Review: Dragon Bones

Dragon Bones by Patricia Briggs

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Patricia Briggs is a very skilled writer and it seems that whatever sub-genre within fantasy she dives into she does a good job of it. Dragon Bones is the first book in a series of two centering around the Hurog, with Dragon Blood being the follow up. Patricia has on more than one occasion written these type of short, multiple book series, but rarely more than a few in each series. This really is the reason I don’t see her as a writer of epic fantasy, even if the books often has the same elements present in the books, so too Dragon Bones, but it can also be labeled Sword and Sorcery fantasy.

The story centers around Ward, who’s the heir to the Hurogmeiter (Guardian of Hurog). To avoid his father’s rage against anything that threatens his rule, Ward has hid his intelligence, but as the time comes for Ward to rule Hurog he has to convince his people and the king that he’s fit to rule.

My view on Dragon Bones is that the story is more suited for epic fantasy, as it’s filled with history, legacy, prophecy, religion to the degree that it gets confusing why they were mentioned. Religion seems to only have been introduced to create a place of ancient magic where certain events of the book occur. As an example is the slave girl Bastilla’s religion, that doesn’t really serve a purpose in this story, but is still fairly well described in the book. It’s as if she’s painted a picture on a wall, but as she hangs the empty frame it only covers one part of the painting, leaving bits that belongs outside the frame in the story.

This makes the book somewhat confusing, but perhaps Ms Briggs has future purpose. As always her characters have enough depth to be believable and the width of the story prevents it from becoming too immersive and single-sided.

As always her book’s an enjoyable experience.



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