Review: `The world is but a playground for a girl with a dragon.'
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 2, 2014
Author M.R. Mathias is an award-winning self-published Fantasy Writer. He is noted for his epic fantasy novels and his prolific social network marketing activity. His 2011 book `The First Ten Steps' shares shared his considerable knowledge of self-promotion. He spent several years in a Texas prison for minor drug possession. While he was there, he wrote several full length novels, and read several hundred more. The novels were written in longhand, without the luxury of spell check, or word processors, or even a dictionary. Mathias has been clean and free since his release, and he has every intention of staying that way. He says: "Writing was my salvation. I was on a Maximum Security Unit for a while, over a few fights. I was in a modern dungeon cell 23 hours a day, everyday.' Searching for information about this author reveals a man less concerned about resume status than about storytelling and his book are directed at the Young Adult sector. His gentility as a human being is summarized in an excerpt from an interview: `The jewel you see glowing in the ring in my author's photo isn't really a jewel at all. It is the crystallized tear of a real dragon. In my novel "The Royal Dragoneers" you might find the moment where this wonderfully magical teardrop fell from a green dragons eye. It hardened on its way down to land in a mess of troll corpses that the dragon was laying on. My grandfather died before I was born, but the ring was given to me by my mother, after my grandmother recently died. My grandfather had apparently won it in a poker game near the Red River between Texas and Oklahoma sometime in the early 1900's. It has been a boon, the magic of the teardrop, for it brought you here to me didn't it? `Having read Book 1 of the Dragoneer Saga coming to Book 5 is like returning to a dream cherished. Much has changed, new characters have appeared, modulations of the themes have of course altered, but the fantasy and experienced excitement remain - and even feel better written! In RISE OF THE DRAGON KING the kingdom is beginning to find its roots as trade ships and men travel and barter with the Old World that Clover mapped for them. King Richard, now banished, finds an adventure of his own - one that might just lead to the end of the Dragoneers. Clover and her infamous dragon Crimzon return to help our heroes fight an evil wizard from the Old World before he and his colossal monsters ravage the Mainland of what is now known as the New World.The Volume 5 in the series is intended for Young Adults - or any reader who is young at heart. Mathias' writing style is propulsive, well modulated between fantasy and honest human/animal relationships, and makes a fine sail through the skies of make believe. Thankfully Mathias ends this volume with the statement `The End (for now)' - indicating more volumes are forthcoming! Grady Harp, July 14