James Cardona

The captain was old and worked hard to keep his spaceship ready and able to hunt dragons for
the precious fluid Gland. Knowing that with enough of that precious fluid he would be able to pay for the medical treatment his ailing daughter Clara needs so badly. Ryze works with captain to gather the gland but he never liked to kill the small dragons that they had. He liked Clara and couldn't understand why the captain didn't spend more time with her but was always working on his ship. Ryze believed there had to be a higher purpose then just hunting the dragons so when a prophet of the dragon cult told him he would be the one to reach the holy one and become immortal he believes it and betrays the captain and poor Clara for his own greedy ends and never admits his own guilt. Even when it becomes clear the dragon had tricked him into coming there. He thinks that he will take the gland that he has and return to Clara but will Clara think if she ever learns that Ryze's betrayal is the real reason her father died. I really liked this short story and would love to know if Ryze makes up for his guilt by taking care of Clara, can she ever forgive him for what he's done, will he return to that cave and free the other prisoners of the dragon and kill the treacherous beast?… (more)

In this story, Isaias is a strong young man who finds himself unwittingly in the opposing camp of the elite where he must use his own wits and intelligence to survive and discover the truth about the split society he lives in.
Isaias is in love with Jessia - who is unobtainable and remote. However, there are strong and magnetic moments between them and their attraction and the circumstances which keep them apart are excellently portrayed. This is one of the highlight of the book.

The other highlight was the opening which I loved. I was glued to the page and was thinking I'd rate this maybe 5 stars if it continued like that. However, the excellent pacing, tension and virtuosity of this author did (unfortunately) sag after a while and the story got a bit bogged down in the middle sections. Even so, this was a good read and has elements in it of great writing.
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I sincerely like the cover image. Unfortunately, I can't comment on the story because I can't push far enough through the purple prose to actually get to the story. It's like no detail is too small and everything must be described. Sentences already over-burdened with too many adjectives then interrupt themselves with parenthetical asides to over-describe unnecessary bits of background detail. What's here is grammatically sound and the events I did read give me some hope that the plotting might be decent, but it's like trying to enjoy a picnic during wasp season. I spent so much time trying to ignore the buzzing distractions that I never even found out what we were supposed to be eating. I bailed early and ran back to the car.
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