Dragon's Treasure [Hardcover]

Elizabeth A. Lynn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2004

With Dragon's Winter, two-time World Fantasy Award-winner Elizabeth A. Lynn made "a triumphant return"* to the fantasy realm after over a decade. Now, she returns to her imaginative medieval world-where a fearsome dragon lord struggles between ruling with might and ruling with justice.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Lynn's fantasy Dragon's Winter (1998), set in the medieval world of Ippa, Karadur Atani was forced to usurp power from his twin brother and slay him. In this engrossing sequel, Karadur, now ensconced as dragon-lord at Dragon's Keep, fears that he may turn into a madman like his father. Karadur tries to find middle ground between being a just ruler and a dragon-changeling whose temperament, by nature, is destructive and vengeful. Hawk, Karadur's companion, is still with him, though she's been maimed and no longer changes shape. Azil, Karadur's lover, plays a smaller role, as Karadur has fallen in lust with a humble herbalist, Maia Unamira diSorvino, who can produce dragon-changeling heirs for him. Maia just happens to be half-sister of Treion Unamira, who's making a great deal of trouble for Karadur—and who may also be Karadur's half-brother. It's in Treion's interest to help Karadur keep his dragon's temper under control, and Treion suffers the most when that temper flares out with righteous anger. Lynn does a wonderful job describing the complexities of castle life, especially the domestic details of running the household. The tale suffers some from middle-book syndrome, though—it's obvious there's at least one more volume to come.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In this thoroughly welcome sequel to Dragon's Winter (1998), Karadur Atani, who can change form from human to dragon and back again, is accepted as a local lordling. In that capacity, he ruthlessly puts down the Unamira clan, a formidable group of bandits. Only two Unamira, grandchildren Maia and Taran di Sorvino, survive. The former, a potent herbalist, eventually becomes Karadur's lover and the mother of his daughter. Taran, on the other hand, follows his family's outlaw tradition and wreaks fearful vengeance on his enemies until he is imprisoned and has his right arm cut off. Furthermore, in Karadur Taran finds a judge who combines sternness and mercy, leaving the possibilities for a third tale virtually limitless. This one, despite a large cast and occasionally complicated plotting, features full and pleasing measures of Lynn's graceful prose and world-building talent. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover; First American Edition edition (September 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441011969
• ISBN-13: 978-0441011964
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #977,693 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars lacks focus, March 13, 2007

By 

Margaret P. "mhp2027" (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dragon's Treasure (Paperback)

"Dragon's Treasure" is a meandering tale of . . . of . . . well, that is the problem. The tale starts with a young lady having an affair with a Lord, who can shape change into a dragon. Discovering she becomes pregnant, she dumps him to run off and marry someone else, fearing he will murder their child. By the next chapter, she is dead and her son born & grown to a bandit leader. His half sister lives with him & the grandfather & a bandit gang, who attack the wrong person and draw the wrath of the current Lord (another dragon shape changer), who burns down the whole nearby area, killing many of his own soldiers and almost none of the bandits. This doesn't offend anyone -- one of the few strong points of the book; if Global Warming turns out to be a hoax like the Coming Ice Age was, don't expect the politicians to appologise. The half sister goes off to live in poverty, interacting with her poor neighbors, and really doing nothing in particular (at great length) for the rest of the book. Her brother goes off to be a bandit elsewhere, committing atrocities. The dragon Lord goes flying. And so on.

This book wanders without focus. It is like walking in the woods on game trails. Every now and then, you notice that your path has quite disappeared. Then you find another, sure it is the real trail, but no, it too fades away. The writing is uninspired; the characters lifeless; and the plot non-existant.

Lynn's early books were quite well written. Try one of them instead.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mid-Volume Blues, October 3, 2004

By 

Deborah Fredericks "fantasy author" (Spokane, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dragon's Treasure (Hardcover)

This was an enjoyable read, although at times it seemed to lack focus. Sometimes the pace was relentless, at other times too liesurely. It may have suffered a bit in that I checked out both it and the previous volume (Dragon's Winter) from the library at the same time, and read them back-to-back. The first two or three chapters felt very repetitive from the end of Dragon's Winter. If there had been a gap of several months between them, I might have needed the recap more.

As mentioned, I felt the plot lacked focus. It began with the bandit rampage of Treion, who may or may not be a half-sibling of Karadur, the Dragon-Lord who is trying to hold onto his humanity. But after Treion is captured, the story loses focus. The rivalry between Karadur and Treion is never as gripping as between Karadur and Tojiro in the first volume. Although the redeption of Treion was nice, it didn't have much punch to me. I really wanted Karadur to tell Treion they could be brothers, and he never did.

All in all, this felt like the tpyical middle volume of a typical trilogy. I expected more of Lynn given her reputation and how excellent Dragon's Winter was.

As an additional caution, this novel includes a gay love affair. It's handled in a tasteful way, but if this sort of thing bothers you, Dragon's Treasure may not be the best choice for you.

Deby Fredericks
author of "The Magister's Mask"

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Frustrating..., January 8, 2007

By 

D. Christensen (Utah) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dragon's Treasure (Paperback)

Although Dragon's Treasure showed a great deal of promise, and the third book might be worth the read, it fell short in a great many places for me. Pro's were 1) not an overly long read; 2) character building was very real; 3) beautiful writing style I enjoyed. Con's: 1) No single main character. The story, told from the perspectives of a few instead of many would of been more effective. 2) Random violence that, although building depth in characters, was yucky to read through. 3) The sexual relationship between the Dragon Lord and his male singer was weird for me. I was in no way prepared when it cropped up in the middle.