You all remember when I wrote about Dragon Weather, right? I said that I'd enjoyed it so much that I'd ordered its big fat sequels. I even read them, so I thought I'd tell you about them, with [WARNING] lots of spoilers [END WARNING].In Dragon Society, the second book in the trilogy, Arlian is still looking to get revenge on his human enemies and to kill all the dragons. The Dragon Society is composed of all those who've drunk dragon blood and become different from other people, like him. They live 1000 years, for one thing, but that's the bad part. After they live 1000 years, they give birth to a dragon.
Many members of the Dragon Society are Arlian's enemies, the ones he's sworn to kill, but he's also a member of the society, and there are Rules. This makes killing the other members difficult. Also, no man has ever killed a dragon. Can it even be done? As Arlian struggles with these problems, he learns some things about sacrifice and courage, and now we're all set up for Book Three, Dragon Venom, in which we find the Dragon Society divided between those who are willing to see the dragons destroyed and those who want to stay on the dragons' side and live out their 1000 years.
Arlian discovers a great secret. There once were gods, and the dragons feared them. Arlian even learns now to make a god -- inject a pregnant woman with dragon venom. So he does. The dragons attack the city in attempt to kill the god, and Arlian kills the three who killed his family. In doing so, he at last learns more about them. They aren't entirely bad. That's just a human interpretation of their sad story. Arlian gives up trying to wipe them out and also gives up the idea of revenge on his human enemies. He's badly wounded, and . . . I can't give everything away. If you're looking for a big fat fantasy series about dragons to read, however, I certainly can recommend this one.
6 comments:
After your first Lawrence Watt-Evans review, I ordered DRAGON SOCIETY and DRAGON VENOM, too. I haven't had time to read them yet, but your review will move them up the Read Real Soon stack.
I really enjoyed this trilogy, though the middle book was, er, a middle book. (And Lawrence has some stories about the composition of that book that I won't share.)
I liked his later abortive series based on the French Revolution even better, but alas it was orphaned by editorial shuffling at the publisher, and I don't think it will ever be completed.
Yes, the dreaded Middle Book Syndrome was obvious, but it was still enjoyable. Just not as much as the first one.
Jackie is reading not one but two paranormal romance series featuring dragons. She likes them both (the humor helps, apparently).
I always wind up pulling for the dragons in these type of books. I wish an author would write a series based on good guy dragons.
In Jackie's series, the dragone are shape shifters who look like Navy SEALs when they're in human form.
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