Customer Reviews

The Dragon's Son (Dragonvarld Trilogy, Book 2)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Favor fantasy? Then "The Dragon's Son," second by Margaret Weis in her Dragonvarld trilogy, is the story for you? Love to listen? Then Stefan Rudnicki and Gabrielle De Cuir are the voices for you, lending just the appropriate amounts of other worldliness to their readings. Rudnicki's delivery is resonant, memorable, and De Cuir's equally impressive.

Fans will remember the conclusion of "Mistress of Dragons," a real heart stopper where a violation of the "leave them alone" rule regarding the affairs of men threatened the very existence of mankind.

Hope lies with twin sons. Ven, short for Vengeance, is half man, half dragon. Marcus, on the other hand, was raised comfortably, at court, and appears to be totally human. However, the dragon blood each carries has imbued them with magical powers. Their asset may also be their peril as evil dragons in human form seek to destroy them.

Draconas is their ally and wants to protect them. But, is this possible?

Listen and enjoy.

- Gail Cooke

this is a completely awsome book that i could never put down. so far this is the best book in the series. but weis seems to forget that there were two sons and that she barley ever talked about marcus "the seeminly normal child of the two" but the blood of the dragon is in his blood so that makes him have magic powers so read this book and follow along an epic adventure of romance, action, adventure, and plenty of other things in this book.

The second book in the Dragonvarld trilogy was much better than the first. Although Weis talked about Ven mostly throughout the whole book, she tended to forget about the other son of the Mistress of Dragons named Marcus. This book definetly kept you reading more and more, because it talks about the hardships of being different in society and how that affects one's own emotions. The ending was also so unpredictable that I can't wait for the third installment to this trilogy.

This is a great book for fans of dragons and hybrids (half man, half dragon). I very much enjoyed the second book in this trilogy, certainly more than the first volume, The Mistress of Dragons.

I am particularly fond of Margaret Weis' characters Draconas and Ven. Ven of which, we follow through out the book as he grows up, comes to face discrimination, and struggles to find his place in among a world of humans and dragons.

Dragons would have nothing to do with humans and the Parliament of Dragons enforces that rule very strictly. However, one of the members have gone against the Parliament's ruling and mated with a high priestess, who since dragons can take on the form of a human, did not know who he really was. Two boys were the result of that coupling; Ven is a human from the waste up and a dragon from the waist down while Marcus is raised as the bastard son of King Ildlysisylde.

The two boys do not know about each other; they also are hidden from their father, who plans to rule the world of dragons and humans with his breeding program. He needs Ven for a special role in his plan and it up to Draconis, the Parliament's representative, to make sure the lads grow to maturity because only then will they have a chance of defeating the dragon. Ven has an agenda of his own while Draconis is caught in a trap by one of the female dragons.

THE DRAGON'S SON is a coming of age story of two young men, one living in poverty and the other surrounded by riches. Both share a common destiny if they have the courage to risk their lives to fight the rogue dragon (nobody knows his true identity) when they reach maturity. For now, they must survive and cope with the dragon blood running through their veins. Dragons caused the mess that the world is in and they must find a way to make things right for their own sake and for that of humanity. Margaret Weiss has written an enthralling high fantasy novel that will totally absorb readers.

Harriet Klausner

In reviewing the audio version of The Dragon's Son, I have to divide my review into The Story and Narration.

The Narration
The narration gets a split decision. The narrators of this tale, Gabrielle De Cuir and Stefan Rudnicki are both wonderful. I favored Rudnicki's rich voice over De Cuir's narration, but I would listen to De Cuir on other recordings if she were the narrator. Individually, there were wonderful. As a duet, the result was not so great. I have no objection to men reading women's' part or the other way around, but the swapping of narrators here had little to do with gender role. In fact I could see no reason why narrators were changed at all. There seemed to be no logical reason for changing narrators in the middle of a chapter. No insights were gained and the "person" of the story did not change from one narrator to the other. For me, this was the worst part of the narrative.

Allowing for the random changes of narrator, I though the narration was excellent. You knew instantly which character was speaking by the small inflections, and sometime not so small changes, in the narrators voice. Both De Cuir and Rudnicki's voices flowed smoothly, allowing the listener to really get into the story. . . until there was a change of narrator. OK, I've beaten that horse for the last time.

The Story
Overall, I found the story uninspiring and not too original. There were no surprises for me in the plot. Everything was told according to the formula. This is a classic tale of brothers raised independently of each other by separate foster parents, yet suspecting they are not alone. Throw in a good family, a struggling foster mother, a councilor privy to the secret and a bad real father and a good real mother killed at the birth of her children, and this story has been told many times over. This telling was entertaining; I did not quit listening, although most of the credit for that goes to the narrators.

To the author's credit, I do not feel I missed anything by coming in on book two of the trilogy. There is enough groundwork and flashback that the story stands on its own. Will I get volume three? I doubt it. There was not enough tension in the conclusion to make me want to see where this tale is going. Not even a chance to listen to these two wonderful narrators could coax me back to this fantasy world.

The Dragon's Son was certainly an improvement over it's predecessor, The Mistress of Dragons. In this sequel, Weis tells the story of Melisande's sons who were born at the cost of their mother's life. Ven, short for Vengeance, lives a life of near seclusion with Melisande's former lover, Bellona; Marcus, the (...) son of King Edward and Ven's half brother lives a life of luxary. Of the two brothers, Ven is the better developed. He must live a life of pvoerty and hard work hidden away from a world that would brand him demon because of the dragon legs that mark him as The Dragon's son. Living with a woman who blames him for the death of her lover. One of the main gripes I had with the previous novel was character development. More often than not, the characters in Mistress of Dragons were wooden and poorly developed, which was a disappointment when you consider the world building and character development of Weis's work with Dungeons and Dragons. In The Dragon's Son, Weis has greatly improved some of her characters. Ven is, of course, her best creation. There are times when you really feel the angst of this half human, half dragon child. Weis also improved on the characters of Bellona and Draconis. Bellona was one of the more wooden characters from the first novel, but Weis really creates an understated performance for her. Overall, this was a vast improvement over Mistress of Dragons. I looked forward to the third novel.

This is the second in the Dragonvarlid Trilogy and I liked this one alot better then the first, Mistress of Dragons. I didn't want to put this one down. Draconas is one of my favorite characters. There really wasn't one I didn't like, except the ones you weren't suppose to like. Weis has out done herself again. I would recommend these books to any one. Lets just hurry up with the third one, I don't mean to rush but I want to see what happens to the brothers.

Margaret Weis is known for her work with dragons, so it's no surprise that her latest trilogy is yet another one about them. This time, though, she's created her own world and designed her own little dragon society. The first book, Mistress of Dragons, was an excellent beginning, showing us just enough of the world to intrigue us and populating it with some interesting characters to go along with it. Granted, the world wasn't explored very thoroughly, but there was just enough there to make us wonder. However, Dragon's Son continues the few shortfalls that the first book had and gives us a few more, hamstringing the characters and giving us other characters who we don't care about at all. It's a major step down, but it still looks recoverable for the third book.

There are so many things wrong with this book that I'll start with the good stuff to get it out of the way. Once again Draconas is the most interesting character in the book. While he does care about humans, and humanity in general, he's not above using people to further his own ends when the circumstances seem to demand it. He doesn't like it, but he knows it has to be done. He's harsh with the boys when he needs to be, but the sequence where he brings Marcus out of the shell in which he has encased himself demonstrates that he really does care.

That's really about it. Unfortunately, for the second book in the trilogy, Weis has given us a rather dull book with characters that are difficult to care about. Some of the characters from the first book aren't used that much at all (criminally, Draconas really doesn't factor into the book that much, and Edward doesn't have a lot to do either) while others almost undergo lobotomies. Bellona is almost nothing like the warrior she was in the first book. While her grief over Melisande and the resentment she feels about having been charged to take care of Ven is understandable, she doesn't show any signs of the woman she once was. Later, we're told that, deep down, she really did love and care for Ven, but we're never shown it, not even when the story is being told from her point of view.

Instead, we're given three new characters: Ven, Marcus, and a daughter of a thief, Evelina. Ven and Evelina are thoroughly unlikable and Marcus is just dull. Ven has lived his entire life alone with Bellona, only interacting with people during the annual town fair, and even then he stops going from the age of six to the age of sixteen. Thus, he is naïve in a lot of ways, and Evelina takes advantage of that. I saw what was coming between them, and I just didn't care. In fact, I almost thought "good riddance." I don't know if we were supposed to feel sorry for him or not, but I certainly didn't. Evelina is completely amoral, looking out for herself at all times. Yet she inexplicably falls in love almost instantaneously with somebody right at the end of the book. I don't know what Weis will do with this in the third book, but the startling nature of this threw me completely out of this one.

Also, I again didn't really feel like a part of this world that Weis had created. We get some details on a couple of different fairs that Bellona and Ven go to, and we see the underbelly of another city. We also see a hidden city but don't really get too much of a view of it. It just feels like the world is a place for these events to happen, and that's about it. The religion seems based on Christianity (with God, saints, abbeys, monks and nuns), but we certainly don't get an impression of how this religion affects people's lives. It's a shame, really, as I know Weis is a capable world-builder.

The book ends with a wonderful twist that really does have me looking forward to the third book, but part of that is because it seems that Draconas will be featured a lot more in it than he was in Dragon's Son. This twist completely turned around my understanding of what was going on, and I loved it. The book is a very quick read, which helped me get through it despite the dull spots. It also helped that I had a break in the middle where I discovered that the first copy of the book I had was missing a bunch of pages, and it took me a couple of weeks to track down another copy.

All in all, it's worth reading once to continue the story. I know Weis is capable of better than this, and I have high hopes for the third book in the series. It would be almost impossible for her to drop the ball as badly as she did this time.

David Roy

As Randy Jackson (American Idol) would say, "That was just okay for me, Dawg."

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 Meristara 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 travelling 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 too much more and it would be over-the-top. In fact, Margaret Weis's strength is excellent characterization and her villians are especially well-done.

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. Two and one half stars.
~ FanLit.net