Dragon Mage

This was fun! It has been a while since I have read such a pure epic fantasy novel so this was very refreshing. Ok, so the ideas may lean heavily into existing tropes but the execution here is on point. The basic concept is that the world has been split in two by some ancient cataclysm into the World Above and the World Below, with the void in between inhabited by monsters. The conflict that created this divergence is still very much ongoing. Into this our two main protagonists are thrown, a sorcerer called Aram and Markus - someone completely immune to magic. They form a friendship in their village but there world is turned upside down when a parasitic order of magicians takes notice of them.

There is definitely a black and white, good vs evil vibe running strongly through the story, very Tolkeinesque in its view. There is strong coming of age element typical to many epic fantasies, a definite chosen one narrative as well. The world building is done extremely well, with the two sides of the world definitely feeling distinctive.

All in all I loved this - devouring the story super fast for what is very chonky book. The prose was engaging, well written. The characters had you rooting for them. The scope felt suitably vast and epic. My only minor criticism is on the main evil character Sergan, who was a little bit one note, but he served his role well. I cannot wait to see where this goes - the book provided a satisfying conclusion to its main arc but there is a very obvious wider story that can be seen to grow from here. This type of plotting is to be applauded as well - it is nice to get some satisfying closure in the first book!

Highly recommended

People have been giving Dragon Mage rave reviews and I fully expected to love it. Unfortunately, the hype failed me a bit here. This was probably a 3.75 star for me, rounded up to a 4 star for a great protagonist that is representing those on the spectrum in a lead role, something that is very rare in a fantasy book (or really, at all). Spencer gets major props for that.

Unfortunately, there were other things that just didn't work for me. This review may come off a bit negative because I'm going to focus on those things (due to most reviews I've seen giving it a full five stars) but I do want to say off the hop- I enjoyed this book. It is a good book, written well, and you would never go wrong in my book by picking it up.

But it is very inspired by classic fantasy tales, and those just tend to bore me. This one is done very well, yes, but it still follows the same outline. The “twist” is mostly just that the protagonist has autism. Aram is a wonderful character that I enjoyed a lot, but a classic fantasy tale is still a classic fantasy tale. There aren't many surprises here. Markus, the second lead, is also a good character and reminds me a lot of Sam from LOTR, so instantly wins me over. However, we reach my first problem pretty early.

Aram and Markus become best friends VERY quickly. Like, almost immediately. After Aram spends the entire beginning (and most of the novel, really) lamenting how hard it is for him to make friends. And then almost immediately after they become friends, they both find out that they are a True Savant and True Impervious, respectively, the first two the world has seen in hundreds of years.

I'm sorry. I know fantasy has lots of coincidences. But this one drove me CRAZY for the whole book. I kept waiting for some kind of reveal about why. Like, they were both put in this small town to hide them away from the world as babies, or something. Nope. They just both happen to be living in this extremely small town, and Markus is the only person Aram is ever capable of becoming friends with, and he does so immediately, exactly a day before he finds out they're two of the most special people in all of existence. Ugh.

But that's just a contrivance to get the story going. Fine, okay. But my second problem is just how bland the plot was to me. Maybe it's because the magic system is very vague, and Aram was constantly “full of potential”, and then would just power up to get out of whatever situation was necessary just at the right time (which is my big problem with classic fantasy magics). Or maybe it's because everything is so black and white in this book. Characters are good or bad- and when our leads change perspectives, any of their friends who helped them are now on the “bad” side and that's that- no discussion necessary. It was incredibly surprising just how little time was spent on Aram and Markus having to deal with fighting people who had been kind to them or friends with them not that long ago. But they're on the other side now, so no time to explore that!

The dragons were well done in this book, but I don't think they were used as effectively as they could have been. Maybe because most of the combat scenes with them are just people on them shooting essence at each other, I dunno.

And this book is LONG. Listen, I love long books. Almost all my favorite books are long. If I can't kill a burglar with my hardcover, don't even bother me with it. But this is one of the only times that I felt that the story did not justify the length. I think this book could have been 150-200 pages shorter and the story would have been equally effective.

But overall, it's a worthwhile read. I am not at all upset I read it. I am glad it's done though, because it was a monster of a book. If you like dragons or that classic fantasy feel, you are going to really enjoy this one.

4.25/5

This book was good, like really good. But it didn't give me that “wow” factor at the end. I partially blame the length of the book. The story was extremely well put together and complete, but I felt it was a little long at certain parts and I'd lose slight interest for a few days and then pick it up again. With all of that being said, there were a lot of very original elements to the tried and true coming of age fantasy which made the story great and stand out