Dragon Avenger

Closer to 3.5 Stars

I'm torn on this novel, in no small part because I absolutely loved it in 2015 when I was first introduced to the series. At the time, I fell in love with the world presented and the characters within. I cheered for Wistala when things went well, ached for her when things went sour, and sped through the book eager for each adventure or encounter. I'd have easily rated the book 4.5 to 5 stars back then, so take that into consideration when weighing my assessment.

Part of me wishes I still felt the same, but things have changed a lot. I'm in a much different mindset than I was in 2015 - who here isn't, right? - and am reading for much different purposes. Back then, I read this book for entertainment only. I wasn't assessing it in the background, knowing I'd want to write a review (because I didn't write reviews at the time) and I wasn't desperately trying to escape from the nonsense of reality by pouring my attention into fantasy novels. Nor was I quite as oversaturated and fed up with certain aspects of the media I consume. Those were better times, arguably, but it is what it is and unfortunately with time my opinion has also changed when re-reading this novel.

With that said, I'd like to start with the negative and get it out of the way then lead into the positive. I know that might seem a little backward, but hey nobody's forcing you to sit through my review and I have a lot of thoughts to unpack.

To begin, this book is a bit... dull at the opening, especially if like me you've just finished the first novel in the Age of Fire series and are moving on to this, the second instalment. The first handful of chapters primarily cover the same opening scenes from Dragon Champion, just portrayed from another point of view. In general, it makes sense: we're following the life and adventures of another dragon from the same family, so her experiences from hatching onward are covered just like her first sibling's were. The problem is more that the writing is a bit lackluster and manages somehow to both feel incredibly repetitive and like a completely different scenario.

I imagine it doesn't help that readers are inundated almost immediately with signs of just how deeply sexist dragon society is. A father dragon must be coerced into showing affection for his female hatchlings, who get to spend very little time with him as most of their waking moments are spent learning life lessons from mother and gossipping amongst each other about what they desire in a future mate.

Yes, even straight from the egg, these female dragons are pushed to focus on how someday they'll find a mate and have lots of eggs with him and raise baby dragons of their own. I know, I know; this is very much a part of how young women are treated in real life amongst humans. I get it. But I'm so bloody sick of it in real life that my tolerance for “well it's just part of how these animals are” has run thin. How can dragons be so sentient, so capable of humanoid speech and learning even to read and partake in society the same way as the ‘hominid species' do, yet so incapable of seeing beyond biological impulses such as mating or males fighting to the death over territory even at birth? Yes, this is an aspect featured prominently in the first book as well, but it really hits home harder when viewed from the perspective of a dragonelle (the dragon equivalent of saying ‘woman' or ‘female dragon' in the series). Even when she's swearing vengeance upon those who killed her family, she's informed that it's a dragonelle's place not to exact violent vengeance but instead to avenge her family by finding a mate someday and having lots and lots of baby dragons because each new dragon she creates is somehow revenge upon those who kill dragons. Personally, I think that's more like “creating more fodder for the dragon slayers if you let the dragon slayers continue happily living,” but y'know. Sexism.

On its own, I don't mind a story where someone has to face bigotry, either deliberate or societally ingrained, to achieve their goals. Frankly, I doubt I'd do more than wrinkle my nose at the issue if it were only the above. The problem is that it runs so much deeper into the worldbuilding and writing that it leaves an uncomfortable feeling in the back of my mind.

For example: male dragons come in a wide variety of scale colours, some dark and broody and some brilliant and glimmering; female dragons come in green, green that's unhealthy and starting to go transluscent, and white that started out green then faded for some reason or another. Males don't come in green, as every time any dragon spots green scales they are certain those came from a dragonelle and any time someone thinks of a dragonelle they're certain green scales are involved. Maybe this is based on some kind of lizard? I don't know, but in a fantasy realm where dragons exist and speak human languages, I don't think “but real life animals” is much of an excuse. It feels cheap and annoying.

But it gets even more questionable. In the first book, even the most selfish and short-sighted plans laid by the main character (a male dragon) eventually led to decent outcomes. In this book, even the most selfless and well-laid plans enacted by the main character (a female dragon) eventually lead to disaster, death, destruction... It's as if she is the very embodiment of a terrible omen, the kind of character that destroys everything they touch despite trying so hard and having the absolute best of intentions. Maybe that's me being sensitive. Maybe all of these gripes are, but it goes further.

More things included in this novel which make me uneasy with the handling of female characters and make my “there's way too much misogyny in this” senses tingle:

* the main character referring to surrogacy as unnatural and the dragons who request it as lacking honour
* a female character so obsessed with having her own offspring that she asks a stranger to be a surrogate
* a plethora of implied rape and sexual slavery - only ever of the women and girls, never the men and boys
* actually discussed sexual assault including the gaslighting and impregnation of a young teen by the nobleman to whom she's a ward
* the villainization of the above-mentioned confused girl who believes she's in a loving relationship
* tired, sexist tropes about how girls behave vs. boys (all girls fear the dragon, and all boys want a closer look)
* referring to a teenage girl having emotions over heartbreak as being “in hysterics”
* being impregnated by a predator is apparently being “dishonored” and made un-whole to the point no man of good breeding will want a woman who has endured such

The sad part is that I don't recall dwelling on - or perhaps even noticing - these things the first time I read Dragon Avenger and I kind of wish I didn't notice them this time around because they really wore down on me and made this a far less enjoyable experience than it originally was.

But even with that aside, I still got so emotionally drained by how every single thing kept going wrong for Wistala. I got sick of reading about loved ones being brutally murdered, plans going awry, her very presence feeling like a curse upon all the lands. It was exhausting! Here I am, trying to escape into a fantasy novel so I can pretend the world around me isn't going down the drain, and the fantasy world I'm given is even more dismal and downtrodden than the real one.

And that leads me to the biggest emotional drain I have from this novel: for a book called Dragon Avenger, you'd expect there to be a lot of vengeance. But no. The vast majority of Wistala's story is failed attempt after failed attempt to either have a normal, cozy life or get vengeance (she never can quite choose between the two) while the people she should be enacting vengeance upon carry on with their merry lives, sometimes even being spared. All of this to leads up to an incredibly rushed ending within the last handful of chapters wherein the action picks up but some highly questionable choices are made with regards to how she handles settling the score. It was interesting for the most part, but also a bit of a let down when everything shifted.

Like the first book, I'm also strongly confused by the intended audience. There's a lot of gore - especially involving deaths of animals, and one scene where a cat is swung by its tail toward a fire - but somehow it's more subdued and less lingering than in the first instalment, Dragon Champion. There's, as I already mentioned, a lot of allusion to and even mentions of rape, sexual assault, slavery (with implied sexual connotations), etc. of humanoids and (less so than the first book) dragons. Unchallenged misogyny abounds, as it's apparently just part of how this fantasy realm works. The main character's whole life is a series of instances where people she loves suffer just for loving her. Yet even when a character is talking about how a man “took of her body and made a sport of it” in exchange for helping her find her lost son then betrayed her for laughs, the word “bastard” gets censored. Because apparently that small word is such an affront to the target audience and... talking about being brutally sexually assaulted by an evil man isn't? It's so jarring and confusing, especially for a book written in the early 2000s, not the 1980s or something like that.

But with all that said, I don't hate or even dislike this book. I wish I loved it as much as I used to, but I can still say that I enjoyed parts of it and the bits that exhausted me emotionally still left me wanting to come back for more to find out what happened.

The absolute best part of this novel are the characters, either way. While the author's writing can be dry, dense, and a bit of a slog, the characters are wonderful! Wistala has a heart of gold and it honestly gutted me every time she suffered. Stog is by far the best character in this series so far, as well: a lovable mule who's just as stubborn as you'd expect of his species but loyal when it most counts and a great friend. Yari-Tab is a fascinating feline who sadly doesn't feature as prominently as I'd have liked. Rainfall is a morally dubious character whose heart is in the right place despite his blind obsession with following the law at all times, even when it hurts himself and those he loves. Intanta features briefly but is a wonderful grandmotherly type. Ragwrist is the typical “greedy for money, but secretly cares about people” leader of a circus who's far more nuanced than I expected from the trope. And Fangbreaker is incredibly complex and nuanced in ways which make him intriguing to read about every time he's on the page. I couldn't stand Lada or Eliam, but only because they were written in a way that their bad attitudes grated on me just like those of real people might. And while I still don't quite get what the author was aiming for with the Dragonblade - somehow he seems both disgustingly sadistic and pathetically wishy-washy - I do think he was interesting enough not to feel like a cardboard cutout of a villain.

Since I primarily love character-driven fiction, that means all the flaws didn't make me feel like I'd have been better off not reading this book. I've lowered the rating because it feels wrong to keep it as high as I might have the first time I read Dragon Avenger, but I think anyone going into it with knowledge that there are some highly questionable elements can still enjoy this novel and push aside those things. In the end, that's what I did, despite needing multiple breaks from reading just to emotionally recharge or give my brain a break from the writing which at times feels more like a textbook.

I dare even say that, in the end, I still like this book. I don't love it anymore, but I didn't start hating it or anything so extreme. I enjoyed following Wistala's adventures, and just wish she hadn't been written with such atrocious luck so that I might have felt less dejected throughout most of the experience.

I'm uncertain yet if I'll move on to the third book in the series, as I recall being bored to the point of indifference during my last attempt. Also, I'm vaguely concerned Wistala might end up mating and having eggs just to fulfill the gross insistence that doing so is the “right” way for a dragonelle to avenge a slain family. I was hoping she'd pushed aside that notion, but it came back in the epilogue so... Yeah. Not looking forward to that whole concept coming back around.

Overall, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book unless you're very into dragons and tolerant of misogyny in your fantasy reading. But I also wouldn't suggest skipping it entirely, unless you have actual triggers based around any of the topics I mentioned in this review. (In particular, I often find the gruesome animal deaths to be a bit difficult to handle.)