Have you ever read something so repugnant that you could not finish it? Of course you have, we all have from time to time. We forced ourselves to finish this book, and as such, we will have a second review of this book coming out in the future, which will delve deeper into Dragon! than perhaps anyone ever should. We do not have any words to describe the experience of reading this book as it is something likely best shown through interpretive dance. That being said, we will do our best to highlight the best, and worst aspects of this novel. With that, we hope you enjoy our review of Dragon!
Dragon! by Tamara Wilding
Published 4/15/2016
Ages ???+
“Adan and Garim, are two apprentice Mages, on the old isle of Graeffenland. A strange land of hidden dangers, and unseen menaces. A land of magick, that ordinary people do not see, a land of creatures, invisible, and ignored. Leaving their studies, that seem to primarily be concerned with farming, and the copying of tomes, the two young men strike out to see what fortunes await them in the wider world. Many adventures befall them as they journey towards their destinies, and their actions may bring forth the doom of the world……..” – From Amazon
Story –
Incomprehensible
Miss Wilding has written a tale the likes of which we have never seen before, and one we hope never to see again. It not only manages to make no sense, but it is boring. It contains characters whose motivations are more arcane than anything magical that was seen, and whose every action was likely decided by a roll of a D20. Do not mistake that for a D&D reference though, if this had just been a bad RP experience we could have gone home and slept it off, but alas, it was not. There is no story to be found in this mess, just a string of poorly contrived events with random actions of poorly developed characters to stick it all together.
“Officially, the Masters or Mages, sometimes referred to as Magisters, mainly during ceremonies, very mundane ceremonies at that, referred to all the Brown Robes, as Neophytes.”
Writing and Formatting – Abhorrent
The lack of a story was wrapped in poorly crafted prose, with sentence structure so poor it baffles our minds. Seriously, this kind of writing could not have been learned from other human beings, it reads like a bad google translate, with commas then inserted randomly throughout the text. The story is nearly unreadable, but we knew in order to review this thing we would need to finish it.
“Garim, left to it, decided to go for a walk. He wandered the barracks, for a bit, left the barracks, went up to the battlements, which he found a bit high for his tastes. He wandered towards the Keep, and was turned away, by the mailed guards, standing at attention by the doors.”
Literary Value – Terrible
For our lives, we cannot figure out why this book was written, seriously, we do not know. There is no purpose to the words; it is a structure without form, a broken mess that even when pieced back together can offer no insight into its purpose. It is an insult to indie authors who work so hard for their stories to be read, and damages not just the reputation of Miss Wilding, but every indie author who wants to get their work into the hands of readers. If this were the first independently published book we ever read, we would likely never read another for fear of being psychologically scarred again.
“The next morning they both breakfasted, being discretely observed, by everyone else in the camp. Rhian loaded a backpack with the things she thought she would need for the journey, several months, she’d been told. She’d asked why he didn’t just zap, this man to where he wanted him?”
Overall – 0.25, Time from our lives we cannot get back
That phrase sums it up the best, we wish we could get back the time spent reading this book, and our only solace is that we get to review it, to warn others so that they do not make the same mistake that we did. If you see this book or any by Miss Wilding for that matter, run, run far away and never return. You would be doing yourself a favor. Through our discussion of the book, we decided that this describes the experience best, in a way that nothing else could: If we were told we could only live for as long as it took us to read Dragon!, we would skim it.
If for some reason you decide we are wrong, that the quotes do not convince you, or you are just a masochist, Dragon! is available at Amazon.