Review: Enjoyable Quest Fantasy Set in a World Full of Danger and Magic
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 1, 2014
“The Last Dragon Slayer” is a fantasy quest novel that brings together a small band of mercenaries to track down and kill a “Noble Dragon”—a beast that is not only clever and deadly, but almost impossible to kill.As the novel opens, Saul, the leader of the group, is searching for Silus, the last man to have killed such a dragon—and though they hit some bumps along the way, a group is soon formed, including a beautiful elf with the power of controlling minds and actions through “whispering,” a dwarf who longs for his homeland, and a dark elf in exile. As they journey closer to their final (perhaps fatal) encounter with the dragon, they ran across bandits and hostile towns, and confront their own conflicts as well.This is the first novel in the series, so while there is action the book spends a lot of time setting up its characters and their relationships with each other. Luckily, the characters and the backstories are very well done, and I enjoyed learning about them—my favorite was Brael, the dark elf; the sense of mystery about what he knows and why it caused him to be cut off from magic was intriguing. There is a lot of focus on Vashni and Korhan’s apprenticeship to her to learn “whispering,” and while their relationship is interesting I did wish it hadn’t been focused on quite as much to leave more room for the other characters—but perhaps they will come more to the forefront in future works.I do feel like you get a good sense of this fantasy world from the writing and descriptions as well; it’s a place where dwarves and elves and magic still exist, though they have been largely displaced by humans; it’s also a place where those humans seem hostile toward newcomers, which often puts the group of travelers in situations that lead to some exciting, action-packed confrontations.Recommended to readers who enjoy fantasy novels in the classic vein of Tolkein and who are looking for a series to get invested in.