Dragon Blood

Solid, enjoyable fantasy. Boy with no sword or birthmark and a habit of pretending to be stupid to avoid being beaten to death by his father finally comes into his birthright. This involves an ancient curse, an angry horse, dragons, political intrigue and the best family ghost ever. Good character development too.

The next books I'll review are Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood by Patricia Briggs. I greatly enjoy the Mercedes Thompson series by the same author--I consider them the best of this new urban supernatural fantasy trend (that I've encountered so far). The Alpha and Omega spin-offs are okay. So I was prepared to enjoy Dragon Bones and its sequel.

These are apparently the first books that Patricia Briggs got published. And after reading them, I now understand the name of her official website (hurog.com). My querido says that it's obvious they're her first, being much rougher in style. I don't know about that, but I wasn't too impressed. I wasn't completely disappointed either, so I guess my final verdict is "meh."

Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood show more are the story of Ward, a big, strong, smart, sensitive, caring, courageous, loyal young man who everyone thinks is a big, dumb oaf. So when in the first chapter of the first book, he becomes the ruler of the small, mountainous, poor kingdom of Hurog, he doesn't get to stay in charge for very long. He flees with a band of sidekicks and they go adventuring in the kingdom of Oranstone, which is suffering attacks from the kingdom of Vorsag while the High King of the five kingdoms does nothing. It turns out he faked stupidity to avoid more life-threatening beatings from his father. So he goes on a quest to earn such a reputation that he can reclaim his territory. Much adventure ensues. Dragon Blood is very similar, but this time instead of just his own life and rulership being in jeopardy, his entire people is threatened by the ambitions of the High King, who has uncovered a cataclysmic magical weapon that helped destroy earlier civilization.

So in many ways these follow the standard fantasy tropes. The good guys travel around on a quest to stop the bad guys. Magic is being abused and is at the heart of what's wrong in the country. The good guys overcome through their perseverance, fine personal qualities, teamwork, and just the right circumstances. However, these books also subvert some of the tropes. Our hero is disregarded as an incompetent stupid person. It turns out the only bad guy is the High King. Everyone else, even when acting against Ward and his friends, is really a good guy with the same sorts of values--mainly taking care of family. So this is really a story about families sticking together and people taking care of each other.

Patricia Briggs did a good job of creating entirely distinct cultures and geographies for the five kingdoms so that each has its own personality. Downside? They're all white people. The characters are all well done too. Generally distinct and with a certain depth, even relatively minor characters. This is another fantasy where the divine influences can be directly experienced by the characters, and in fact, those meddlesome religious forces help Ward and his party at critical junctures. I think Briggs does a good job exploring the powers and limitations of such forces. She also clearly knows her horses, as this comes through in the descriptions and dialogue. She does a great job portraying the grind that is life on the road in all weather over an extended period of time. Not everyone is straight, so that's something of a plus. Though it appears to be only the one bad guy (the High King) who indulges in bisexual activity, having Garranon as a long-time male lover whom he molested first as a child war-captive. So once again homosexual activity = bad = pedophile (at least in the beginning). Garranon, however, isn't a bad guy, just doing whatever it takes to ensure the survival of his family and people in the decades after their failed uprising.

My major problem is with the underlying premise. It turns out that a deep, dark magical family secret has been effectively poisoning the kingdom of Hurog over time, as well as weakening the magical fiber of the world. So the few arable fields are decreasing and the ruling family has more and more problems over time. Ward's father was apparently insane, a berserker in battle whom no one dared cross, but also driven to possess Hurog to the point of murdering his father and attempting to murder his son. So Ward is beaten in childhood and suffers a stroke (and is presumed brain-damaged after that point). Ward's sister is mute. Ward's brother is driven to attempt suicide. So if the family curse is that bad and becoming intergenerationally worse, where the hell does Ward come from? He's got all of these positive traits and enough smarts to survive under extreme domsestic conditions (and protect his siblings as well). So why did the curse skip him, huh? And it seems like it's pretty darn easy for a single person with a single act to derail magic in the whole world--how does that make sense? I guess magic is pretty darn vulnerable to corruption and destruction.

And I have an overall comment about Patricia Briggs. I've generally enjoyed her books. At first, I was impressed by her willingness to tackle a difficult subject like rape and its after-effects. But now having read eight of her books, I get that survivors of abuse are clearly her thing. Some form of traumatic abuse is in EVERY SINGLE BOOK. I think she handles it well every time, and I'm not necessarily adverse to serious themes in recreational fiction. But she's starting to feel like a one-trick pony, that this is HER ISSUE, and no matter what plot and characters you start with, they're going to visit rape/torture/beating/other physical/mental/emotional abuse before the end. All of her female protagonists and some of her female secondaries end up raped. I must say I don't like that. I don't like it if a male author only knows how to incorporate women into the story for sex, and I'm finding I don't like a female author who only knows how to incorporate (strong) women as survivors (not victims). show less

I found 'Dragon Blood' as page-turning as 'Dragon Bones' (the first in the duology). The characters are familiar, and four years older, and there wasn't quite as much sense of imminent danger as there was in the first book, though there was plenty of action - including battles (rather than wars)

Ward has held his family lands of Hurog for the four years since the ending of 'Dragon Bones', but now the high king wants to make sure that, after all the years of seeming to be stupid, he is actually competent, and so takes him back to the capital. Gradually, Ward and his family and friends discover that this is part of a larger plot, and it's up to them to resolve things.

This book completes some of the story-lines from its predecessor. There show more are still politics, high wizadry, dark wizadry, romance and dragons, and we learn a bit more about the history of the world in which the story takes place.

I would love to read more adventures of Ward and his allies.

(April 2010)
4 stars show less

Equally magnificent. Ward's grown up a bit, and the problem now is less simple and clearcut than in Bones (which wasn't all that simple!). Ward has to outthink his enemies - and some of his allies as well. His courtship, running through this, is funny and fascinating and just neat. And the climax is very like him - do what needs doing, as best he can, stretch beyond his limits to do it - then joke about it and relax, the problems are all solved (for the moment). I wish she'd written more - it would be interesting to see what happens next - but it would be hard to find a problem to stretch Ward and his allies. His next set of problems are all politics.

It's always worthwhile to spend time with characters who are focused on doing the right thing. The puzzle of conflicting allegiances is threaded quite well here.

I have been a lump today. All I did was read these two books. They are set in a fantasy world of the Five Kingdoms. Our hero, Wardwick, is son and heir of the Hurog, rulers of one of those kingdoms. He has survived to reach adulthood because after his abusive father beat him senseless, he pretended he had been turned stupid, and thus no threat.

The second book takes place 4 years after the first, and addresses the larger problems of the Five Kingdoms, which is being ruled by a king who does not care for his people. Will there be rebellion? and if so, how? More magical artifacts and mages appear. Ward has friends all over, it seems, and it is not clear if he wants to take the throne for himself.

"Hurog means dragon." Those words are show more repeated at several key points, and each time it reminds, the story reveals new layers of meaning. It is no accident that Ward means "guardian", either. There is a dragon in each story, too, but the emotional core of the books are the relationships between the people and their reactions to the situations.
Wow that sounds dull. But wow it was not. show less

Ward of Hurog is forced to fight the tyrannical High King Jakoven, who seeks to activate a destructive, ancient artifact using Ward’s own blood.

After rescuing an old friend from the King's torturers, Ward becomes a key target for King Jakoven. The king requires Hurog blood to power Farsonsbane, an ancient magical weapon capable of destroying cities. Ward continues to act the fool to mask his strength, while his dragon-mage companion, Oreg, works to protect him.