DRAGON BONES (HUROG DUOLOGY, BOOK 1) REVIEW

AUTHOR: Patricia Briggs

PUBLISHED: February 26, 2002

MASS MARKET PAPERBACK: 304 Pages

SUMMARY: Most everyone thinks Ward of Hurog is a simple-minded fool—and that’s just fine by him. But few people know that his foolishness is (very convincingly) feigned. And that it’s the only thing that’s saved him from death.

When his abusive father dies, Ward becomes the new lord of Hurog...until a nobleman declares that he is too dim-witted to rule. Ward knows he cannot play the fool any longer. To regain his kingdom, he must prove himself worthy—and quickly.

Riding into a war that’s heating up on the border, Ward is sure he’s on the fast track to glory. But soon his mission takes a deadly serious turn. For he has seen a pile of magical dragon bones hidden deep beneath Hurog Keep. The bones can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and Ward is certain his enemies will stop at nothing to possess them...

MY THOUGHTS:

NON-SPOILER:

I have nothing but praise for this book and it is an absolute delight, in my opinion, it was not much the story for me but the characters that hooked me in, beautifully just beautifully written characters, especially the characters of Ward and Oreg, just so complex and simple at the same time. This book is fairly short so not much space for a lot of character development for every single character and if you were expecting an epic battle at the end of the story then you are gonna be fairly disappointed and the ending is gonna feel a little anticlimactic but in my opinion, the ending is so beautifully written and so moving that I feel like an epic battle couldn’t have done a better job of wrapping up the story. I just fell in love with the characters and just couldn’t put the book down. I really appreciated the writing even though some people complain about the story switching from the first person to third-person perspective, I was so into the story I barely even noticed it. There’s a fair amount of world-building crammed into a relatively small space but that in no way hinders the pace of the story. In my opinion this is one of the stories definitely worth your time.

SPOILER:

So how do I start reviewing this book? I want to be critical but I am hard-pressed to find any criticism about it that would dissuade any readers like me from loving it. From what I’ve heard and seen about this book people really seem to love it and I’m no different. There are some scenes and subplots that feel quite unfinished and that should be enough for me to find this story flawed in some way and be easily able to criticize it but that’s not the case.

So I am gonna start where the story itself starts, With Hurog and Ward. Ward is the heir to the Hurog (Hurog means Dragon, it’s mentioned in the book more than a few times, thought I should mention it too.) and is as deeply connected to the land as all of his ancestors before him and every other Hurog Including his father, who later in the book is revealed to have killed his own father to gain the title. Everyone thinks Ward to be simple-minded and a fool who doesn’t have all of his wits about him which is quite far from the truth as he has been acting the part for years ever since his father beat him to death seeing him as a rival who would one day take Hurog away from him and afraid that Ward would do the same to him to gain the title of Hurogmeten as he did to his father. Everyone believes him to be an imbecile which he has been playing for most of his life but no one is under any impression that he is powerless, he’s taller than most men he comes across and been trained by the captain of the guard, his formidable aunt.

So his father is an all-around abusive character feared and respected by the people, having said all that he dies at the beginning of the story and most of the things we get to know about him is from Ward’s and other characters perspective later in the book.

Ward not having come to age yet to undertake the responsibilities of Hurogmeten his uncle is appointed as his guardian after his father’s death and we immediately start to question everyone’s motives around him, especially his uncle.

The character I really fell in love with was Oreg. He was first speculated to be ‘the house ghost’ by everyone but not until Ward’s father dies that we find out that he is a mage bound to the Hurog Keep and the Hurogmeten and been serving them for centuries. He has a centuries-long past which he talks about from time to time but mostly he is secretive about things which is one of the things I like about him.

The story jumps from the first person to third-person perspective at times, Wards chapters are all first-person. The kingdoms are on the verge of war and Ward finds himself involuntarily involved in the politics of the court as the King orders Ward to be sent to The Asylum where he puts people who are potentially dangerous to his reign. Questioning the motives of everyone around him Ward runs away sets out South with a few trusty servants, his sister, and Oreg to become a renowned mercenary and a hero so the King would have a hard time moving against him but those plans fall through after a while.

The character of The King is dreadful and well written, he’s just a paranoid, manipulative, and sadistic bastard, who takes pleasure in breaking people emotionally. So, yeah a character you can’t help but hate.

The action scenes were great but the real character building happens between the action and that’s what their training sessions covered where the real character building happened and the characters got to know each other during their journey.

The magic of the land in this book is not exactly specified or defined, exactly how it works, personally, I’m a sucker for a good clearly defined magical system and that should have been enough to find some criticism about this book for me but it didn’t prove to be enough because as obscure as the workings of the magic are in this book, one thing you’ll find that author is quite insistent about is that it is really hard to work any kind of magic, even most of the ones considered mages in this world can barely accomplish a magical feat grander than lighting a candle.

This is a sword and sorcery type fantasy, this is one of the authors earlier work, to be honest, this is the first book from Patricia Briggs I’ve ever read. To me, she was known as more of a “romantic” fantasy writer. This book had a fair amount of romance in it I guess but nothing too overtly exaggerated that would make me double over and vomit. I don’t like stories where romance becomes this all-encompassing thing that dictates every single aspect of the story, that’s how some people prefer it but I can’t seem to get behind it. I have nothing against a little romance in the story but I don’t like it to be the point of it, Like the characters doing everything because of the love of their life, uh-huh I’m out. So, I really appreciated the subtle romance between Ward and Tisala rather than an overly exaggerated version of it.

This is a short book with a lot of character and world-building crammed into quite a compact space, but that space is deftly employed by the author to create characters and a world that feels realistic, a hero that you cannot help but root for and the best parts for me in this book were the scenes where people realize that Ward is not as simple-minded as he has been feigning for years, that just made the book for me and I’m pretty sure for a lot of other people.

The ending may not have been over the top epic but it was quite impactful and I don’t think that an epic battle could have done any better a job of wrapping up the story.

So, in conclusion, this book is a beautifully written piece of fantasy literature and it has a few flaws I admit but there’s not a single thing I would like to change about it if, given the chance, this is the one I would like to revisit in few months again soon, if you ever decide to pick this book you’ll understand.

CHARACTERS:

1. WARDWICK OF HUROG

Aidan Turner.