ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

As Randy Jackson (American Idol) would say, "That was just okay for me, Dawg."

This typical middle novel concerns the twin sons born to Melisande: Marcus, the son of the King of Idlyswylde, and Ven (short for Vengeance), the son of the dragon who (in the body of the human Grald) raped her. Most of the book focuses on the development of both boys from age 6 to 16. Neither of them know about the other. Ven is half dragon (his legs are dragon's legs) and is being raised by Bellona (Melisande died at the end of Mistress of Dragons). Bellona keeps Ven hidden from the world as best she can. He is, of course, frustrated and lonely and feels like a freak. Marcus is a bastard prince who lives in luxury but possesses some form of Melisande's Dragon magic, so he kind of feels like a freak, too. The rogue dragons Grald and Meristara are looking for the boys, but Draconas watches the boys from afar and occasionally intervenes when necessary, telling the boys not to open their minds to "The Dragon" (Grald).

Things finally get going when Ven encounters a thief and his daughter Evelina (by far the two most interesting and well-done characters) who find out he's a monster and manage to capture him and sell him to a travelling freak show. In desperation, he calls for his father, and Grald and Maristara show up in human bodies to rescue him. They take Evelina, too, which makes things more interesting because she's such a greedy opportunist. So far, she's been completely repulsed by Ven, but when they arrive at Dragon Keep and she finds out he's the prince, she changes her tune.

Belona, desperately searching for Ven, finds Marcus and asks for his help because she somehow guesses that the boys can contact each other through their minds. So, off go Marcus and Belona to save Ven. They arrive in Dragon Keep and the boys finally meet each other. The fun part is when Evelina finds out that Marcus is a prince, too, and again changes her tune. Evelina is an entertaining character so far, and Weis handles her deftly, but too much more and it would be over-the-top. In fact, Margaret Weis's strength is excellent characterization and her villians are especially well-done.

There is a surprising betrayal at the end of the book and, in addition, it is unclear whether Ven will choose to go the human way or the rogue dragon way, therefore, the reader feels compelled to finish the trilogy. In fact, The Dragon's Son is a typical middle novel in that it doesn't accomplish much except to set up the scene for the final act.

I listened to this on audio. The readings are divided between a male and female reader. The male reader did a fine job (though this is clearly not up to the standard of Recorded Books or Blackstone Audio), but the female reader was annoying. Rather than just read, she sort of acted out the parts and often chose a whiny wheedling voice that really got on my nerves. Two and one half stars.
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2.5 stars Master of Dragons, the final book in Margaret Weis's Dragonvarld trilogy was a tasty but sloppy finale -- like a cheesecake that didn't quite set. This last book wraps things up, as we knew it would, and everything is finally well in the world, as we knew it would be. There are some fine moments (Draconas showing tenderness to a female dragon, Ven finds a family, Marcus falls in love) and even some hilarious ones (Draconas darning socks, Evelina's ironic fate). Characterization, especially of the bad guys, continues to be a high point, and the writing is nothing brilliant, but certainly pleasant enough. But this otherwise entertaining novel suffers from internal inconsistencies: * On page 38, Draconas is said to wear "the guise of a human male in his thirties," and 5 pages later he is described as "a human male of undetermined years." * Draconas has cast the illusion that he is a little girl while staying in DragonKeep. He is able to eavesdrop on adults because of his keen dragon hearing. But, later, we are told that as a little girl "his hearing was so reduced that it seemed his ears were stuffed with wax." * Much of what Anora (Prime Minister of the dragon parliament) says to the parliament is illogical and none of the dragons ever notice. For example, she says she should have removed Draconas from his post as "walker" because he was starting to become emotionally involved with humans, but she didn't remove him because he was the best walker they'd ever had because he was able to stay detached from humans. Then she says that she became involved in Maristara and Grald's plot 200 years ago because humans had become such a threat (she cites their canons), but a few lines later she says that because their plot went awry, the humans created canons (a few years ago). Sometimes she indicates that the canons are a threat which, though they are no threat, show that humans are, for the first time in their history, preparing to fight dragons. There also seem to be inconsistencies about dragon magic vs dragon blood, who can see through illusions and who can't, and to what extent thoughts can be shielded from others with dragon magic. These sorts of "rules" seem to be conveniently flexible. For example, one of the monks is able to see through illusions, yet he doesn't recognize Draconas? Then there are the unbelievable elements. For example, Anora's betrayal just doesn't ring true -- it sounds like a forced plot twist. And, Anora says that to keep their plot secret from Draconas, they had to kill some good dragons (which she seems to regret) when, if they had just killed Draconas instead, everything would have been fine. And it didn't make sense to keep the plot from the dragon parliament if the purpose of it was to protect the dragons from the might-someday-be-threatening humans. It would have made immensely more sense, and been a lot less stressful, to just go to the parliament and say "hey, these humans want to kill us -- let's kill them first." That seems a lot easier and a lot more likely to be successful than to embark on a 200 year breeding program in order to try to figure out if they might someday rule the humans with half-human, half-dragon creatures and a pack of mad monks. (And let's not forget that the humans weren't even starting to threaten the dragons until AFTER the breeding program started.) (And let's not forget that Anora even says herself that the humans are not actually threatening yet -- they just might be in the future.) The whole thing just seems sloppy. Half-baked. I listened to this on audiobook. The reader, a woman, did a great job with the female voices. At first I thought she was doing a great job with the male voices too, because her voice for Grald, the first male speaker, was excellent -- really slimy. Unfortunately, she used the same slimy voice for every male character in the entire book. My overall opinion of this series: Unless you've just got a thing for dragons, I'd recommend choosing something better. Read more Margaret Weis book reviews at Fantasy Literature

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This book is book two of a three book series. Due to availability at my library, I read books two and three out of order. After having read books one and three, I debated whether to go ahead and read book two because I felt quite satisfied that I had a good understanding of the entire story without it. I did decide to read this book, however, and am glad I did. Although I knew how the story began and ended, there were definitely worthwhile pieces of the story that I would not have had if I had foregone reading this one. ( )

Book 2 of Dragonvarld saga starts off slow and finishes slow. In my mind a week book, but does progress the story just enough that I'll have to pick up book three just to see how this ends up. I seriously doubt that this trilogy will be very memorable, but it's enjoyable enough and your typical fantasy fare that most anyone would enjoy it. ( )

This continues the saga that started in the book "The Mistress of Dragons," where the reader finds out what happened to the two children. Included in this book is the continued research by Draconus to find what dragon is breaking their laws by giving Dragon Magic to the humans. For the concept, this feels like a filler book. The gathering of information that passes between the first and third book that may or may not be necessary for the continued following of the trilogy. Some of these portions felt like they could be eliminated without harm to the series, though a few scenes can't be lost without changing the aspects of the books. Its well written from the standpoint of a calm easy flow.

From the audio standpoint, I'm thinking that I will insist on the same reader for an entire trilogy. The switch from a female reader to a male reader threw me off when I started listening to the book to begin with. The fact that this book switched between two readers made it even more difficult to listen to than just the male voice. I became tempted to just return the book to the library and get the novel, except that I had too many books to read at the house. ( )

(Originally on Amazon - the review applies to the audio CD version)
In reviewing the audio version of The Dragon's Son, I have to divide my review into The Story and Narration.

The Narration
The narration gets a split decision. The narrators of this tale, Gabrielle De Cuir and Stefan Rudnicki are both wonderful. I favored Rudnicki's rich voice over De Cuir's narration, but I would listen to De Cuir on other recordings if she were the narrator. Individually, there were wonderful. As a duet, the result was not so great. I have no objection to men reading women's' part or the other way around, but the swapping of narrators here had little to do with gender role. In fact I could see no reason why narrators were changed at all. There seemed to be no logical reason for changing narrators in the middle of a chapter. No insights were gained and the "person" of the story did not change from one narrator to the other. For me, this was the worst part of the narrative.

Allowing for the random changes of narrator, I though the narration was excellent. You knew instantly which character was speaking by the small inflections, and sometime not so small changes, in the narrators voice. Both De Cuir and Rudnicki's voices flowed smoothly, allowing the listener to really get into the story. . . until there was a change of narrator. OK, I've beaten that horse for the last time.

The Story
Overall, I found the story uninspiring and not too original. There were no surprises for me in the plot. Everything was told according to the formula. This is a classic tale of brothers raised independently of each other by separate foster parents, yet suspecting they are not alone. Throw in a good family, a struggling foster mother, a councilor privy to the secret and a bad real father and a good real mother killed at the birth of her children, and this story has been told many times over. This telling was entertaining; I did not quit listening, although most of the credit for that goes to the narrators.

To the author's credit, I do not feel I missed anything by coming in on book two of the trilogy. There is enough groundwork and flashback that the story stands on its own. Will I get volume three? I doubt it. There was not enough tension in the conclusion to make me want to see where this tale is going. Not even a chance to listen to these two wonderful narrators could coax me back to this fantasy world. ( )