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mayhemmay's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
hidekisohma's review against another edition
3.0
Welp, this sure was a book I read. That's probably the best way i can describe this. It was a book i read.
When i read the premise, it actually sounded really cool. A fantasy portal opens up in Cleveland and magical creatures pour out of it and this news reporter has to investigate the death of a dragon. That sounds RIGHT up my alley. The problem is, the author doesn't really DO anything with it.
I WILL tell you what this author loves talking about though, and that's politics, holy crap did the author like talking about the politics of what happened here. Nearly every chapter there's some mention of how the government reacted to this portal opening up. Either with a law passed with congress, the way the police force changed, etc, he just keeps adding more and more stuff.
And world building isn't a bad thing, but he kind of picked one of the most uninteresting things you could think of. This is a portal where elves, unicorns and dragons are all coming through, and you're talking about legal loopholes that give elves citizen-hood. It's like having a box of fireworks and when they're firing off the fireworks, checking out the box they came in. It might be kind of interesting, but it shouldn't be a major focal point.
The main character, Kline, is, in a word, boring. He's your standard news reporter whose personality equates to "i'm a normal 40- something guy" that's about it. he reacts as well as you'd expect a character like that to at the world around him, and, after the first 150ish pages, he just starts getting kidnapped by everyone and is dragged along as the plot is explained to him.
A myriad of characters are added as the story goes on, and i forgot about 3/4 of them. Without giving away spoilers, i'll just say when they reveal the big baddie, i kind of just blinked and went "wait. did they ever mention this character before?" like, the character was so irrelevant to the plot i honestly couldn't even remember if they had mentioned them before.
Kline does some investigative journalism in the first half, but once he gets kidnapped the first time, it's just a giant schlog of him being dragged along to wherever the plot needs him to be. The climax wasn't even really satisfying, as he doesn't do much to resolve the story either.
I feel like this entire story was a wasted opportunity. Despite being a world of where fantastical creatures come through a portal, we meet a few mages, one live dragon, a gargoyle, and some elves. that's about it. There's no world building in that sense. like i don't believe this city is overrun with magical creatures. it kinda feels like a small spattering of them exist here rather than a new large section of the population.
An aspect of the story that could have been cut ENTIRELY was Kline's ex-wife and daughter. They're not even in the same city with him. They both live in California and all these characters amount to is Kline talking to them over the phone 2-3 times so we know they exist. They don't affect the plot, they don't do anything, they just kind of....exist. If you cut them out of the story and just said "he was never married" it would have affected crap all.
The first half of the story when he was investigating gave some promise, if not a bit dull. The second half became a rougher read though and the final 100 pages had me checking the page count a LOT more than normal.
This story really had a good idea behind it. I don't know why Swann chose to tell this PARTICULAR story when a setting of a magical portal in the middle of Cleveland had so much more potential. Also Kline needs a personality BAD.
The actual writing style was fine. it was easy to understand and nothing really left me confused. It was what he decided to focus on that made it more annoying. Still, I didn't actively dislike it, and am moderately interested to pick up the second book (if i can either get it used or at a library. not buying it new) to see if he spends more time on the characters in the world rather than the politics.
2.5 out of 5 rounded up to a 3.
When i read the premise, it actually sounded really cool. A fantasy portal opens up in Cleveland and magical creatures pour out of it and this news reporter has to investigate the death of a dragon. That sounds RIGHT up my alley. The problem is, the author doesn't really DO anything with it.
I WILL tell you what this author loves talking about though, and that's politics, holy crap did the author like talking about the politics of what happened here. Nearly every chapter there's some mention of how the government reacted to this portal opening up. Either with a law passed with congress, the way the police force changed, etc, he just keeps adding more and more stuff.
And world building isn't a bad thing, but he kind of picked one of the most uninteresting things you could think of. This is a portal where elves, unicorns and dragons are all coming through, and you're talking about legal loopholes that give elves citizen-hood. It's like having a box of fireworks and when they're firing off the fireworks, checking out the box they came in. It might be kind of interesting, but it shouldn't be a major focal point.
The main character, Kline, is, in a word, boring. He's your standard news reporter whose personality equates to "i'm a normal 40- something guy" that's about it. he reacts as well as you'd expect a character like that to at the world around him, and, after the first 150ish pages, he just starts getting kidnapped by everyone and is dragged along as the plot is explained to him.
A myriad of characters are added as the story goes on, and i forgot about 3/4 of them. Without giving away spoilers, i'll just say when they reveal the big baddie, i kind of just blinked and went "wait. did they ever mention this character before?" like, the character was so irrelevant to the plot i honestly couldn't even remember if they had mentioned them before.
Kline does some investigative journalism in the first half, but once he gets kidnapped the first time, it's just a giant schlog of him being dragged along to wherever the plot needs him to be. The climax wasn't even really satisfying, as he doesn't do much to resolve the story either.
I feel like this entire story was a wasted opportunity. Despite being a world of where fantastical creatures come through a portal, we meet a few mages, one live dragon, a gargoyle, and some elves. that's about it. There's no world building in that sense. like i don't believe this city is overrun with magical creatures. it kinda feels like a small spattering of them exist here rather than a new large section of the population.
An aspect of the story that could have been cut ENTIRELY was Kline's ex-wife and daughter. They're not even in the same city with him. They both live in California and all these characters amount to is Kline talking to them over the phone 2-3 times so we know they exist. They don't affect the plot, they don't do anything, they just kind of....exist. If you cut them out of the story and just said "he was never married" it would have affected crap all.
The first half of the story when he was investigating gave some promise, if not a bit dull. The second half became a rougher read though and the final 100 pages had me checking the page count a LOT more than normal.
This story really had a good idea behind it. I don't know why Swann chose to tell this PARTICULAR story when a setting of a magical portal in the middle of Cleveland had so much more potential. Also Kline needs a personality BAD.
The actual writing style was fine. it was easy to understand and nothing really left me confused. It was what he decided to focus on that made it more annoying. Still, I didn't actively dislike it, and am moderately interested to pick up the second book (if i can either get it used or at a library. not buying it new) to see if he spends more time on the characters in the world rather than the politics.
2.5 out of 5 rounded up to a 3.
jonmhansen's review against another edition
4.0
Good fantasy noir (albeit reporter hero rather than detective).
iwhippie's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
shinyfox's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars.
I really liked the idea behind this book, but all of the conspiracy theories just got wound up so tight & became jumbled and ended up confusing me.
I really liked the idea behind this book, but all of the conspiracy theories just got wound up so tight & became jumbled and ended up confusing me.
grimread's review
3.0
This book reads like a boring report instead of a fantasy novel. I understand that the main character is a journalist and he is uncovering a very convoluted political plot, but I wish there was more of him then just stating the current events. It's like he has no personality in this just because he is a journalist and has to keep his objective point of view in the story he is covering. Even the relationship with his ex and his daughter is so briefly squeezed in there that I don't really see what the point was.
I also don't understand why this book is classified as fantasy novel. It should be a thriller or a far-fetched detective novel.
I also don't understand why this book is classified as fantasy novel. It should be a thriller or a far-fetched detective novel.
debz57a52's review
2.0
So, I picked this book up because of a blog's 2015 Reading Challenge. One of the check boxes said "a book set in your hometown." Since I'm from Cleveland, the first thing that came to me is the Les Roberts series of mysteries. I've read a few, probably over a decade ago, but it's been a while, and I'm not usually a mystery fan anyway.
However, I started looking on Goodreads for other books set in Cleveland, and this one intrigued me. Cleveland, but with magic and Dragons? Awesome!
While the idea is still awesome, the execution was not as much. First, I read the book on my Kindle, and the text did not seem to be very well-proofed. I found roughly one spelling, spacing, grammar, or usage mistake per chapter, I think. Second, the book is not fabulously edited. If someone actually read the book (hopefully aloud) before it went to press, some of the repetition - not parallel structure, mind you - and wordy sentences could have been edited to be more powerful.
That aside, I think the fact that I had Les Roberts to compare to made it tough for me to like this book with a setting in Cleveland. When Les Roberts writes about an integral part of Cleveland, he uses his research to move the plot along. The information he shares, for example, explains the turf war whose dividing line is the West Side Market, or we learn about the history of the salt mining industry in Cleveland before ending up at a salt mine for a very important moment. I didn't feel like the information about Cleveland shared in The Dragon of Cuyahoga was integral to the story - it was just a convenient setting to wishfully explain why Cleveland finally got some respect and economic stability. I imagine that this book could have been moved to any major city with a failing economy and a nearby body of water and been good to go.
I don't know if this would bug me if I read it ten years ago, but the anachronisms bothered me while reading this book. Kline kept calling his laptop his "notebook," a phrase we stopped using because it was confusing. His cell phone doesn't send or receive texts, which is odd even for 2004. He owns an all-digital big-screen TV (which would be more like a mid-size TV now), but he talked about how expensive it was. Stuff like that, usually around technology.
Finally, as another reviewer mentioned, there were layers upon layers of conspiracies here, and I seriously had trouble keeping them straight. At some point, about 40% in, I didn't think it was worth it to continue, but I trudged on. At 80% in, I felt like the end was close enough that I shouldn't give up then. At 90%, I questioned the pacing of the book - shouldn't we be in the thick of the climax by now?
I see on Goodreads that this is #1 in a series. I don't plan to go looking for the others.
However, I started looking on Goodreads for other books set in Cleveland, and this one intrigued me. Cleveland, but with magic and Dragons? Awesome!
While the idea is still awesome, the execution was not as much. First, I read the book on my Kindle, and the text did not seem to be very well-proofed. I found roughly one spelling, spacing, grammar, or usage mistake per chapter, I think. Second, the book is not fabulously edited. If someone actually read the book (hopefully aloud) before it went to press, some of the repetition - not parallel structure, mind you - and wordy sentences could have been edited to be more powerful.
That aside, I think the fact that I had Les Roberts to compare to made it tough for me to like this book with a setting in Cleveland. When Les Roberts writes about an integral part of Cleveland, he uses his research to move the plot along. The information he shares, for example, explains the turf war whose dividing line is the West Side Market, or we learn about the history of the salt mining industry in Cleveland before ending up at a salt mine for a very important moment. I didn't feel like the information about Cleveland shared in The Dragon of Cuyahoga was integral to the story - it was just a convenient setting to wishfully explain why Cleveland finally got some respect and economic stability. I imagine that this book could have been moved to any major city with a failing economy and a nearby body of water and been good to go.
I don't know if this would bug me if I read it ten years ago, but the anachronisms bothered me while reading this book. Kline kept calling his laptop his "notebook," a phrase we stopped using because it was confusing. His cell phone doesn't send or receive texts, which is odd even for 2004. He owns an all-digital big-screen TV (which would be more like a mid-size TV now), but he talked about how expensive it was. Stuff like that, usually around technology.
Finally, as another reviewer mentioned, there were layers upon layers of conspiracies here, and I seriously had trouble keeping them straight. At some point, about 40% in, I didn't think it was worth it to continue, but I trudged on. At 80% in, I felt like the end was close enough that I shouldn't give up then. At 90%, I questioned the pacing of the book - shouldn't we be in the thick of the climax by now?
I see on Goodreads that this is #1 in a series. I don't plan to go looking for the others.
sunsoar25's review
3.0
I picked this up at a thrift store on the premise alone - there's a portal to a Tolkien-esque dimension opens up in Cleveland, Ohio. I always love finding fantasy novels set in Ohio and this sounded like it would be full of potential. Anyway, it starts off well. I particularly enjoyed reading about just how the magic leaching through the portal affects the real world - and those coming from that dimension. I also liked reading about just how inhuman and different all of those creatures and figures are from us. Unfortunately, this story never quite lived up to my hopes. It was a little too dry, the main character Kline Maxwell (his name should be flipped in my opinion) wasn't all that interesting, and the story became too politically convoluted as it went on. I was hoping for something more similar to The Last Hot Time by John M. Ford which was absolutely awesome. Even though I wasn't the biggest fan of The Dragons of the Cuyahoga (Cleveland Portal #1), I would like to see more of this world and read the sequel, The Dwarves of Whiskey Island.
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