Hello everyone,
It has been quite a while since I have posted a book review on the blog. Having served as judge for the Global E-book Awards has prevented me from posting any reviews on what I read until the winners are announced in August. This is the first book I have completed reading since.
The Dragon's Path, by Daniel Abraham is a story set in medieval times in a different world. According to its written history, the world was created by dragons, who once ruled everything. They created man and all its different races to serve them. The dragons have long since been gone, and now its the age of man that rules, although the races are still somewhat in the caste system the dragons had intended them. I will attempt to give you more vague details so as not to give you the story itself.
The story itself follows different characters. Two such characters are nobles under the Antean king. Dawson is the king's childhood friend who plays the political game amongst the other nobles to win the kings favor in the name of preserving the kingdom. Geder is the son of Lerer, another noble. Geder is continually picked on and humiliated by other nobles and lords for being out of shape, gullible, and a bookworm (more specifically speculative essays concerning the dragons' histories). He becomes a pawn in the schemes of adversarial nobles who try to win the kings favor. Along the way he becomes somewhat of a reluctant hero/mass murderer, depending on the view. From there he comes into his own with the aide of Basraship (very key figure) and quickly ascends rank and title under the king.
The other story centers around the characters Marcus Wester and Cithrin. Marcus is a world famous captain who lost his family and now works for hire. His partner, Yardem is his lifelong companion in battle who stays with him. They are hired by a bank to smuggle its wealth into another city in fear of the Antean invasion of the city Vanai. The bank sends Cithrin, a ward of the bank. She is disguised as a young boy to deliver the smuggled wealth. Captain Wester hires an acting troupe to be pretend guards for the operation. Mishaps occur and they end up in the free city of Port Oliva, where Cithrin takes major risks to protect the wealth and start a life of her own.
The King's Blood is the second book in this series. By the end of The Dragon's Path the two plot lines have barely intersected. It should be interesting to see how they intertwine later.
As for my opinion of the book itself, I found it to be an enjoyable read. Its difficult for me to accurately describe, but his use of metaphors are pleasant, and go a long way in describing characters in ways that hold my interest, whereas many other authors would leave me incredibly bored.
It is also worth noting that he is not taking the classic good versus evil approach. Characters fall into varying degrees of good and evil and I think it relies heavily on the reader's own interpretations. These are what makes it a good book for me. I will most definitely be looking forward to part 2, The King's Blood.
I give The Dragon's Path a solid 4 star rating. It's not too far from being even better, but the lack of quality editing was apparent. Simple spelling mistakes and grammatical errors were not rampant, but enough for me to remember it. I encourage anyone who enjoys reading fantasy to pick this one up and give it a go. You may be surprised at what you get.
Be on the lookout for Audism Experiment #3 within the next week. It should be fun. I am still collecting data for experiment 2.
Until next time,
R. M.
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