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A review by waclements7
Steelhands by Jaida Jones
5.0
I read a lot of entire series this year because I only just found out about them, so they are all a little entangled in my mind. This is one of them, so if it doesn't appear completely cohesive, I apologize.
****It does contain some spoilers***
I’m just going to come right out and confess I read these almost a year ago, but I really, really liked them at the time. The idea was very clever, I thought. Dragons that were built with a specific member of the flight corps in mind, in one case, the dragon had been built for one man’s brother, but his brother had died and he was genetically close enough that he could ride the same dragon. The dragons and the riders learn each others’ personalities—despite the fact they have been engineered, the dragons are sentient and learn. The series starts with the whole corps having been disciplined for their appalling behavior at an important event which involved women and large amounts of alcohol. It is decided, then, that they need “etiquette training,” and a young professor is sent in to teach them, supposedly, everything they are supposed to know. Naturally he meets with resistance and insolence, a naïve professor and a hardened flight corps—no problems here. There are characters that are lost through the course of the series, some of which I was surprised to feel sad about even though their characters were at times annoying—they all fit a purpose within the corps to make it a cohesive group, and their loss changed that. Steelhands centers on one young corpsman who has lost his hands in the battle in the previous book, and has new ones made from the same metal the dragons are constructed from, and how he learns to adapt as everything is different now. Two of the original Dragon Corps have decided to stay in the desert where the final battle occurred, but they begin to uncover mysterious and disturbing things about the dragons, which they report back to their old commander. Despite the fact that the Dragon Corps could generally be referred to at the beginning of the series as a very motley crew of men, they were a motley crew of men who depended and trusted each other to cover their backs, and they genuinely cared for each other. The idea of the importance of human interaction and relationships continues in Steelhands. Jones and Bennett have created a wonderful world populated by interesting people and creatures. I was lucky enough to have found out about the series when Steelhands was released, so was able to read all of them at once (one after the other, that is). I think sometimes that’s the most marvelous way to read books—to suddenly discover a new series that already has a few books out and just become inundated in their world, which was easy in this case. The characters are so different, yet fully realized, there is just enough description where is doesn’t become tedious, and the world-building is such that it makes perfect sense that these dragons exist. I’m hoping Steelhands isn’t the last one in the series, as I’m curious to learn more, but if it is, I’m very happy to have read the ones that are here.
****It does contain some spoilers***
I’m just going to come right out and confess I read these almost a year ago, but I really, really liked them at the time. The idea was very clever, I thought. Dragons that were built with a specific member of the flight corps in mind, in one case, the dragon had been built for one man’s brother, but his brother had died and he was genetically close enough that he could ride the same dragon. The dragons and the riders learn each others’ personalities—despite the fact they have been engineered, the dragons are sentient and learn. The series starts with the whole corps having been disciplined for their appalling behavior at an important event which involved women and large amounts of alcohol. It is decided, then, that they need “etiquette training,” and a young professor is sent in to teach them, supposedly, everything they are supposed to know. Naturally he meets with resistance and insolence, a naïve professor and a hardened flight corps—no problems here. There are characters that are lost through the course of the series, some of which I was surprised to feel sad about even though their characters were at times annoying—they all fit a purpose within the corps to make it a cohesive group, and their loss changed that. Steelhands centers on one young corpsman who has lost his hands in the battle in the previous book, and has new ones made from the same metal the dragons are constructed from, and how he learns to adapt as everything is different now. Two of the original Dragon Corps have decided to stay in the desert where the final battle occurred, but they begin to uncover mysterious and disturbing things about the dragons, which they report back to their old commander. Despite the fact that the Dragon Corps could generally be referred to at the beginning of the series as a very motley crew of men, they were a motley crew of men who depended and trusted each other to cover their backs, and they genuinely cared for each other. The idea of the importance of human interaction and relationships continues in Steelhands. Jones and Bennett have created a wonderful world populated by interesting people and creatures. I was lucky enough to have found out about the series when Steelhands was released, so was able to read all of them at once (one after the other, that is). I think sometimes that’s the most marvelous way to read books—to suddenly discover a new series that already has a few books out and just become inundated in their world, which was easy in this case. The characters are so different, yet fully realized, there is just enough description where is doesn’t become tedious, and the world-building is such that it makes perfect sense that these dragons exist. I’m hoping Steelhands isn’t the last one in the series, as I’m curious to learn more, but if it is, I’m very happy to have read the ones that are here.