Servant of the Dragon

by David Drake

Reviewed by Coral

Things have not improved much in the Isles since Garric was formerly adopted by the king and made his heir. There are still a couple of Isles that want to break away with their rulers set as kings, the people are still wary about the throne in general, and a district of the capital city has a strange bridge that appears every night.

According to Garric's wizard friend, Tenoctris, the bridge is a gateway from the past, from an Isle that was sunk by its wizard ruler shortly after the destruction of Yole and King Carus' fleet. And, as this Isle house many magic artifacts of great strength, it could only be bad news if someone with dark intentions could get to them first.

The main problem of this book - and maybe the series - is that it tends to divert from the main plot. A lot. There was so much buildup in the first few chapters about the Isles that wanted to breakaway and how Garric would handle them and then they were just dropped for other plots.

Just because there are four main characters in Garric, Sharina, Cashel and Ilna they don't need to each have their own separate plotline - that will all, somehow, connect together at the end - especially if those plotlines are pointless for the most part.

I really dislike Ilna as a character. She is such an unpleasant person. And she was just stupid in this book. And her actions could have had drastic consequences for Garric's rule but she didn't seem to care (okay, she tried very minimally to stop what was about to happen, but besides that she really didn't seem to care if Garric's plans were ruined).

It's a shame, because the book started off interesting enough but by the halfway point, with all the divergent plotlines, I was just skimming through it.

Grade: C