Rating: Summary: Highly enjoyable! Review: A riveting book - very, very good. I stayed up until 3:30am to finish it. If you don't read this - its your own fault. Enough said.
Rating: Summary: Incredible book-if there were ten stars, it would get them Review: I read this book until 2:30, and even then had trouble putting it down! With a fresh new prespective on the fantasy scene and heroes that have faults as well as goodness and villains with goodness as well as evilness, Joanne Bertin has written a novel that seems believable, and is above all incredible! If I ever have to list my favorite books of all time, this will definitely be high up on my list.
Rating: Summary: Same Old Stuff with an Interesting World Review: This one is defnintely for those who like the same old cliches--people who turn into dragons (and they are always sexy, attractive people despite the bit about Marks). We know all the good guys are good because they are attractive and they grin and laugh at everything each other says, though it's seldom funny, and the bad guys are nasty because they don't grin, they sneer, and they say bad things about Dragons. We have horses smarter than Lassie the Wonder Dog, and of course we have nasty blood cults where young kids are sacrificed.We know right from the start that our Hero isn't going to be the last Dragonlord for long, because of the extra-coy introduction of the heroine who just LOVES Dragons. Sure enough he gets his soultwin, a concept we've seen over and over, but here the name carries a faint whiff of incest. The worldbuilding is the best aspect of the novel; one hopes Bertin will eventually drop the cliches and think of some new takes on old stuff.
Rating: Summary: A good romp through a new fantasyland. Review: I found Ms. Bertin's new novel well-written, with good attention to detail. Although the characters were definetely not black-and-white 2-D, it was sometimes hard to understand why a given incident would motivate a significant change in a character's behavior. It's worth more than 1 read.
Rating: Summary: Do not start reading this book at 11:00pm... Review: Not since Startide Rising has a book kept me awake and turning pages utill 3:00 in the morning. I spent the last hour reading in the hall after my chuckles and comments got me kicked out of bed. Joanne Bertin has written a wonderful page turner. Linden Rathen, Otter, Maurynna and the rest of her characters are well rounded and detailed. Her heroes are people you would want as friends and her villians while nasty are still human. Both her heroes and villians have realistic strengths and weaknesses with histories that intertwine and add a wonderful background. The only drawback to the novel may be that there is almost too much background information. Early in the novel the various flashbacks and details make some of the transitions difficult. However by the end of the book, all those hints of other adventures just whet your appetite for more books about Linden Rathen's past and future. I sincerely hope that Joanne Bertin writes many more books dealing with Linden and the other colorful characters in this marvelous world she has created.
Rating: Summary: If you want to get lost in a book, read this! Review: I love reading books that take me away to the land being described and have had that opportunity too few times in recent years. THE LAST DRAGONLORD is one that sucks you in and refuses to let go. The characters are well drawn, the dialog is excellent, the surroundings are vivid, and all five senses absorb the book. Ms. Bertin has combined expertises to make every part of the book feel "real" -- there's nothing worse than being able to poke holes in someone's research! I enthusiastically recommend this for readers who enjoy good fantasy.
Rating: Summary: Prepare to be disappointed Review: This book was one of the worst I have ever read...and that's a LOT.
1) The style of the writing was immature. Some people think that it should have been aimed at younger readers, but I think even the average thirteen-year-old would have felt patronised and looked-down on. The style made the characters seem even more flat and superficial than they were
2) The characters are superficial. Linden is the 'manly brave hot lusty' stereotype whose every wrong action is justified by the dragon snoring away inside him. Yawn much? Maurynna, she of the insanely long and elaborate name, is the 'womanly brave hot tomboy with vulnerability'. Her vulnerability is shown by the fact that she continually curls up and weeps. Otter is annoying and seems to be just there to narrate. Sherrine is...ugh. Although the most believable emotionally, she's just as flat as any of them. Most of the time the characters are like puppets dangling insanely with either ridiculously drawn happy faces or clownish tears. Hate hate hate is all I can say.
3) The plot is ridiculously overblown. It's long-winded, never fully explained, full of deliberate twists and 'suspense', and readers never get an idea of who's good, bad or ambiguous. Except the perfect Dragonlords. Read 'Dune' to find out what a suspenseful political plot is like. The politics in this is very very bare and not understandable. I mean, is this place a constitutional monarchy or something else entirely? Never explained. Considering the politics is meant to be the important thing, it's very strange. Don't read this book unless you like shallow 'wallpaper' settings. Furthermore the characters don't have any reason to propel the action other than a very general lust for power. Not the stuff of great literature.
4) Re-read what I've written above. Notice the words 'suspense' and 'wallpaper'. Well, surrounding words by inverted commas is something Bertin does all. The. Time. It is ANNOYING to the nth degree. A typical sentence goes "I see you've found your 'dockhand'." "Otter 'nudged' Linden." I don't mind well-placed inverted commas, but coupled with the helplessly immature writing it just gave the impression of a seven-year-old screaming "Geddit, geddit!" in your ear. Not what I expect of mature fantasy.
5) Background? What background? Oh, over there in neon. Readers are basically told to accept certain things - the Lady - for granted, whereas other things were spelled out excruciatingly. Soultwins are one of them.
6) The love scenes (as the euphemism goes) weren't hot. Or useful. Or even strangely clinical a la Tom Woolf. They're just...there, like the constant chattering about Linden's height. I honestly think that marketing the book to teenagers would be a problem because of the overall badness of the book, not because of the sex. Not to be crude, but you could get more turned on by a cookie recipe.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Bad investment, bad read, bad writing. The preview of her sequel doesn't look any better.
Rating: Summary: I couldn't find a book to compare to it for months. Review: If you like romance, read it.
If you don't like romance, but don't hate it, read it anyhow 'cause it's got plot there too.
Rating: Summary: Dragons in a new light Review: This book is a fun, and original new view on Dragons. Linden Rathan is a WereDragon in search of a soultwin (read mate). He's the youngest, even at six centuries, at six centuries, and is called to sort out human problems. The humans, however, have other plans. They want to capture a DragonLord, find out all their secrets so the weredragons can be destroyed. This is a tale of adventure with a twist of romance, and a must read for any fantasy guru.
Rating: Summary: The sory is incomplete Review: While this book was certainly enjoyable, I felt it was too incomplete. There are many references to characters and events that we, the reader, have no idea about. Obviously these references are things that molded the characters into their current personalities, but we never learn more about them. I finished the book hoping to find out more about them, but never did.
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