Servant of the Dragon [Import] [Paperback]

David Drake (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; New Ed edition (2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857989503
• ISBN-13: 978-1857989502
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,391,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The Army took David Drake from Duke Law School and sent him on a motorized tour of Viet Nam and Cambodia with the 11th Cav, the Blackhorse. He learned new skills, saw interesting sights, and met exotic people who hadn't run fast enough to get away.

Dave returned to become Chapel Hill's Assistant Town Attorney and to try to put his life back together through fiction making sense of his Army experiences.

Dave describes war from where he saw it: the loader's hatch of a tank in Cambodia. His military experience, combined with his formal education in history and Latin, has made him one of the foremost writers of realistic action SF and fantasy. His bestselling Hammer's Slammers series is credited with creating the genre of modern Military SF. He often wishes he had a less interesting background.

Dave lives with his family in rural North Carolina.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How Can He Talk With His Tongue That Far In His Cheek?, August 11, 2000

By 

Michael Weber "fairportfan" (Atlanta) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Servant of the Dragon (Lord of the Isles) (Mass Market Paperback)

When i first read "Lord of the Isles", first book in this series, i was convinced that Drake had decided to see if he could out-Jordan Robert Jordan.

And there are some similarities.

But Drake has a more mordant approach and wit than Jordan, and isn't afraid to have a little fun with the conventions of the quest-fantasy genre... and he does.

As before, he takes his core group of adventurers -- Garric, Cashel, Ilna, Sharina, Tenoctris and company -- and sends them by ones and twos on separate quests of hair-raising difficulty and (in many cases) grusomeness. But all of them (even the grim and apparently humorless Ilna) find occasional causes for humor, gallows-style or otherwise, and for moments of beauty and happiness among the violence and dangers.

Of the bunch, i'd say that Ilna -- who's had the hardest life of the adventurers so far -- ends up the best off in terms of Good Stuff accumulated in her quest.

The various quests -- Cashel's to find the sorcerously-abducted Sharina, Ilna's to find a way home after being marooned with companions, Garric and Tenoctris's to lay to rest a magical menace to the Kingdom if the Isles -- all SEEM unrelated, and have a habit of suddenly turning into something other than we thought they were, but looks can be deceiving in this sort of fiction, and the grand finale when Everything (almost) Is Revealed is quite satisfactory.

I want to make it clear that following is a High Compliment from me, reading this story was in many ways like playing one of the best-constructed of the old text-only computer games; everything dovetails nicely, and an apparently-unimportant action taken or not taken on one quest may have a huge effect on all of the other players' efforts, and one important clue missed anywhere could mean ultimate and horrible failure.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best one in series, March 19, 2002

By 

Amy (Durham, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Servant of the Dragon (Lord of the Isles) (Mass Market Paperback)

I was reading these series because I thought the only interesting character is Ilna the Weaver, and I was curious about what happened to her. I was very surprised when I read this book and found it to be by far the best one in the series. The plot was much better than the first two books. Prince Garric and Tenoctris are trying to close the bridge that opens Valles to the cosmos, letting in dangerous creatures. Same old same old there, nothing new and exciting. Sharina is taken through the bridge by a creature that serves the Dragon, turning Sharina herself into a servant of the dragon. However, the Dragon is not evil, he needs her help to recover his mummy that is being used to destroy the world. He sends Sharina through many worlds with her new friend, the birdman Dalar. Cashel goes in search of Sharina and ends up in the Underworld after killing the wizard he was supposed to ask for help. He is accompanied by the wizard's ring, which has a demon trapped in it. The demon Krias is a refreshing addition to the stories with his witty sense of humor. He reminds me strongly of the faerie Mellie that Cashel befriended in Lord of the Isles. Lastly, my favourite character Ilna has her best adventures yet, which make the book a good and interesting read. She is taking the child Merota, niece of Lord Tadia, with her on a ship to Erdin. On the way they are shipwrecked on Yole, risen from the sea again with an army of dead things. Ilna meets the best character Drake has yet introduced into the story yet, the sailor/pirate Chalcus. He actually loves Ilna, and he let's us see her softer side. His witty humour and dialogue add a lot to the story. I found myself breathlessly waiting to find out what would happen to him and Ilna next. It seems that Drake has finally figured out how to write romance. He did a very poor job with Mellie and Halphemos. I was sad about Halphemos' death, but Chalcus is much better than he ever was.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This really is a good series, September 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Servant of the Dragon (Lord of the Isles) (Mass Market Paperback)

The books in this series thus far are excellent. The structure is good, the endings come together nicely, the dialogue doesn't get boring, and the plot is interesting and imaginative. The pace is good, and I didn't get sick of the characters, there aren't too many characters. That's more than I can say for the Wheel of Time. This series deserves a broader popularity.