Ages ago, someone posted on G+ about a free fantasy book, called The Shadow of Black Wings (http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Black-Wings-Dragon-ebook/dp/B008FS5RPC/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371232238&sr=1-5&keywords=year+of+the+dragon). You can get it free on Amazon and the Kobo book store. I downloaded it and forgot about it. When my daughter was born, I had some down time waiting in the hospital for various things and no Internet connection. I had, however, downloaded the book to my tablet. So I started reading it. I enjoyed it enough to purchase the quadralogy of the series, Year of the Dragon (http://www.amazon.com/Year-Dragon-Books-Bundle-ebook/dp/B00CKEY974/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1371232238&sr=1-2). This is my review. Don’t worry, I will try not to spoil it for you. Not that it matters.
Have you ever read a story and thought “Man, this would be awesome when paired with this other story?” That is exactly how this book seems to have been written, only to the extreme. It is almost a kitchen sink of fantasy. Dragons? Yes. Magical School? Yes. Chosen One? Sure, why not? Steampunk? Of Course! Japanese Culture? Look how DIFFERENT I AM! If I could best describe it, it as if Kevin Siembiea of Palladium Books took a bunch of popular fantasy literature bits (Harry Potter, Eragon, Codex Alera, How to Train your Dragon, Avatar the Last Airbender, etc.), crammed them all together, and wrote a Rifts style splatbook for Legend of the Five Rings. THEN someone wrote a fanfic about it. And set it in an “alternate history” of Earth. With major colonial powers named “Dracaland” and Blatantly Transparent Substitute Names for Real World Countries. I am totally not kidding.
The story starts with our hero Bran having just been thrown off a building, having witnessed the King’s wife in an incestuous...wait, I got my popular fiction mixed up. First there is a prologue that doesn’t make any damn sense until you read the second book. Then the story actually starts with our hero Bran is having trouble at Dragon Rider school because he is being bullied for having a) common blood and b) a wimpy dragon. Or something. His dad is Best Dragonrider and Bran really wants to live up to that, but he has to go about it his own way, and not the way his dad tells him, because he is just that kind of rebel...who doesn't otherwise misbehave. After graduating from the Dracaland Rider Academy (or whatever) and not hooking up with the Hot Semi-Exotic Girl that is completely One Dimensional and has nothing to do with the story ever again, he has a fight with someone you think isn’t important but shows up 3 books into the damn series for reasons that remain unexplained. Then we switch to his dad being worried about his son not being cool enough. Then Bran kills a Dracolich with his Soul Lance magical Dragon Rider powers in a scene that may mean something but is only mentioned like one more time ever. It is seriously called a SOUL LANCE. Seriously.
Superdad invites Bran to go on the Steampunk Titanic What Is Also A Warship to go to China, er, Qin so they can protect the Dracaland (sigh) interests in selling Fantastical Opium.
We switch viewpoint to some Japanese, er Yamato people for some more background that will be relevant later but currently seem out of place and arbitrary. Sato is a Yamato girl dressing as a boy to inherit her father’s Western Style Wizardry Dojo, where they combine magic and katanas to be extra awesome, but have fallen out of favor with the Daimyo or something. Her best friend Nagomi is the innocent shrine maiden apprentice particularly skilled at healing and with red hair that makes her a bit of an outcast in Yamato. I am sure that her hair won't be mentioned every other fucking page. There are other characters mentioned at this point that may or may not be relevant in the future.
For reasons I won’t go into, all of these characters get thrown together and have to fight off an evil vampiric demon, originally raised by Roman-esque priests during a long time ago War of Dark Darkness, who uses all powerful Blood Magic Necromancy (the very WORST KIND) to try and.conquer Yamato. Along the way, they learn about each other, and stuff happens for incredibly convenient reasons to advance the plot. Also his dad does some stuff.
If this all sounds completely insane, that’s because it IS completely insane. It is a kitchen sink of Fantasy Tropes, coupled with point of view whiplash between chapters and the seeming inability of the author to actually write a story in book format. Seriously, each book just sort of stops, and the story continues right where you left off in the next book. Most books have a beginning, middle, and end. These books do not, and each chapter is more like an episode in a serial or a comic book. Plot threads appear and disappear, and occasionally get wrapped up, and lots of incredibly convenient things happen to move the story along. The thing is...I like this. What it lacks in polish or sense, it makes up for in sheer earnestness and cheesy charm. Classic fantasy it ain’t, but if you enjoyed the movie Krull, I think you’d enjoy this book, even if it is totally ridiculous in premise and execution. This is in every sense a guilty pleasure of popcorn fantasy.
Overall, on a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces I give this one smiley face. I enjoy cheesy movies and this book is as cheesy as it comes, coupled with a crazy awesome setting with something for everyone, even if it’s just “drinking game fodder”.
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