End Times in Dragon City

Note: this book review was originally written in a notebook on Dec 10/19 while I was on vacation last week.  I've made some minor edits to it while transcribing it.

Well, here we are: End Times in Dragon City - finished!

This book wasn't as good as Bad Times in Dragon City, although I still enjoyed it.  The problem is that the main character, Max, was stuck in prison for the first while.  And since the book is written from his perspective, nothing really happens until his friends break him out.

Let's back up a bit.  After Max killed the dragon at the end of Bad Times in Dragon City, Max was thrown into the highest level of the Garret so he could see the damage he had wrought to the City.  Freed from the dragon, the Ruler of the Dead immediately sent her armies to take out the city; her zombies are overwhelming the wall.  It's only a matter of time before she breaks through.

Eventually, Max's friends break him out of prison.  After catching him up on what's happening, Max decides they need to bolster the Imperial Guard and save the city.  But after the Guard blow up Goblintown, no one is interested in putting aside their differences in order to band together.  There's also one more problem: the dragon's corpse is decomposing in the middle of the city, a tempting target for the Ruler of the Dead.  If she gains control of it, Dragon City will be lost.

While I didn't think it was as good as the previous book, I still really enjoyed End Times in Dragon City, and thought it was a very fitting end for the trilogy.  I hope one day we'll get more of Max's adventures! 

I'd also love to know more about this setting!  How did the Ruler of the Dead first come into being?  If she's been stuck on this continent, what is the rest of the world like? And what happens next for Dragon City? 

Bad Times in Dragon City

Note: this book review was originally written in a notebook on Dec 9/19 while I was on vacation last week.  I've made some minor edits to it while transcribing it.

Wow. So I wasn't super sure how I felt overall about the first book in this series (although I did enjoy it).  But the second book was absolutely fantastic!

Bad Times in Dragon City takes place about two weeks after End Times in Dragon City.  Belle calls Max to her home to tell him that her sister's body has disappeared.  For most people this isn't a big deal, but for elves it's huge: an elf family has to produce the body within a few weeks or else a living elf must takes the deceased's place.  And because elves consider their elders treasures due to their knowledge and long histories, elf families typically send younger elves to stand in the deceased's place.  So that means Belle will go if Fiera's body isn't found soon!

I loved that detail within the worldbuilding.  And I loved how it was dealt with: Max assumed an elder would go because that's how humans deal with it - elders are near death, so let the young live.

Fiera's body disappeared the night after she died, and the family's manservant, Ford, was found killed around where it should have been.  So Max is determined to save Belle by finding it.  But all the while he's being called across the city to meet with powerful dwarves and the Wizard's Council due to the dragonet (the dragon's heir) hatching and imprinting on him.

I didn't quite catch Max's leap in logic of how he realized Belle and Fiera's parents knew what had happened to Fiera's body, but their father had indeed seen it walk off.  So Max assembles the gang to go and find it.  Rather than simply being possessed by the Ruler of the Dead, Fiera had been in league with her for months.  And as everyone is facing off under the City, the enraged dragon tears through the ground, trying to kill them all.  This ends with Max killing the dragon instead, much to the delight of the Ruler of the Dead - the dragon was the only one keeping her at bay.  And so we'll see how the story ends in the next book!

There was some very neat worldbuilding in this book.  The dragon lives on magic, which is why he wants elf bodies - he devours the built up magic within them.  The other long-lived peoples would likewise have lots of magic for him, while shorter-lived races like humans do not.  I loved this detail.

But I did start questioning Max's tie to the dragonet vs. the dragon's tie to the elf (the Voice of the Dragon).  The latter pair seemed super tied, to the point that the elf seemed to suffer any injuries the dragon received (although I may have misread that and the elf may have simply been caught in the crossfire?  I'm not really sure).  If they are tied like that though, will the dragonet live a shorter life because he or she is tied to a human?  I'm also wondering if Max's personality rubbed off on the dragonet because they seem to be psychically linked?  Hopefully I'll get the answers to these questions in End Times in Dragon City!

One last somewhat unrelated note: as I was reading both this book and Hard Times in Dragon City, I kept reading "glowglobes" as "snowglobes," which are totally not the same thing!

Hard Times in Dragon City

Note: this book review was originally written in a notebook on Dec 8/19 while I was on vacation last week.  I've made some minor edits to it while transcribing it.

Well here we are: over 7 years later, I finally read the first book of Matt Forbeck's second 12 for 12 series, Hard Times in Dragon City.  This trilogy is set in his Shotguns & Sorcery world.  I started reading it on my flight to Toronto last week (when I couldn't sleep on the plane); I ended up finishing it on the flight to Florida that day (with another hour of the flight remaining - Hard Times in Dragon City was a pretty fast read!)

Hard Times in Dragon City is another story about Matt Gibson, Forbeck's hero from "Goblintown Justice" and "Friends Like These" (although I admit I don't really remember much about him because it's been quite awhile since I read those stories).  The story begins with Max getting awakened from his bed by the elven guard captain, Yabair.  Some of Max's good friends have been murdered and he needs to identify the bodies.  From there, Max takes it upon himself to find whoever did this and bring them to justice, especially since he knows that the wrong man has been apprehended.  His journey takes him across Dragon City and beyond, visiting old friends and dodging assassins along the way.

I wasn't sure about Max at first, but by the end I quite liked him.  He's the kind of guy who has your back, and reminded me of the type of character I lik to play in RPGs: well-rounded in abilities (this comparison is quite apt as Shotguns & Sorcery was originally designed as a tabletop RPG).

The world is super fun too.  Max literally uses both a magic wand and a shotgun.  He even has to make snap decisions about which to use - can he pull off casting a spell fast enough? Can he pull out his shotgun before the enemy casts their spell?  The city itself is also a lot of fun, split into various sections for elves, halflings, dwarves, etc, and surrounded by a wall that keeps the undead out.  I hope a later book deals with the leader of the undead because she sounded quite interesting, too!

I also really liked how the story ended. Can't wait for more!

One thing to note though: Hard Times in Dragon City was written hurriedly as part of the 12 for 12 and it showed at times.  There were some minor mistakes all over the book (I even caught one spot where the book was originally written in third person rather than first, which makes me think an earlier draft must have been in third person). 

Matt Forbeck's Brave New World: Resolution

I started reading Matt Forbeck's Brave New World: Resolution a few days ago, but wasn't able to finish it until just now. 

In order to talk about Resolution, I'm going to be giving some spoilers.  So if you haven't read the book, or the previous one, you might want to stop reading this now.

I have to admit, the beginning of the book wasn't really working for me...it felt a little too removed from what had gone on before.  And I guess it was rather removed from the events of Revelation; Resolution opens with everyone safely on Isla Delta, having to explain how they got there. And then the action starts.  Delta Prime invades the island, and everyone except for Patriot (and Terri, the delta who is flying him around) get captured. 

I'm not going to lie, but it was at the end of all this (about halfway through the book) that I stopped reading.  Yes, I was busy.  But the way things played out, I wasn't really in a hurry to get back to the book.  But when I finally did start reading again (earlier today), I was once again blown away by how great of a storyteller Forbeck is. 

So anyway, everyone is captured, and Patriot needs to rescue them in a hurry, because Delta Prime is forcing Street and another gadgeteer named the Supplier to build a bigger bomb than the one that removed Chicago from the Earth.  But the two of them have found a way to send someone to Chicago.  And so Lisa goes, taking with her the plans to build a similar device there to bring everyone back home.

Of course, nothing goes smoothly.  As a diversion, Patriot and another delta manage to reveal the identity of the President.  And unfortunately he isn't who they thought he was...

The end of Resolution was fantastic.  There's no two ways about it.  It's a fast-paced ending with a lot of unexpected things happening.  This was a fitting end for the trilogy, and I'm really glad Forbeck was able to write this series, thanks to the funding he got on Kickstarter.  I'm looking forward to reading more of his books!

Matt Forbeck's Brave New World: Revelation

So I finished Matt Forbeck's Brave New World: Revelation last night.  I was really tired, but so near the end that I wanted to finish it before I slept.  And the ending was definitely worth the loss of sleep!

Revelation takes place a few weeks after the events of Revolution.  Patriot, Lisa and company are sent to Colorado to answer a family's distress call; it seems they were attacked by a super-powered man.  A man who may have just fallen out of the sky after the detonation near the end of the first book.  Their world is rocked when they discover the identity of the man: it's Superior, the world's greatest alpha-powered delta.  Superior disappeared along with Chicago 23 years ago.

Of course, they're not the only ones after Superior and the family of deltas he attacked.  Delta Prime is hot on their heels, bringing down their jet-van into a Catholic Church.  Patriot needs to find a way to get all of them out alive, which becomes less likely by the minute as they're surrounded by Delta Prime.

I have to say, for most of this book, I thought it was okay.  It wasn't as good as Revelation (which may in part have been because there were a lot of new characters who took center stage along with Lisa and Patriot).  But then the end happened.  I'm talking about the very end of the book, after the climax.  I wasn't at all prepared for it, even though in some ways I felt like I should have seen it coming.  After being blown away by that, I really can't wait to see how all of this ends in the final book!

Matt Forbeck's Brave New World: Revolution

When I first heard about Matt Forbeck's 12 for 12 Kickstarter drive, I thought it was a great idea. If successfully funded, Forbeck gets to write twelve novels during the year, and everyone who supported him gets some hopefully awesome books. No, I had never read any of his books before, but I loved the idea and really wanted him to succeed.

It's now been over a year since the first 12 for 12 drive ended and I received my copies of the first trilogy, set in a roleplaying setting Forbeck created years ago (Matt Forbeck's Brave New World). As I was flying home from California yesterday, I thought it was definitely time to actually read them! And so I read the first book, Matt Forbeck's Brave New World: Revolution, as I was flying home.

Revolution takes place in Crescent City, the city that grew on the edge of the crater where Chicago once stood. Super powered people, called Deltas, are required by law to register and join the American government/army (the Delta division, called Delta Prime). And while many do, there are just as many people who don't want to; they value their freedom and so run from the law. Many of them find their way into the rebellion called the Defiance.

Lisa believes she is an ordinary girl. But suddenly her life is turned upside down when both Delta Prime and the Defiance, led by Patriot, an ex-Delta Prime member, come looking for her. Patriot is captured while saving Lisa from Delta Prime. And so she finds herself teaming up with other members of Defiance to rescue a man she doesn't know, all the while trying to figure out why everyone wants her so badly.

I have to say that I really liked Revolution. So much so that I'm almost finished the second book, Revelation. I like the setting and I really like both Lisa and the Patriot (along with all the others!)  I do apologize for the future posts on this trilogy though: there will be spoilers!