Servant of the Dragon

Rating:
Summary: Good but like the others
Review: I liked this book but they have become a bit predictable, at the beginning they are alltogether then early on they are split apart like billiard balls. Then the stories go on until they all come together again at the end. Still a well writen and thought out book that keeps you reading on til the end.

Rating:
Summary: very immaginative and exciting
Review: I really enjoyed the series. Right from the beginning you plunge into a world where the excitement never seems to end and one adventure is followed by another. The characters always entering new worlds, of which the rules are largely unknown and present immediate danger, which gives the whole story interesting twists, and even over large distances the ends of the seperate adventures always come together nicely. The characters are drawn very well, they seem to come alive. Their behaviour is mostly realistic and funny. I only found Ilnas behaviour a bit annoying, as she always complains about how much she hates everything and everyone, and then still is so nice to everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Still good but failing fast
Review: I usually love David Drake. His writing is great, his tactics fun and imaginative. This book is no different. However, he has written over 2000 pages in this series, and he needs a new direction (not a new world - characters bounce between them about every 15 minutes - which gets kind of annoying). The characters started out interesting, but they have yet to change or really DO anything. Ilna is whiny, Cashel sort of hits everything, etc. My biggest problem is the romance. Romance in fantasy is fine. Lack of romance in fantasy is fine. However, Drake made it (to me at least) very clear that certain people liked certain other people by the end of the first 100 pages in Lord of the Isles. And, despite those people switching worlds about as often as we turn the pages and even going to Hell for each other, nothing has happened. Given the sheer number of pages involved in all this, I have to give Drake the all-time Character Interaction Rut award. The series can be salvaged, but if he doesn't change people's behavior and relationships in the next one, I'm back to rereading my Belisarius books.

Rating:
Summary: best one in series
Review: I was reading these series because I thought the only interesting character is Ilna the Weaver, and I was curious about what happened to her. I was very surprised when I read this book and found it to be by far the best one in the series. The plot was much better than the first two books. Prince Garric and Tenoctris are trying to close the bridge that opens Valles to the cosmos, letting in dangerous creatures. Same old same old there, nothing new and exciting. Sharina is taken through the bridge by a creature that serves the Dragon, turning Sharina herself into a servant of the dragon. However, the Dragon is not evil, he needs her help to recover his mummy that is being used to destroy the world. He sends Sharina through many worlds with her new friend, the birdman Dalar. Cashel goes in search of Sharina and ends up in the Underworld after killing the wizard he was supposed to ask for help. He is accompanied by the wizard's ring, which has a demon trapped in it. The demon Krias is a refreshing addition to the stories with his witty sense of humor. He reminds me strongly of the faerie Mellie that Cashel befriended in Lord of the Isles. Lastly, my favourite character Ilna has her best adventures yet, which make the book a good and interesting read. She is taking the child Merota, niece of Lord Tadia, with her on a ship to Erdin. On the way they are shipwrecked on Yole, risen from the sea again with an army of dead things. Ilna meets the best character Drake has yet introduced into the story yet, the sailor/pirate Chalcus. He actually loves Ilna, and he let's us see her softer side. His witty humour and dialogue add a lot to the story. I found myself breathlessly waiting to find out what would happen to him and Ilna next. It seems that Drake has finally figured out how to write romance. He did a very poor job with Mellie and Halphemos. I was sad about Halphemos' death, but Chalcus is much better than he ever was.

Rating:
Summary: Wizard Servant of the Isles of the Demon-Drake Lords, oh my!
Review: Oh no, another one? I thought the first two books were great, and it should have ended there. Stealing from Virgil and Assyria, while sticking time-warped 20th century kids in late medieval Italy, was brilliant. I love a good semi-historical yarn. Oh, you say those kids didn't time-travel from the present to their ages of yore? Could have fooled me. Who hid the blue jeans?

The third book, for which I had to wait, had only one or two memorable scenes, and no tent pole ideas as tall as the first two books. Methought Drake had used up his source material, so I was glad when I could say I had finished reading the trilogy.

The series doesn't need to "explore relationships more deeply" -- it just needs some new ideas. Someone should give Drake a sabbatical.

I wrote this review after seeing the fourth book and thinking of it as an interminable homework assignment. Drake actually has quite a few good tricks in this third book, I just couldn't recall any of them until I read a one-paragraph refresher.

Rating:
Summary: This really is a good series
Review: The first of this series, Lord of the Isles, had a great start with the development of the characters. The second one, Queen of Demons, gave each of the characters and the reader, a great adventure. What happened with Servant of the Dragon? No new story line and a complete rehash of Queen of the Demons. I admit that some of the characters were imaginative and added to the story (Dalar, for instance), but overall this book was disappointing. Each of the characters went off again on their own and fought through a series of minor, but life-threatening battles, to end up together and facing the arch-enemy just like in the last book. It would've been much more enjoyable if the author developed the relationships between the original characters a little more and provided more cooperation between the Barca's Hamlet people before and during the final conflict.

Rating:
Summary: Large scope in minuscule
Review: This series (is it done now, or is there more to come?) is a rousing good yarn, with an interesting setting and characters you grow to like. I can't compare it to similar works by Jordan or Goodkind, which I haven't worked up the stamina to tackle yet, but George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series is something against which to measure it. And Drake's fails in comparison. Here are my complaints: (1) The plot structure is based on alternating the adventures of three or four sets of protagonists who get separated, told in short doses (easily manageable on a subway ride on the way to work, say), and this is distracting, especially since each episode ends with a cliffhanger and by the time you get back to that strand it has lost interest -- like the old Flash Gordon serials, for example, the dire peril then turns out not to be so (they were falling into an abyss, but it turns out there was a ledge right underneath them). (2) As if this island world does not provide enough scope, the characters are constantly being transported by magic into 'other worlds', but unfortunately they all seem to be distinguished by simple precepts: arid desert, dismal swamp, green sky, etc., and the dangers tend to be Burroughsian races of lizard men, ape men, trolls, what have you. (3) Style: One doesn't expect great prose (and granted the author is very witty in places), but why do his good people just grin all the time? (not smile -- are they chimpanzees?). And my pet peeve, once encountered becoming more intrusive, like biting that thing on the inside of your cheek, was his coining of the word 'minusculely', as in 'so-and-so nodded her head minusculely' -- minuscule means small print although by extension it has come to mean tiny. If Drake writes on a word processor, he should globally change that word to 'minutely' (a similar word but more acceptable in the sense he means).

Rating:
Summary: Repition does not make perfect
Review: To start, I have to say that the Lord of the Isles series has kept me company on many otherwise boring and lonely nights. I enjoy the characters and their abilities, and I have to admit Tenoctris' constant modesty over her abilities and lack of power gets a chuckle out of me, particularly as she always seems to have just enough ability to do what is needed. None of the main characters ever fail in Drakes world. Well, it is fantasy. However, the series' attempt to be just that, a series, while also trying make each book a standalone, simply isn't working. Halfway through Servant of the Dragon, the constant backfill and reminders of a character's particulars became very annoying as I found myself saying out loud "Yes, I know, I know!" And the structure of the plot is also repetitive, as many have indicated. The reader can use more insight into the characters' darker side, as we have with Ilna, easily my favorite character. Everyone else is just a little too perfect. I would love to see Ilna lose out to the dark side of her persona, perhaps due to her jealousy of Liane, or have the others wonder that Garric is talking to himself maybe just a little too much. Garric needs to stop being so accommodating to his ancestral spirit Carus, and Tenoctris' spells need to fail significantly and at the wrong time. Maybe Cashel needs to realize what a powerful wizard he really is, perhaps too powerful. The possibilities for storylines and conflict are great given the character's current development. I hope in the future Drake may stray from his formula.

That said, I read fantasy to be entertained, and I like the characters the author has created. Overall it works for me, especially on those boring rainy snowy nights and long subway rides.

Rating:
Summary: Repition does not make perfect
Review: To start, I have to say that the Lord of the Isles series has kept me company on many otherwise boring and lonely nights. I enjoy the characters and their abilities, and I have to admit Tenoctris' constant modesty over her abilities and lack of power gets a chuckle out of me, particularly as she always seems to have just enough ability to do what is needed. None of the main characters ever fail in Drakes world. Well, it is fantasy. However, the series' attempt to be just that, a series, while also trying make each book a standalone, simply isn't working. Halfway through Servant of the Dragon, the constant backfill and reminders of a character's particulars became very annoying as I found myself saying out loud "Yes, I know, I know!" And the structure of the plot is also repetitive, as many have indicated. The reader can use more insight into the characters' darker side, as we have with Ilna, easily my favorite character. Everyone else is just a little too perfect. I would love to see Ilna lose out to the dark side of her persona, perhaps due to her jealousy of Liane, or have the others wonder that Garric is talking to himself maybe just a little too much. Garric needs to stop being so accommodating to his ancestral spirit Carus, and Tenoctris' spells need to fail significantly and at the wrong time. Maybe Cashel needs to realize what a powerful wizard he really is, perhaps too powerful. The possibilities for storylines and conflict are great given the character's current development. I hope in the future Drake may stray from his formula.

That said, I read fantasy to be entertained, and I like the characters the author has created. Overall it works for me, especially on those boring rainy snowy nights and long subway rides.