A Dance of Cloaks (The World of Dezrel) (original 2010; edition 2010)

Action-packed, tugged on my heart strings, not a boring page in the book. And a few gross-out moments, which I really don't mind. Reads kind of like Brent Weeks'"Night Angel" trilogy, but shorter.

Something else that I loved about "A Dance of Cloaks" was that there are several strong female characters. There's usually one or two in the typical sword and sorcorer fantasies I've read, but again, this is NOT a typical fantasy novel. Go get this book and dive in! You'll enjoy every minute. ( )

Right away, I sensed that Dalglish was attempting for a "Song of Ice and Fire" feel for this book. The title format as well certain phrases and names dropped as homages hinted at this, but he also states as much in his afterword.

This was both good and bad. On the one hand, I knew I was going to be in for some political intrigue; on the other, I also knew I was going to have to prepare myself for most of the characters I meet dying horribly and needlessly.

Turns out I was right on both accounts, but I was never engaged the same way with "A Dance of Cloaks" as I was with George R.R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones" and I think I know why. While Dalglish does a good job with his character and world building, he doesn't do enough. For example, when key characters died, the book succeeded in shocking me but where it failed was making me actually care, which is what I think is more important. It's hard to be affected when you don't feel any connection to the characters, and I wish Dalglish would have developed some of the secondary characters a bit more especially if he was going to have so many of them. ( )

A serviceable, if ultimately forgettable novel. I didn't hate it, but I have absolutely no desire to read the follow-up, and probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

It was inexpensive, it at least has that going for it. ( )

I read the Kindle preview for this book, consisting of the prologue and the first two chapters, and that was enough to warn me off.

The prologue contains a promising twist, but the tension is not maintained as the author introduces character after character after character and they never really do anything. It's as if he was in a great hurry to make sure the reader knew all the names before imbuing them with personality and setting them in motion. Finally at the end of chapter two, a couple of characters meet and some tension is built, but by then the author had lost me.

The drab descriptions of characters and scenes failed to draw me into the world of the book, and the occasional odd grammatical constructs and errors were distracting. The dialogue came in fits and starts and had little personality. Some quotes could not realistically come out of the mouths of the characters, and some descriptions strained credulity (a belt with over twenty daggers in it?).

The nice thing about having a Kindle is being able to preview books like this so that I can purchase or not with my eyes open. I wish it was a convention that self-published books like this would advertise the names of their editors (or lack thereof, I believe in this case). That way readers might have an inkling beyond sales volume (unreliable for items priced for impulse purchase), or reader reviews (also unreliable in small numbers) as to whether a book is worth opening in the first place. ( )

I didn’t know what to expect when I picked up this book, other than it was getting a lot of attention on a few discussion boards I’m a part of. I’m SO glad I purchased this novel, my first of what will be a large collection by David Dalglish.

David captured my attention from the first page and held it to the very last. The characters were enthralling, the action fast and furious (and a bit bloody) and the plot a fascinating conflict between father and son, father and the Trifect, father and most other people in the book. The book is well constructed and brilliantly written.

If this one isn’t as well written as the Half-Orc series, then sign me up now. I LOVED this book and can’t wait to sink my teeth and claws into additional works. Thanks David! ( )