Reviews

This is a hard review to write. The setting is fascinating, and the plot is interesting. On the other hand, it's almost terminally cliche, and the writing quality is deeply erratic. Characters don't always behave in consistent ways, time flows oddly, side characters often have inexplicable motivations, plot threads get brought up than inexplicably dropped. There's an odd tendency in this book for a scene to really focus on a character or interaction or motivation (eg, a roommate, or wanting to become a doctor) and then seem to just forget about it for a while.

Any given scene is generally fine, but nothing ties together quite right, which just makes the series tiring. If the author isn't paying attention, why should we?

I can give examples. In book two

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the decision to hold the wedding before the fight with the god is bizarre. I get it, that's a cool thing to have happen, but nothing leading up to this explains why Rupert would agree to it. We're clearly told that Rupert is coldly using his daughter as a bargaining chip to form alliances, specifically with the new werewolf pack on campus. Later he seems happy to, in essence, risk that chip being entirely wasted, but we get no scenes of him having a change of heart. There's some vague hints that his wife is forcing this, but that's not really fleshed out either. We're left with no real idea of what Rupert wants or why, but he's an important character.

. In the same book, the final fight is also weird.

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The mistake of thinking the god could be defeated by a single bullet is incomprehensible. As readers, we have no idea if that's plausible or not, but everyone in the book - including Morgana - seemed to think it was, so we have to assume it was too. Then it turns out that's false, and it's like we're expected to suddenly find that obvious too, but at no point was anything explained to the readers to let us make this jump. Even worse, the god turns out to be even more powerful than before after he reappears, yet if he had that power, he could have just killed Morgana to start with. The series is quite clear about the role of mana, and how it can be obtained, and the rarity of beings that can generate it on their own. So either the god had indeed run out - and shouldn't have been able to recover like that - or he hasn't and was just playing, despite having zero reason to do so. Then Morgana pulls out her ultimate weapon, but it's the same problem all over again. Either she was tapped out before or she wasn't; if she was then there's no way she could have done this, and if she wasn't she needs a motivation for hiding her power before and then using it later.

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And somewhat separately

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the whole "she saves his life, then has a crisis and flees before he wakes back up" is just so....tiring. I'm fine with clichés (just check out my fawning over the [b:Rise of the Weakest Summoner: Volume I|58927255|Rise of the Weakest Summoner Volume I|J.R. Saileri|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1630815193l/58927255._SY75_.jpg|92858263] series), but they need to be deployed to some meaningful purpose. Here it just feels like a quick way for the author to wrap up the story because he ran out of time, space, or inspiration.

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Then the opening of book three is almost unreadable, as characters seem to be rapidly turning into caricatures of themselves. Reading the first few chapters you might ask: Why are any of these people acting like this? And more importantly, why should I care? And that's a question I really can't answer. I was a huge fan of the apprentice mercenary/dragon in training we got to follow in the latter half of [b:Dragon's Justice|58953567|Dragon's Justice|Bruce Sentar|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1631146608l/58953567._SY75_.jpg|92912513] and the first half of [b:Dragon's Justice 2|59779518|Dragon's Justice 2|Bruce Sentar|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639034007l/59779518._SY75_.jpg|94157439] (eg, ditching the car in the river) , but in the first half of this book we just get a hormonal idiot. Even if we get some big reveal that the MC is going through dragon puberty or something later, that would merely explain what the author is doing; it wouldn't excuse it.

Then by book four the protagonist has

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clearly become an inhuman creature, and as such, it's hard to empathise with them. This is not the classic "normal human like you turns out to have mysterious powers; can he learn to use them to solve the deadly threats?" plot; it's actually "a dragon who isn't really very much like a human at all has some powers and needs to solve some threats". Which is fine, but I'm actually human. I struggle to empathise with characters whose reasoning and motivations are entirely alien!

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Deeply mediocre.

captioustech's review

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4.0

Meh, in the genre it's one of the better written series as a whole it manages to retain quality through to book 6 which is the latest I've read. There is no deep narrative or anything, and some of the mysteries end up with unsatisfactory explanations, but as a whole there was little cringe. And it manages to keep being entertaining if you can tolerate this niche.

nachtnoose's review against another edition

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5.0

This series has made Bruce Sentar my favourite pulp author. Action is solid and not overdone, the romance works with the story, the morality of the character is interesting. All around a solid entry I really enjoyed

mrdan's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

wolkenfels's review against another edition

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3.0

MC is a dragon and doesn't know it. He stumbels into a world of shifters and other paranormal creatures and tries to find his way - while finding a lot of gorgeous women who want to be his wifes...
Nice story when you ignore the harem stuff. At least that is done quite tasteful . Still - the fun is in the rest of the story.

reading_ninja's review against another edition

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4.0

Loving this urban fantasy series

Dragons and werewolves and elves, oh my
a great start to this series with a fun, interesting and enjoyable book. Love the main character and all the supporting characters, looking forward to #2.

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