Customer Reviews

Dragon's Treasure

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"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.

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"

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.

Upfront, I have not finished reading this book yet. So I can't completely review it at this time. However, I feel the need to address issues made by the reviews of other readers. First of all, this book IS a sequel. So making a review stating this that and the other doesn't make sense is simply stupid. Read the previous book first and then open your mouth. Second, it has been SEVEN years since the first book was released. Yes, seven years, so yeah, a recap was necessary in this book for those of us that read the first one way back when. That being said, the previous book, Dragon's Winter, was an excellent book. I have been waiting and checking the shelves for all these years hoping for a sequel. I wouldn't do that for something that wasn't worthy.

Anything by Elizabeth A. Lynn is a treasure! Maybe hard to find but keep trying.. it is worth it.
Her Characters you will not forget and find yourself thinking about them when you are not reading! Her World Fantasy Awards reflect this unique author's ability to move the reader to an unusual time.
She is the kind of author you really "hate" (as you read one more page at 3:00am) and must get up at 7:00am!
One does not find this ability in authors very often.. don't miss the chance!

This is a great book. The tale is of mainly 3 people. Maya, Taran and the Dragon Lord Karadur Atani. It is a book about Changelins (people who can focus their own personal brand of magic to change shape into a specific animal) It does move through many points of view but these all add to the three main characters. How anyone can say it lacks focus or they didn't know who the main characters were clearly didn't read it throughly. Yes it begins with a woman Who is having an affair with a Dragon lord (both Taran's and Karadur's Father) Who leaves. Its a prologe to the rest of the story that gives a connection to Taran and Karadur. It is set in a more primitative time. All the different points of view add to the story rather than detract from it. Its a little sci-fi with a little romance and action in. They all interact beautifully.

This is the second of a 3 part series. The first of which is Dragon's winter. HOWEVER, even with out the first one it is still a great read. I discovered the first one AFTER I had read Dragons Treasure. And I can't wait for the next book to this saga.

If you like grand adventures where you are transported to a different place with magic and dragons, this might be a book for you. Elizabeth Lynn writes with a wonderful style, full of vivid images and violence manageable for the delicate minded. This book is the sequel of Dragon's Winter, which I recommend you read first. The first book is a grand adventure about the stealing of something of great value to the dragon lord -taken by an evil wizard and guarded by orc-type creatures. Dragon's Treasure is mostly about the life surrounding the dragon lord's land: its bandits, its soldiers, the young wolf-boy and a sweet herbalist who is in love with the dragon lord. It is a music-filled land, whose lord is good and fair. The tension throughout the book has to do with the dragon lord's exacting justice as well as his potential explosive temper -not good for a dragon! It's a book of adventure and romance. Enter the world of Elizabeth Lynn; she weaves wonderful tales.

It was probably undeserved, but my first thought upon finishing the novel was, "What a stupid f***ing book!"

That doesn't sound very promising, but in a way it's a good comment. If the novel had truly sucked, I wouldn't have had any strong reaction, since I would not have cared one way or the other (and probably wouldn't even have finished it). Dragon's Treasure isn't a good story, but it had enough promise that it could have been good, and I wanted it to be good, or at least better than it was. As it stands Dragon's Treasure is basically a very long and well-polished collection of notes about characters, character types, and a land that a good story or series could be set in. It's not a serviceable novel in of itself since there's simply no plot, building conflict, climax, or resolution.

We meet a lot of characters; some interesting and others forgettable. We read about a number of events; some fascinate us, most leave us indifferent. We see lots of plot elements, some clever, most un-involving. On the whole though, it's just 325 pages of scenes populated by average characters, doing average things, with no larger theme or goal to hold it together. If you asked me what the book's main plot was, or central theme, or the message a reader was to take from it, I couldn't answer the question. It's not about anything, there's no protagonist or antagonist, and there's no real reason for it to exist. As I said, it's like a lot of ideas in search of a novel to tie them together, and while the ideas were generally good, or at least usefully-average, they did not form a cohesive book.

I didn't hate it and it didn't bore me, but I only kept reading to see what was going to happen, and in the end... nothing happened. Hence my angry reaction when it ended without an ending. Though this novel wasn't really any good of itself, I can imagine the raw materials of it being turned into something good, or even excellent, if Elizabeth Lynn figured out what she wanted to write about, and bent her talent and these characters and this land to some larger purpose.

That being said, it's not an awful book, and I've certainly read many worse fantasy novels. This one would bore younger readers to tears, due to the lack of conflict of a violent or romantic nature, and its vision of a largely magic-less agrarian medieval world is unrealistic (far too peaceful and totaly devoid of any religious influences) if you're used to the work of superior fantasy writers like George R R Martin. But if you're an adult who can read quickly and doesn't demand a page turner, you might not dislike this one. I wouldn't pay $$ for it, but that's what libraries are for.

I'll close with my usual categorized scores:

Dragon's Treasure, by Elizabeth Lynn.
Plot: 4
Concept: 7
Writing Quality/Flow: 5/7
Characters: 7
Horror: NA
Humor: NA
Fun Factor: 3
Page Turner: 4
Re-readability: 5
Overall: 5

PS. I have not read Dragon's Winter and did not know it existed until after I wrote the above, but I doubt anything in that book would change my opinion of its sequel. If anything, Dragon's Winter might lower my opinion of this one, since I was assuming Lynn had just invented all of these characters and the world they exist in, and was trying to figure out what to do with them. Knowing that this is book 2 in a series makes me less sympathetic towards its wandering, conflictless nature.

The Crimson Dragon Karadur Atani rules Dragon Keep with a fair and even hand. The peasants respect him because they know peace in a world at war and believe he can keep his dragon side under control so no innocents gets hurt. A bandit family lives on his lands. When they kill a farmer he burns them and their house out of existence except for their leader Treion and one of his friends.

Only Maia is left of her family; she becomes a herbalist to his people. Treion becomes a bandit and draws other to his banner but when he is caught and claimed by Lord Sarnia because he killed the man's mistress; much to his own surprise Karadur rescues him and punishes him. He offers him his freedom if he works for him for one year. He also takes Maia as his mistress and only she can lift him up from a depression when a trusted friend leaves his service for reasons unknown to him

Elizabeth A Lynn, a master fantasist, has written a beautiful adult fairytale starring a dragon who lives much of the time as a man and interacts with humans more than he does his own kind. The nature of the bond between Karadur and the outlaws is one that will probably be examined in a future book because there are relationships that need to be revealed. Karadur is the main protagonist who spends his time killing his enemies, avoiding war coming to his territory and trying to insure his tenants are treated fairly. Maia who loves him dares much to make him whole again. DRAGON'S TREASURE is a priceless treasure.

Harriet Klausner

not a bad second part of a story. but lacked the excitement of the first.