Dragonspell
by Donita K. Paul
PLOT SYNOPSIS
Raised from childhood to serve the people of the town of River Away, Kale has known nothing but the life of a slave. When she discovers a dragon egg in the river, the town council determines she must carry the precious item to the hall of Paladin, the heroic leader of the country. But before she can fulfill her duties, she is waylaid, rescued, and sent by Paladin himself on a quest of the utmost importance. Kale and her companions must confront an evil wizard and prevent him from completing a spell of great malevolence and rescue an innocent life in the process.
Series: DragonKeeper (1 of 5)
Age Recommendation: 8+
Content Notice: Scenes of mild violence
Faith Based: Yes
ISBN: 978-15785-6823-9
Overall
Characters
Story/Plot
Writing
Setting
Consistency
THE BOTTOM LINE
Though a bit rough around the edges, this entertaining story is a solid beginning to a fantasy series.
THOUGHTS…
Dragonspell is a fun, wholesome fantasy novel which I thoroughly enjoyed both as a child and again as an adult. The quality of the novel mostly holds up under my most recent reading, but several weaknesses have also come to light. It is a solid beginning to a series which takes place in a deep and intricate world. The book is entertaining throughout and able to easily hold one’s attention when the action is occurring; however, pockets of exposition litter the volume, and when it is exposition time, get ready to wade through a fair bit of it. Whether descriptions of history, dragons, magic systems, or the seven high and seven low races, the details of the world are rarely delivered in an expert fashion, bogging the story down in places. Exposition is crammed into lulls in the action like traveling sequences, making those scenes stretch on for too long and adversely affecting the pacing of the story. The most notable issue with pacing occurs near the end of the story but, due to spoilers, I have relegated that discussion to my rants and rambles. What carried the book for me as a child were the characters. While many are one-dimensional and seem to exist only to provide solutions to problems along the quest and ensure the protagonist meets each of the seven high races, several of the main supporting characters receive good development. The main protagonist, Kale, is relatable, likable, and well-developed. My only complaint here is the basic and repetitive nature of many of her internal dialogues and debates. The simplicity of her dilemmas is understandable given the age of the target audience, but the repetitiveness has no excuse. Despite its flaws, this book is ultimately an exciting read, great for young audiences and good for older readers as well. I would definitely recommend this for pre-teens, either to read alone or with their parents.
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).
- Donita sets up quite an impressive world with her first novel including interesting geography, a motley collection of magical creatures, a vast array of humanoid races, and a bustling cultural and political system. Many of these elements are only hinted at in this novel which makes sense given how Kale only knows the life of her backwater hometown and is discovering everything for the first time. And there is a lot of ground to cover in developing this world. Fourteen races of humanoids (seven high races and seven low races) plus magical creatures including monsters and a host of different dragon types. Spreading all of this information across multiple books is the most organic way to approach the world building here, and while I thought the world-building done in this book could have been handled a bit more elegantly, the choice to not attempt to paint the reader a full picture in a single volume was a wise decision.
- SPOILERS: The pacing at the end of the story is weird and one of the most noticeable flaws with the book. Rather than using a standard 3 act plot arc with rising action leading to the climax and then resolution, Donita opted for a non-standard approach. She tries to fake the reader out with a pseudo-climax (check the novel for what form this took and if it was possibly better than the real ending). The characters then spend several months recuperating in a town. The chapter which covers this is not overly long, but it serves to dial the action down and begin the resolution phase of the book. Then, out of nowhere, Kale ventures back out, drawn once more by her character-defining attraction to dragon eggs. This puts her into direct conflict with Risto, the main villain of the book, in the true climax. Unfortunately, this scene is incredibly anti-climactic for two reasons. First, the action and struggle with Risto is bland and uninspired and more importantly, the momentum building throughout the book was sapped by the fake climax, causing the true one to fall on its face (especially since, if I remember correctly, Kale fails at the end of the false-ending which is interesting for her character and sets the stakes a bit higher for future volumes when you demonstrate that the hero can fail).
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