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50 in 2013 #3: Dragon Weather
Jan. 25th, 2013 10:34 pm
Dragon Weather by Lawrence Watt-Evens
So stop me if you've heard this one before. A young man is horribly betrayed, spends years in durance, acquires a fortune, and sets himself up as a noble, while looking for revenge. Yes, Dragon Weather has strong references to the Count of Monte Cristo, enough so that in places it could be said to be a fantasy version of CoMC, from the perspective of the Count. It's more than that though, it goes it's own way, both plotwise and in the nature of the character.
In Dragon Weather, Arlian witnesses the destruction of his village by dragons, and then is sold into slavery by the looters who follow them. He spends years as a slave in a mine before a good deed sets him free. By chance he efriends a prostitute at a brothel, and learns the location of a small fortune. He manages to parley that fortune into a large one, and begins planning his revenge against men and dragons, not only for the injustice done to him and his village, but also for the cruelties inflicted on the prostitutes. In the process, his sense of justice and desire for revenge collide, and he learns secrets about the dragons and himself that will potentially change the world of men. Having found he too has the heart of a dragon, will he retain his humanity, or become as cruel as the people he opposes?
I found this book one of the more enjoyable of Lawrence Watt-Evens' books. Mr. Watt-Evens is an expert at starting off characters with practically nothing, and then sending them off in a direction to improve their lot, and it was as interesting to see how Arlian comes into wealth by luck and cunning, as it was to see him duplicate parts of the Count of Monte Cristo. While the author's writing is workmanlike, and lacks the lyrical and emotional quality of the original Count of Monte Cristo, he is very good at plotting, and I was alsways interested in seeing what would come next in this book. Several of the plot developments were genuinely surprising, and I couldn't predict where the book would head next. The only complaint I would have about it is that the treatment of most of the female characters is very triggery- the prostitutes are mutilated to keep from escaping, and even the one strong female character (admittedly of a nonstandard type for fantasy) has rape in her background. I don't quite appreciate women characters existing mainly as focuses for the main character's sense of justice.
Despite this I would recommend this book; it showcases a rather dark (for Watt-Evens) situation, a hero who finds justice is more complicated than he thought, and an engaging plot involving revenge, magic and dragons.
So stop me if you've heard this one before. A young man is horribly betrayed, spends years in durance, acquires a fortune, and sets himself up as a noble, while looking for revenge. Yes, Dragon Weather has strong references to the Count of Monte Cristo, enough so that in places it could be said to be a fantasy version of CoMC, from the perspective of the Count. It's more than that though, it goes it's own way, both plotwise and in the nature of the character.
In Dragon Weather, Arlian witnesses the destruction of his village by dragons, and then is sold into slavery by the looters who follow them. He spends years as a slave in a mine before a good deed sets him free. By chance he efriends a prostitute at a brothel, and learns the location of a small fortune. He manages to parley that fortune into a large one, and begins planning his revenge against men and dragons, not only for the injustice done to him and his village, but also for the cruelties inflicted on the prostitutes. In the process, his sense of justice and desire for revenge collide, and he learns secrets about the dragons and himself that will potentially change the world of men. Having found he too has the heart of a dragon, will he retain his humanity, or become as cruel as the people he opposes?
I found this book one of the more enjoyable of Lawrence Watt-Evens' books. Mr. Watt-Evens is an expert at starting off characters with practically nothing, and then sending them off in a direction to improve their lot, and it was as interesting to see how Arlian comes into wealth by luck and cunning, as it was to see him duplicate parts of the Count of Monte Cristo. While the author's writing is workmanlike, and lacks the lyrical and emotional quality of the original Count of Monte Cristo, he is very good at plotting, and I was alsways interested in seeing what would come next in this book. Several of the plot developments were genuinely surprising, and I couldn't predict where the book would head next. The only complaint I would have about it is that the treatment of most of the female characters is very triggery- the prostitutes are mutilated to keep from escaping, and even the one strong female character (admittedly of a nonstandard type for fantasy) has rape in her background. I don't quite appreciate women characters existing mainly as focuses for the main character's sense of justice.
Despite this I would recommend this book; it showcases a rather dark (for Watt-Evens) situation, a hero who finds justice is more complicated than he thought, and an engaging plot involving revenge, magic and dragons.