Review: Enjoyable Sword & Sorcery fantasy
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 1, 2011
Seeing as everything B.V. Larson publishes these days turns to gold, I've been tracking this series of sword and sorcery novellas for some time. I finally decided to give the first one a try as a break from my usual fair, since at 25,000 words (or 100 pages), this wouldn't take long to read at all. And to be honest, To Dream with the Dragons was a fun, fast read.The adventures of the Hyborean Dragons centers around the young king Therian and his sidekick, the barbarian Gruum, who, after a fairly short introductory passage that details how the two meet up, serves as the POV character for the series, commenting on all that his master, a sorcerer and a king, does. In this first volume, To Dream with the Dragons, Therian and Gruum prepare themselves to solve the mystery of why the sun is disappearing from the earth and attempt find a way to drive the encroaching ices back and rediscover the sun. It is apparent that the sun's vanishing has nothing to do with the sun itself (i.e. it is not dying), but rather with some sorcerous film or firmament in the sky that blocks out the sun.So that's the set up. Being a sword and sorcery novella, To Dream with the Dragons lacks the deep characterization afforded by longer works (and more "epic" ones too), but then such deep character building is absolutely not the stated purpose here. Larson includes a forward in which he discusses his love for the old tales of Leiber and Moorcock, among others, and that this is in essence what he is trying to recreate: pulp sword and sorcery that reads quickly, is a fun diversion, and doesn't require much cerebral activity. On his stated purposes, I think he has hit the mark every time. In fact, no sooner had I turned the last page on this diversion than I downloaded the sequel, I became so vested in Therian and Gruum's quest.This is also a dark fantasy series, and there is a lot of killing, monsters, and blood. Sorcery too (duh!). In some ways, this reads a bit like an old-school RPG video game, you know, a Diablo or Baldur's Gate. And that's all right. It's loads of fun watching Therian and Gruum go from one encounter to the next, dungeon crawling and fighting baddies with barely a chance to catch their breaths in between. And the odd insertion of Gruum's commentary serves to slow things down and make you think about the consequences of their actions, which, though there are few now, you can be sure will pile up as the series progresses.I have one bone to pick with Mr. Larson about To Dream with the Dragons: He is turning these stories out at such a pace, and is so guaranteed of success no matter what he publishes, that the book shows a lack of care in the polishing department, the kinds of things that I (or a host of relative unknown indies) could never get away with. Grammar and spelling errors and typos (while not frequent) build up noticeably. He slips between a stilted antiquated style and a jarringly modern one, often leaving rather awkward turns of phrase in his wake as he moves back and forth. For a person who pays as much attention to language as I (who am fluent in the English of Shakespeare and the King James Bible), it is grating just how bad his archaic style is at times.But those complaints are easily dismissed when recalling, again, the stated purpose here: To Dream with the Dragons is an homage to sword and sorcery of yore. It does not aspire to be Lord of the Rings or A Song of Ice and Fire. It simply aims to deliver an hour or two of gritty, violent diversion, and on that front it delivers admirably.