ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.Mistress of Dragons is an interesting story with some likable heroes and and excellent villains. The heroes are the humans and their dragon allies, but the humans don't realize that dragons are their friends because the villains are a couple of dragons gone bad. Very bad. The good dragons concoct a plot which uses humans to conquer the bad dragons. Mistress ends with an unexpected plot twist.This story is well-told except for that annoying conjunction omission problem that bugs me. For example, on a few consecutive pages, we find these constructions:"She closed her eyes, shut out the sight of them.""Melisande raised her head slightly, cast him a furtive glance.""She'd been planning to slip away, try to go back to her people.""Draconas poked and prodded, found no other injuries."That drives me insane (especially when it's done as often as Margaret Weis does it). But if that doesn't bug you, and you don't mind a rape scene and a lesbian love affair, you'll probably enjoy this book. I listened to it on audiobook and it was read well and the story is compelling enough that I've ordered the second one in audiobook format, too. I'm going to give it a chance, but I'm not so hooked that I can't drop it in the middle if it doesn't keep me entertained. add book/author My review / What I learned from this book2.5 stars Master of Dragons, the final book in Margaret Weis's Dragonvarld trilogy was a tasty but sloppy finale -- like a cheesecake that didn't quite set. This last book wraps things up, as we knew it would, and everything is finally well in the world, as we knew it would be. There are some fine moments (Draconas showing tenderness to a female dragon, Ven finds a family, Marcus falls in love) and even some hilarious ones (Draconas darning socks, Evelina's ironic fate). Characterization, especially of the bad guys, continues to be a high point, and the writing is nothing brilliant, but certainly pleasant enough. But this otherwise entertaining novel suffers from internal inconsistencies: * On page 38, Draconas is said to wear "the guise of a human male in his thirties," and 5 pages later he is described as "a human male of undetermined years." * Draconas has cast the illusion that he is a little girl while staying in DragonKeep. He is able to eavesdrop on adults because of his keen dragon hearing. But, later, we are told that as a little girl "his hearing was so reduced that it seemed his ears were stuffed with wax." * Much of what Anora (Prime Minister of the dragon parliament) says to the parliament is illogical and none of the dragons ever notice. For example, she says she should have removed Draconas from his post as "walker" because he was starting to become emotionally involved with humans, but she didn't remove him because he was the best walker they'd ever had because he was able to stay detached from humans. Then she says that she became involved in Maristara and Grald's plot 200 years ago because humans had become such a threat (she cites their canons), but a few lines later she says that because their plot went awry, the humans created canons (a few years ago). Sometimes she indicates that the canons are a threat which, though they are no threat, show that humans are, for the first time in their history, preparing to fight dragons. There also seem to be inconsistencies about dragon magic vs dragon blood, who can see through illusions and who can't, and to what extent thoughts can be shielded from others with dragon magic. These sorts of "rules" seem to be conveniently flexible. For example, one of the monks is able to see through illusions, yet he doesn't recognize Draconas? Then there are the unbelievable elements. For example, Anora's betrayal just doesn't ring true -- it sounds like a forced plot twist. And, Anora says that to keep their plot secret from Draconas, they had to kill some good dragons (which she seems to regret) when, if they had just killed Draconas instead, everything would have been fine. And it didn't make sense to keep the plot from the dragon parliament if the purpose of it was to protect the dragons from the might-someday-be-threatening humans. It would have made immensely more sense, and been a lot less stressful, to just go to the parliament and say "hey, these humans want to kill us -- let's kill them first." That seems a lot easier and a lot more likely to be successful than to embark on a 200 year breeding program in order to try to figure out if they might someday rule the humans with half-human, half-dragon creatures and a pack of mad monks. (And let's not forget that the humans weren't even starting to threaten the dragons until AFTER the breeding program started.) (And let's not forget that Anora even says herself that the humans are not actually threatening yet -- they just might be in the future.) The whole thing just seems sloppy. Half-baked. I listened to this on audiobook. The reader, a woman, did a great job with the female voices. At first I thought she was doing a great job with the male voices too, because her voice for Grald, the first male speaker, was excellent -- really slimy. Unfortunately, she used the same slimy voice for every male character in the entire book. My overall opinion of this series: Unless you've just got a thing for dragons, I'd recommend choosing something better. Read more Margaret Weis book reviews at Fantasy Literature
This is the first installment in the Dragonvald Trilogy, before I read this series; I read the reviews and wanted to draw my own conclusion off the book. First let me say this about the author, the writing is far better than some of the books, newspapers and other main stream media out today. I mean the plot is overall predictable, but the quality of the writing makes the book a worthy read. To make a long story as short the whole book is about the dragons interfering with the human world. Even with rules and laws in place to provided situations from occurring. The dragons always seem to manipulate the rules and cause chaos for mankind. As mention before the plot is very predictable, but it is played out to you wanting more. I do feel however that this book is not for everyone and you should do your research first before reading this book. I also want to address some of the reviews that were talking about the relationship between the two women, however; I didn't see a problem with it the female’s relationship. Especially since there weren’t a lot of details about their sexual encounters, even the loving making and rape scenes were vaguely described. So, this brings up questions of why other reviews where focused on the female’s sexual relationships and not the overall story. It also lets you know that there are still a lot of ignorant people in this world that should never review a book, because their comprehension is way off focus :-) Sorry to be mean, but I feel like people love to throw people under the bus for no reason.
—MsBDiamondDiva1
I received this book when it first came out. A signed hardback edition. I read the first few pages and put it down. I grew up with Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman (who hasn't read Dragonlance?) My favorite series is the Death Gate Cycle - something about it makes me pick it up again and again.So here was a book about Dragons written by Margaret Weis and I thought how could this go wrong... I was expecting an easy 5 star.Instead when I picked it back up I felt the same lack luster desire to read it. The characters were not nearly as well defined as they have been in previous books. The storyline was interesting but without characters that you really cared about it just lacked the pace that I'm used to. By the end of the book I was intrigued enough to pick up the second book. But just barely.Maybe she's just missing Tracey Hickman?
—Leighann
Mistress of Dragons is the first book in a trilogy set in an original world from one of the best (and original) authors of the DragonLance series. In this world, many think dragons are fairy tales, and magic is usually sleight-of-hand or some other sort of trick. This is the story of a goddess who teaches her devoted priestesses the magic they need to defend their city from the dragons, and the woman slated to become their next "Mistress of Dragons". It is also the story of the king of a neighboring kingdom, seeking a way to save his own kingdom from a marauding dragon, and the story of the dragons themselves.A fair warning to those familiar with Margaret Weis' older work (especially the early DragonLance novels), while this may be appropriate for mature "young adult" readers, the book does contain some depictions of rape and sexual activity. I mention this largely because I started reading her previous novels at an age at which I likely wouldn't have been ready to truly comprehend the relationships between many of these characters, and how the events depicted changed those relationships.Overall, this is an excellent fantasy world with an intricate, mature plot well told. There are elements of political intrigue, mysteries to unravel, interesting religious sects, and the all-important quests to save the world from evil.
—Mathew Whitney
