The Dragon Token

Will review at www.fantasyliterature.com.

Wow...ummm...hmmm. [a:Melanie Rawn 8661 Melanie Rawn https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1223871368p2/8661.jpg] is second only to Robert Jordan for me, at least among fantasy authors. She's undoubtedly one of the most influential, and possibly most underrated, authors of the hardcover fantasy boom of the 1990s. [b:Dragon Prince 185289 Dragon Prince (Dragon Prince, #1) Melanie Rawn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309210730l/185289.SY75.jpg 1298638] mixes romance, politics, magic, religion, and war for unbelievable turns of plot and unforgettable characters who are at once awesome, beautiful, charismatic and totally believable. Furthermore Rawn's style is straight-to-the-point in a way that doesn't have the excess internal dialogue of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, and while it isn't weighed down with descriptive prose, it manages to be as descriptive as it needs to be. And, of course, it needs to be said that this is not standard (at the time) Tolkien-clone fantasy: she mixes the best of the Mists of Avalon Celtic-inspired fantasy with Arab desert-inspired culture, and her own religious magic and the heroes and dragons of generalized heroic awesomeness. All of this means I had serious trouble putting down her first trilogy of the Dragon Prince world. I can't remember why I put down [b:The Ruins of Ambrai 185292 The Ruins of Ambrai (Exiles, #1) Melanie Rawn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327903388l/185292.SY75.jpg 1298639], but it must have been a catastrophic life-event of some kind. I intend to pick it back up ASAP.Unfortunately, this unputdownability doesn't continue with the Dragon Star trilogy. We still have the same wonderful characters, although they are a little older and facing new challenges, and there's a greater focus on the younger generations. We also have the same wonderful setting: the dragons, the desert, the Sunrunners, and the diarmadhim sorcerers. Roelstra's leftover offspring are still kicking around, occasionally causing trouble for everyone. On top of that, however, are two problems that made getting through the first two books of this trilogy really hard.First, the main problem faced by High Prince Rohan and his family are a group of invaders from...where? These bearded fellows show up on dragon ships, indiscriminately setting fire to everywhere, taking nothing but horses, ruthlessly killing Sunrunners. It's bad, yes, but neither we nor the characters know anything about these invaders. We gradually learn a name, Vellant'im, for these formidable foes and a few fun facts. Despite [b:The Dragon Token 185294 The Dragon Token (Dragon Star, #2) Melanie Rawn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1172524791l/185294.SY75.jpg 2156773] even granting us the POV of a few Vellanti characters, at the end of this book still no one knows anything about them. I found that this really sapped the motivation. Our favorite characters are just getting beaten mercilessly, despite their ingenuity in slowing down the Vellant'im, and they don't even know why. I find it confusing.What's even more confusing is that this book (and [b:Stronghold 257321 Stronghold (Dragon Star, #1) Melanie Rawn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386922160l/257321.SY75.jpg 249398], the first book of the trilogy) skip around from one point of view to another throughout the whole conflict every few pages. I was genuinely surprised when I came to a sequence that lasted more than two pages. Quite often these shifts happen right when things are getting interesting. Huge battles are skipped over with fleurons, and we come back in the middle of a few of those battles, and by then I couldn't remember what happened before because there had been an intervening seven two-page sequences featuring characters I didn't care about. Characters are also named after each other. I couldn't keep track of who was who quite often, even forgetting who Sionell was, and what a critical role she played in [b:Sunrunner's Fire 123512 Sunrunner's Fire (Dragon Prince, #3) Melanie Rawn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309211296l/123512.SX50.jpg 3312939], the final book of the first trilogy.That was pretty disappointing, because, as I said, I love Melanie Rawn's writing usually, and she has things that no other author has. All of the above led to me not looking forward to this book, falling asleep reading, and trying desperately to finish it so I could move on to something else. I was going to give this book 2.5 stars, but then in the last ten pages things get very very interesting, and contain some of Rawn's best writing. It's that kind of conflict that is really inspiring to me as a writer, and I hope Skybowl has more of it, although honestly, I'm only looking forward to reading it if it is more like the last seventy or so pages of The Dragon Token.

I must say this one was pretty engrossing. A good feeling that almost matched up to the first trilogy. It's the middle book of a trilogy though so there's not much going on in terms what's really behind the reason of the war. It's more like a regroup and lull before the storm.

The pacing is great and although there's a lot of perspective jumps, did not find it confusing in the least. What I find rather remarkable is that despite having so many characters in the spotlight, and all over the world, the author still manages to make them quite unique, and able to weave their relationship changes, their emotions, their growth all within the context of the conflict. The last few chapters kept me glued just so I find out exactly what sort of cliffhangers will await me before plunging into book 3 next - it's a good thing to read trilogies published years ago - no need to wait before reading the next one!