Dragon Bones

Ward is the oldest son of the Lord of Hurog, forced to pretend to be the family idiot to weather his father's abuse and paranoia. His plan backfires when his father dies and Ward is deemed too incompetent to rule his own lands. Amongst ancient curses, family quests, rotting magic, political shenanigans, Ward's quest to prove his worth ensues.

This first part of the Hurog duology by Patricia Briggs is a typical old-fashioned fantasy story with some interesting concepts. I rather enjoyed this fast paced, and entertaining story, touched with hilarious dialogues. This book is rather short and makes a nice change from those fat, never-ending series.

An interesting idea but I think it got pretty muddy in the delivery and lost along the way. I like the general ideas and the characters are fun, and you can feel the tangible difference between this book and the MT characters and the very different viewpoints between them. But the villians aren't really there for me, and the human succubus idea was.... intriguing but just wasnt fully carried through, you were never quite sure was that character truely evil or were they brain washed?

Once upon a time, there were dragons.
Once upon a time, the men who made alliances with them became the Hurogmeten, the guardians of dragons.
Once upon a time, the lands of the Hurog were fertile, the people content, the world full of magic.
Once upon a time, there were dragons.
But that was long ago. Now, Ward, the son of the Hurog, lives in a decrepit castle where the lands themselves seem to be dying from the slow corruption of magic. The dragons may be gone, but Ward is quite familiar with monsters: his abusive father destroyed their family and drove Ward himself to apparent idiocy. After one of the many occasions in which his father beat Ward into unconsciousness, something in the boy's head was knocked a little loose: ever since, show more he has managed only stilted, halting speech. When Ward discovered that he was considered as slow as his speech, he cultivated an appearance of idiocy as a shield against his father, disguising his intelligence until he would finally be free. Now this day has finally arrived, but Ward's own disguise has backfired: because of his apparent mental handicap, he is considered unfit to rule over the Hurog. Determined to regain his lands, Ward decides to head off to an incipient war with a small band of loyal followers to become a war hero so that he can use his heroic reputation to regain his lands. (Nope, this isn't sarcasm. He seriously decides this. In these terms.) Shockingly, things turn out to be a little more complex: despite an incipient invasion, civil war is brewing against the despicable king of the land, and Ward has just placed himself right in the middle of the conflict.

Dragon Bones is an enjoyable piece of light epic fantasy: interesting worldbuilding, lots of characters, a sufficiently complex plot, and a sympathetic main character. I enjoyed the structure of the plot itself: there are plenty of tales where the boy goes out to seek his fortune, ends up becoming a hero, and returns to his homeland in triumph, but a story in which the protagonist explicitly states that this outcome is his actual overall plan is both unusual and rather hilarious. While the later plot twists aren't particularly surprising, they are handled well. I haven't read epic fantasy for a while, so I enjoyed watching the characters' stories begin to come together with a sense of ponderous inevitability. The writing style, too, added a touch of originality: most of the story is told in first-person by Ward, with a few third-person chapters interspersed to give us scenes outside of Ward's knowledge. Ward is an excellent narrator, and his occasional unreliability add a bit of roundedness to his generally amiable character.

This book happened across my path at a fortuitous moment: jaded by nihilistic gorefests, I was actually quite pleased by the story's uncomplicated morality. The plot itself is not particularly deep; the standard fairy-tale admonition to "be kind to others" is about as much as you get, hover for spoiler. The villains are Very Bad People, in every way you can possibly imagine, and probably a few you'd rather not. After too much time in worlds of dark greys, I was quite pleased to discover that practically everyone else is basically benign, and that most conflict and negativity stems from good-ish people put in problematic circumstances. While this doesn't exactly lend itself to deep moral questions or particularly three-dimensional characters, it does make for a refreshing romp through an enjoyably imaginative world. While I thought most of the side characters could have been fleshed out, I found Ward himself to be an interesting protagonist. It isn't often that the big, slow, gentle giant gets to be the underdog hero--he's usually relegated to comic relief sidekick. I also liked how at least a part of Ward's act of imbecility is not pretense. While Ward is one of the most intelligent characters of the story, he never needed to fake his voice impediment--even after he drops the disguise, he occasionally notes other characters' mounting impatience at his slow speech. It added a touch of vulnerability that the standard heroic-questing-hero-character is typically without.

Overall, Dragon Bones was an enjoyable light fantasy, the stuff I used to devour when I was a kid. While it may have stronger appeal for younger readers, it also makes for a quick and fluffy read for adults. I think this story has cemented my opinion about Patricia Briggs: if she published her shopping list, I'd probably pick it up, as I'm sure she would find a way to make it an engaging, uplifting, and thoroughly enjoyable read. show less

I really enjoyed the main character in this book. After repeated beatings by his father as a child, a very bad one left him with slow speech. As a result his father deemed him an idiot and left him alone. Ward decided to play along with this and maintained this disguise while subtly defending his brother and sister. When his father dies however, he is passed over for the inherited title. He, with a group of loyal friends, goes off to prove himself in order to reclaim his land. Lots of adventures. I liked that at the end when he shows his intelligence his slow speech didn't miraculously disappear. It made the whole story more honest.

A solid fantasy tale with very little dragon action, not a disadvantage at all. Large and slow spoken Wardwick has played idiot to keep alive through his father's violent rages but that costs him his inheritance and, if he hadn't escaped, his freedom as well. A small group, reminiscent of a D&D band heads south to establish his competence in the fighting when things take an unexpected turn.

Patricia Briggs is an old favorite of mine – I've loved her from page one of the first book I ever read by her. Which might well have been this one – not my favorites among her work, the Hurog Duology, but (as I always say) that's like saying "not my favorite chocolate". In hunting out books on CD to listen to in the car, I came across Dragon Bones on MP3 CD for a surprisingly low price ($5! I think it was on sale), and while I didn't love the sample I went with it.

Note to self: don't do that. It's not worth it. It doesn't really matter how cheap something is if you're going to spend several commutes sighing over it (in a not-good way) – or yelling at it.

The book is excellent. I remember the last time I re-read it, a couple or show more three years ago, and I remember finishing it with happy sighs. I love the characters, and I love the setting and worldbuilding, I love Patricia Briggs's style, I love this book.

The narrator …

The narrator is an actor. His voice wasn't too familiar, so I did the Google Image thing, and went "oh, right", and then shuddered over that picture of him with the cornrows. (Damn, I used up my brain bleach after my coworker got back from a weekend with her ex.) And for parts of the book he's just fine. He is not, in the main, unpleasant to listen to. I found it a little annoying that the voice of the main character, Wardwick, is deeper than the first person narration, but Ward spends most of his time trying to sound dumb, so it's kind of an assumed voice. Fortunately for the sake of the audiobook Ward's sister is mute, so I didn't have to worry about how that characterization would come out.

One problem is that Mr. Manganiello has a bad case of Misplaced Emphasis Disorder. Stressing one word over another, obviously, indicates how the sentence should be interpreted by the listener. When the stress is on the obviously wrong word, it changes the meaning of the sentence and acts as a huge distraction from the story. "So he thought" is completely different from "'So,' he thought", and they're both completely different from "so he thought". I would expect an experienced actor to have a better sense for that – or for there to be a director on hand somewhere saying "hold on, try that again". And then there's an irritating sharp "S" now and then. I'm just grateful I wasn't listening to it with earphones.

I would also expect a sentence like "they'd improved a bed before the fireplace" to be fixed. How did no one catch that and get it fixed to "improvised"?

But in the end the book prevails over the reader. Ward is a wonderful, wonderful character, surrounded by wonderful characters. I always say about Barbara Hambly that you could take any secondary character, or even any background character, and there is enough to them that you (she) could turn around and write a book centered on that character. Patricia Briggs comes very close to that as well. Ward's sister is terrific. His allies in the household are well-rounded – and are presented believably as people who have learned not to provoke their ruler, who have known Ward as damaged and slow for years and have to adjust to his real self. The evil – Ward's father, the king, the one that betrays Ward – is a bit "evil-for-evil's-sake", but they're frightening and effective. But Oreg is a rich character who could support any number of books on his own.

The setting is wonderfully realized, as well. And I enjoy the fact that Ward and his folk are the barbarians of their world; they aren't necessarily expected to eat with utensils and speak in complete sentences. And I think it's pretty marvelous that Ward takes advantage of that, and of his own appearance, to make his way in the world as needed. He's … just a great character.

So, no, while this and its sequel aren't my favorite books by Patricia Briggs, I love them.

The audiobooks? Not so much. show less

Yeah. That's good. Ward is great - his uncertainty about himself, whether there's more to him than the roles he plays. Oreg is wonderful, with his various secrets. And what he doesn't know. Axiel, Stala, Penrod, Garronen - every character is richly drawn, with depth beyond what's shown. The adventure is interesting - Oreg's trick was nasty, though. Ward's various plans to get Hurog back, and how politics and reality get in his way. All of it. I keep seeing the foreshadowing of the next book - have to reread that, now. Absolutely wonderful. Wish she'd go back to this kind of straight fantasy rather than the urban fantasy - the characters in Mercy's stories are just as well drawn, but I don't _like_ most of them. And her concerns are show more petty next to Ward's - or the Hob's - or the Raven's. Ah well, I'll just reread and hope for the future. show less