met. At all. It is unusual for a book with so many 5 star reviews on Goodreads to disappoint me this badly, but I guess there is a first time for everything.
THE RAGE OF DRAGONS is advertised as a cross between GAME OF THRONES and THE GLADIATOR. The GoT comparison certainly holds; but not the books—the show, and if I had to compare it to seasons, I'd say the latter 2-3 seasons. So, in other words, not good. RAGE lacks anything of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE's political intrigue, opting instead for the senseless battles and dragon fire that dominated the television adaptation's final episodes. One can almost imagine the CGI when reading the book. There is also (and I never thought I would say this) simply too much action. It's excessive to the point that I could only read this book in small sessions because it was exhausting keeping up with all of the fighting.
RAGE is also told in multiple POVs like ICE AND FIRE, but while George R. R. Martin knows how to give his characters a considerable amount of depth through an even blend of action, dialogue, and world-building, Evan Winter instead falls back on tired old tropes and really cheesy, almost anime-like dialogue. And when I say tired old tropes, I mean that this story is basically your standard "farm boy goes on a quest to get revenge for his murdered mother and father" type of tired. It also features "the Chosen One" quite literally in the form of The Chosen, outcasts from their homeland with insanely broken and OP magic (and dragons!) who make up the core of this book's cast. This overpowered nature extends to the book's protagonist, who was so ridiculously OP by the end of the book, I found myself laughing through parts of the end.
I think the biggest disappointment for me, though, was the worldbuilding. This book is supposed to be an African-inspired fantasy, which is a breath of fresh air in a genre dominated by fantasy reimaginings of medieval England. The problem? When Winter remembers he's writing African-inspired fantasy, he really lays it on thick, beating the reader over the head with a variety of languages and terms inspired by those spoken on the African continent, but without providing context or meaning to what these words are in his world. This can be real headscratching for the uninitiated. Compounding the problem is the fact that Winter frequently forgets he is writing IN an African-inspired fantasy world. RAGE is full of your standard tropy medieval English fantasy, right down to the dragons, which are clearly of the European variety. This crisis of identity makes it really hard to immerse yourself in Winter's world.
So, what good can I say about it? The writing is pretty. In fact, I dare say, if Winter cleaned up his dialogue a bit (that is to say, make his characters sound and talk like actual people instead of DRAGON BALL Z characters), his writing would be some of the best I've seen. But that's about it. It was a real struggle to get through this book the further I went in, and I nearly DNF'd it about three times. Glad for it to be over.