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A review by isabellarobinson7
The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter
5.0
Rating: 5 stars
Holy moly this was incredible. I loved it. I can't believe it actually lived up to all my expectations that had built up over two-ish years of waiting for it to come in at the library. And it's a debut. AND it was (originally) self published. I am trying to find intelligible things to say, but at this point I finished the book almost two days ago and I haven't been able to express much at all.
Oh yeah, I did go in worrying that Tau's revenge focused mindset would irk me like it does some readers, but I had no issue with it whatsoever. Yes, every now and again I did facepalm after Tau ran at someone yelling "DEATH!!!!!!" which he did more than once, but at this point any time a book elicits any kind of visceral reaction out of me I take it as a positive sign. I don't seem to react to much these days, and it is more of a good thing when an author can write a character so annoying (ahem, Elayne) or so incredibly precious (Charlie Gordan from Flowers for Algernon, we all know I'm talking about you). So when Tau did stupid things and I groaned, saying "oh Tau..." that is more emotion than any ordinary book makes me feel.
But I'm not traditionally a character person. I like the worlds and plots and fights and clever twists and stuff. Well, Rage of Dragons had loads of all of that. The world was awesome. I loved the dragons (actual dragons for once) and all the fighting and blood and guts and stabby stabby (I'm a simple gal). It took me a bit to get all the castes in order, not to mention the truckload of fantasy terms beginning with the letter I (usually I wouldn't complain, because if you have to choose a letter, there's no better one). I am a rare aural learner (we do exist; well I do at least, I've never met another) so for all the books I read physically, it takes me longer to learn all the terms, especially when they a start with the same letter (that's often how I keep track of them: the E name and the G word etc) and I still don't fully understand, but I kind of just rolled with it and I guess something worked because... 5 stars is 5 stars.
About the magic: it was kind of weird learning about it almost second hand (or even third if you think about it). While I thought Evan Winter was doing a phenomenal job at holding back exposition dumps at the beginning, he did let up a bit about half way through and we had a few conversations in the remaining pages for the sole purpose of characters learning information. But still, I want more magic and fighting. Stabby stabby is good. It wasn't my absolute favourite magic system, but I loved it all the same (stabby involved too).
And I can't really talk about the twists without spoilers, but safe to say that the last one kept me awake at night, and I had to finish the book completely before I could even think about falling asleep.
Wow, for someone who apparently didn't have much to say, that was a long review. I guess I'm not really surprised. Anyway, I have Fires of Vengence (no, autocorrect, Fires of Heaven is Wheel of Time) lined up ready to go right here, but I am restricting myself to finish all the three main books I have on the go at the moment. Grrrrrr why do I have to be sensible.
Holy moly this was incredible. I loved it. I can't believe it actually lived up to all my expectations that had built up over two-ish years of waiting for it to come in at the library. And it's a debut. AND it was (originally) self published. I am trying to find intelligible things to say, but at this point I finished the book almost two days ago and I haven't been able to express much at all.
Oh yeah, I did go in worrying that Tau's revenge focused mindset would irk me like it does some readers, but I had no issue with it whatsoever. Yes, every now and again I did facepalm after Tau ran at someone yelling "DEATH!!!!!!" which he did more than once, but at this point any time a book elicits any kind of visceral reaction out of me I take it as a positive sign. I don't seem to react to much these days, and it is more of a good thing when an author can write a character so annoying (ahem, Elayne) or so incredibly precious (Charlie Gordan from Flowers for Algernon, we all know I'm talking about you). So when Tau did stupid things and I groaned, saying "oh Tau..." that is more emotion than any ordinary book makes me feel.
But I'm not traditionally a character person. I like the worlds and plots and fights and clever twists and stuff. Well, Rage of Dragons had loads of all of that. The world was awesome. I loved the dragons (actual dragons for once) and all the fighting and blood and guts and stabby stabby (I'm a simple gal). It took me a bit to get all the castes in order, not to mention the truckload of fantasy terms beginning with the letter I (usually I wouldn't complain, because if you have to choose a letter, there's no better one). I am a rare aural learner (we do exist; well I do at least, I've never met another) so for all the books I read physically, it takes me longer to learn all the terms, especially when they a start with the same letter (that's often how I keep track of them: the E name and the G word etc) and I still don't fully understand, but I kind of just rolled with it and I guess something worked because... 5 stars is 5 stars.
About the magic: it was kind of weird learning about it almost second hand (or even third if you think about it). While I thought Evan Winter was doing a phenomenal job at holding back exposition dumps at the beginning, he did let up a bit about half way through and we had a few conversations in the remaining pages for the sole purpose of characters learning information. But still, I want more magic and fighting. Stabby stabby is good. It wasn't my absolute favourite magic system, but I loved it all the same (stabby involved too).
And I can't really talk about the twists without spoilers, but safe to say that the last one kept me awake at night, and I had to finish the book completely before I could even think about falling asleep.
Wow, for someone who apparently didn't have much to say, that was a long review. I guess I'm not really surprised. Anyway, I have Fires of Vengence (no, autocorrect, Fires of Heaven is Wheel of Time) lined up ready to go right here, but I am restricting myself to finish all the three main books I have on the go at the moment. Grrrrrr why do I have to be sensible.