Dragonslayer

Really enjoyed this book. Was looking for something somewhat along the lines of Barbara Hambly's Dragonsbane and this scratched that itch for me. “Dragon is terrorizing the kingdom, there's just one dude who's probably qualified to try fighting it, he super doesn't want to do it, buuuuut we'll get him to do it anyway.”

Love the personality of Gill as a disgraced/jaded hero, and I think the characters and interactions are the strong point of this book. I see people listing the lack of world-building as a negative, but for me, I don't care to be drowned by unimportant details. I know what a general medieval/fantasy town looks like, let's move along. I appreciate that his sloppy rescue of Solene leads to more problems later, and the treason/assassination side plots. On that note- genuinely not understanding the other reviews saying this book was only about slaying a dragon. Did we read the same book? The real story is not the dragon.

I did think the narration of the dragon's point of view was unnecessary, but it didn't detract enough for me to feel like it's a bad thing. Not that I don't care why the dragon's attacking, but it just didn't feel needed in most cases.

I read this via audio, and the narrator did some great voice-work that really made me love Gill. I laughed quite a few times at his disgruntled sarcasm.

Looking forward to reading the second book once it's available at my library. The end of the book leaves a lot to be dealt with in the sequels.