Heart of a Dragon by David Niall WilsonMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
This book felt like I had started in the middle of a series rather than the first book -- and maybe this is a spin-off series or something similar, but I couldn’t find any information on specifics. Anyway, this book is really odd. There’s a really interesting story and the world-building is quite fascinating. The lore of the world and the magic system are intriguing. However, the “main character,” Donovan DeChance, felt more like a back seat passenger to the main plot concerning two biker gangs and their arcane fueled turf war. His role could have easily been replaced with any other secondary character (or a combination of them) and the storyline would have pretty much remained the exact same from start to finish. And his character was flat and really interesting. He could have been killed off at any point in the book and I wouldn’t have felt anything at all.
The narration continued the oddness with Donovan. While the other characters felt alive and were given vivid and unique life through their voices, Donovan was monotone and spoke with almost no expression or emotion. I don’t understand the choice unless it was an attempt to capture the essence of being a “classy” wizard, but to me, the performance fell flat.
Overall, I liked the basic elements of the story, but not the overall implementation. In all fairness, I am not an urban fantasy fan but agreed to listen to and fairly review the novel. It may be that a listener really into the genre may be more forgiving of some missing details and odd characterization. In my opinion, the plot itself could easily have been a standalone novel, excluded DeChance, and been a pretty entertaining story set in a fascinating, fantasy world. However, the disjointed combination was confusing and hindered both the narrative and narration.
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