Margaret Weis

Darksword — (1987-1997) Co-author Tracy Hickman. Publisher: Born without magical abilities in a magic world, Joram flees to the Outlands after being exiled from his village, and joins the scholar Saryon, practitioner of the outlawed arts of science and creator of the Darksword.

Dragonvarld — (2003-2005) Publisher: Welcome to the Dragonvarld... In Mistress of Dragons we are introduced to a world where political deception, greed, and avarice have lead to a violation of the "hands off" policy of the Parliament of Dragons concerning the affairs of men. Indeed that violation threatens more than policy and order it threatens the freedoms and survival of the entire human race.

Available for download at Audible.com.

Mistress of Dragons

Mistress of Dragons is an interesting story with some likable heroes and excellent villains. The heroes are the humans and their dragon allies, but the humans don't realize that dragons are their friends because the villains are a couple of dragons gone bad. Very bad. The good dragons concoct a plot which uses humans to conquer the bad dragons. Mistress ends with an unexpected plot twist.

This story is well-told, though it annoys me how often Weis omits conjunctions from her sentences. But if that doesn't bug you, and you don't mind a rape scene and a lesbian love affair, you'll probably enjoy this book. I listened to it on audiobook and it was read well and the story is compelling enough that I've ordered the second one in audiobook format, too. I'm going to give it a chance, but I'm not so hooked that I can't drop it in the middle if it doesn't keep me entertained. —Kat Hooper

The Dragon's Son

This typical middle novel concerns the twin sons born to Melisande: Marcus, the son of the King of Idlyswylde, and Ven (short for Vengeance), the son of the dragon who (in the body of the human Grald) raped her. Most of the book focuses on the development of both boys from age 6 to 16. Neither of them know about the other. Ven is half dragon (his legs are dragon's legs) and is being raised by Bellona (Melisande died at the end of Mistress of Dragons). Bellona keeps Ven hidden from the world as best she can. He is, of course, frustrated and lonely and feels like a freak. Marcus is a bastard prince who lives in luxury but possesses some form of Melisande's Dragon magic, so he kind of feels like a freak, too. The rogue dragons Grald and Maristara are looking for the boys, but Draconas watches the boys from afar and occasionally intervenes when necessary, telling the boys not to open their minds to "The Dragon" (Grald).

Things finally get going when Ven encounters a thief and his daughter Evelina (by far the two most interesting and well-done characters) who find out he's a monster and manage to capture him and sell him to a traveling freak show. In desperation, he calls for his father, and Grald and Maristara show up in human bodies to rescue him. They take Evelina, too, which makes things more interesting because she's such a greedy opportunist. So far, she's been completely repulsed by Ven, but when they arrive at Dragon Keep and she finds out he's the prince, she changes her tune.

Belona, desperately searching for Ven, finds Marcus and asks for his help because she somehow guesses that the boys can contact each other through their minds. So, off go Marcus and Belona to save Ven. They arrive in Dragon Keep and the boys finally meet each other. The fun part is when Evelina finds out that Marcus is a prince, too, and again changes her tune. Evelina is an entertaining character so far, and Weis handles her deftly, but just a bit more and it would be over-the-top. In fact, Margaret Weis's strength is excellent characterization and her villains are especially well-done.

There are some unbelievable elements that make the eyes roll. For example, Draconas doesn't take the perfect opportunity to kill evil Grald. It's like a James Bond movie when the bad guy actually has James Bond strapped to his torture device, but then leaves the room. Duh!

There is a surprising betrayal at the end of the book and, in addition, it is unclear whether Ven will choose to go the human way or the rogue dragon way, therefore, the reader feels compelled to finish the trilogy. In fact, The Dragon's Son is a typical middle novel in that it doesn't accomplish much except to set up the scene for the final act.

I listened to this on audio. The readings are divided between a male and female reader. The male reader did a fine job (though this is clearly not up to the standard of Recorded Books or Blackstone Audio), but the female reader was annoying. Rather than just read, she sort of acted out the parts and often chose a whiny wheedling voice that really got on my nerves. —Kat Hooper

Master of Dragons: Half-baked

Master of Dragons, the final book in Margaret Weis's Dragonvarld trilogy was a tasty but sloppy finale — like a cheesecake that didn't quite set.

This last book wraps things up, as we knew it would, and everything is finally well in the world, as we knew it would be. There are some fine moments (Draconas showing tenderness to a female dragon, Ven finds a family, Marcus falls in love) and even some hilarious ones (Draconas darning socks, Evelina's ironic fate). Characterization, especially of the bad guys, continues to be a high point, and the writing is nothing brilliant, but certainly pleasant enough.

But this otherwise entertaining novel suffers from internal inconsistencies:

• On page 38, Draconas is said to wear "the guise of a human male in his thirties," and 5 pages later he is described as "a human male of undetermined years."
• Draconas has cast the illusion that he is a little girl while staying in DragonKeep. He is able to eavesdrop on adults because of his keen dragon hearing. But, later, we are told that as a little girl "his hearing was so reduced that it seemed his ears were stuffed with wax."
• Much of what Anora (Prime Minister of the dragon parliament) says to the parliament is illogical and none of the dragons ever notice. For example, she says she should have removed Draconas from his post as "walker" because he was starting to become emotionally involved with humans, but she didn't remove him because he was the best walker they'd ever had because he was able to stay detached from humans. Then she says that she became involved in Maristara and Grald's plot 200 years ago because humans had become such a threat (she cites their canons), but a few lines later she says that because their plot went awry, the humans created canons (a few years ago). Sometimes she indicates that the canons are a threat which, though they are no threat, show that humans are, for the first time in their history, preparing to fight dragons.

There also seem to be inconsistencies about dragon magic vs dragon blood, who can see through illusions and who can't, and to what extent thoughts can be shielded from others with dragon magic. These sorts of "rules" seem to be conveniently flexible. For example, one of the monks is able to see through illusions, yet he doesn't recognize Draconas?

Then there are the unbelievable elements. For example, Anora's betrayal just doesn't ring true — it sounds like a forced plot twist. And, Anora says that to keep their plot secret from Draconas, they had to kill some good dragons (which she seems to regret) when, if they had just killed Draconas instead, everything would have been fine. And it didn't make sense to keep the plot from the dragon parliament if the purpose of it was to protect the dragons from the might-someday-be-threatening humans. It would have made immensely more sense, and been a lot less stressful, to just go to the parliament and say "hey, these humans want to kill us — let's kill them first." That seems a lot easier and a lot more likely to be successful than to embark on a 200 year breeding program in order to try to figure out if they might someday rule the humans with half-human, half-dragon creatures and a pack of mad monks. (And let's not forget that the humans weren't even starting to threaten the dragons until AFTER the breeding program started.) (And let's not forget that Anora even says herself that the humans are not actually threatening yet — they just might be in the future.) The whole thing just seems sloppy. Half-baked.

I listened to this on audiobook. The reader, a woman, did a great job with the female voices. At first I thought she was doing a great job with the male voices too, because her voice for Grald, the first male speaker, was excellent — really slimy. Unfortunately, she used the same slimy voice for every male character in the entire book.

My overall opinion of this series: Unless you've just got a thing for dragons, I'd recommend choosing something better. —Kat Hooper