Peter M. Last

RANTS AND RAMBLES

• • DISCLAIMER: When I review books, weaknesses and inconsistencies tend to dominate my discussion; therefore, I will emphasize that any particular rant (and, yes, they can be long-winded) does not have special bearing on my unified opinion of the book. For this, please refer to my overall star rating. Additionally, this review is my personal opinion, intended to help like-minded readers navigate the plethora of available options. Use it as a tool but do not assign undue importance to it (i.e. feel free to disagree with me).
  • This review is somewhat abbreviated as it only touches on areas where it significantly differed from previous books in the series. Please check out my reviews for Dealing with Dragons and Searching for Dragons if you want a more in-depth discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the series.
  • I like the book, but man oh man is that back-of-the-book synopsis hard to fight through! I don’t think I have ever seen so many ellipses and m-dashes in one place. There is literally an average of one per sentence. It makes the blurb disjointed, hard to read, and not at all the smooth, attention-grabbing experience it should be. Just cut out all the parenthetical mumbo-jumbo, tighten up the sentences, and it would be 73% better.
  • Some of my (very minor) dislike of this book may stem from the fact that I listened to the second half of it on audio book. I have found that for me personally, the narrator of an audio book can have a deleterious impact on my enjoyment of a story. (Interestingly, this does not seem to work the other direction, that is, I have never had more favorable feelings toward a book because of the narrator versus if I had read it myself.) In the case of Calling on Dragons, the narrator had a different and unique voice for many of the characters and some of them were downright awful, nearly literally like fingernails on a chalkboard. Though this no doubt cast the story in a slightly different light than if I had read the whole book for myself, I still stand by the assertion that this is the weakest of the books in this series.
  • The Mildest of Spoilers: I like that every book in this series has a different main character. I especially appreciate that Patricia is talented enough to use the varying points-of-view to deepen and flesh out the world and storyline based on what knowledge and abilities the main character of each subsequent book brings to the table. For example, Morwen appeared in the previous books, and while she can talk to her cats and vice versa, no one else is able to understand them. In those cases, though the reader is only privy to one side of the conversation, a feeling of the individual characters of the cats becomes clear, and several humorous exchanges ensue. Because Morwen is the main character in this book, the reader is suddenly privy to the comments from the cats which alters the nature and humor of these conversations. Additionally, Morwen’s knowledge of magic, magical plants, and other magical items opens up the reader to more background on how magic (at least her kind of magic) works. And since this story focuses more around magic than the previous two, Morwen was the perfect choice of protagonist for this book.
  • Spoilers: The idea that magic effects from spells and plants can stack and interact, either favorably or unfavorably, with each other is both realistic and provides the perfect road to hijinks in the story. It feels very much like medications doing the same thing (a serious consideration in the medical world) and provides a bit of grounding for the magic system while also opening up a world of possibilities. And since this line of exploration allows a rabbit to turn blue, transform into a donkey, float, and grow wings, all the better for the hilariously inane yet strangely grounded nature of the series.