SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: King's Dragon by Kate Elliott

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: King's Dragon by Kate Elliott: https://t.co/1qO470i0lK Short Review: 7 out of 10 (1/3)

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) July 4, 2019

Short Review (cont): The first in her massive seven book epic fantasy series Crown of Stars, King's Dragon is an intriguing start with lots and lots of solid & interesting characters, tho the physical/sexual abuse a major character suffers early is a big minus. (2/3)

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) July 4, 2019

King's Dragon is the first in Kate Elliott's grand epic fantasy series, Crown of Stars.  Elliott is one of my favorite authors today, and Crown of Stars is the only series of hers that I'd yet to try out, mainly because it is Looooong - 7 books of 600+ pages each.  Elliott calls the series her "need to get my beloved Tolkien out of my system while commenting on and arguing with the things I think Tolkien didn’t do well or left out" series (quoting from her website), so yeah, it's a big commitment to get into.  But with my love of Elliott, I was going to get into it sooner or later.

King's Dragon, the first book in the series, is.....promising, if uneven.  The book is very slow at the beginning, and its backstory for its female protagonist is problematic (see trigger warning below) to the point where if I didn't have faith in Elliott, I'd probably have given up fairly quickly.  But the book turns into a satisfying beginning to a series, even if it very much cannot be read as a stand-alone, and the book's end game is far from clear.  I'll definitely be reading book 2, probably within the month, as soon as it gets here from my library at least.

Trigger Warning: Physical/Sexual Abuse, although the latter never is described overtly on page.  


-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
An elf gives birth to a child of a prince, leaves the child to his father, and then disappears through a magic portal, satisfied with what has been set in motion.  In response, a conspiracy of individuals watching from the shadows vows to counter these actions with a sacrifice of their own.

Years later, the countries of Wendar and Varre stand on the verge of conflict, from both within and without.  From without, the inhuman Eika have stepped up their raiding, and are on the verge of a major, far more organized offensive against the countries' human citizens. From within, King Henry's half-sister, Sabella has begun to gather support among the nobles for another attempt at the throne, perhaps through the use of forbidden paranormal means.

Into this conflict come a young man named Alain and a young woman named Liath, both with uncertain pasts and missing mothers.  Alain, fostered by adopted parents as an unwanted child of another is destined for the church...until he sees a vision of the Lady of Battles, revealing perhaps a greater, and more dangerous destiny.  Liath is trained by her father in the principles of sorcery, but when her father dies seemingly to protect her from unknown forces, she is forced into a life of misery and pain from which her only escape may be to discover the abilities locked within her.

Both Liath and Alain know not who they really are - but in the conflicts shaping the land, they will each discover their destinies will play a grand role in events to come.
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Crown of Stars is divided into 14 titled Chapters (and 2 Parts), each subdivided into smaller untitled sections.  In general, each chapter alternates between telling Alain and Liath's stories, usually from their own perspectives (but sometimes not), although a few chapters are told from other perspectives and a few do not stay so strictly on one perspective or another, as the characters' paths begin to intersect.

And well, for once I'm going to invert my usual review formula and begin with the bad: this method of storytelling makes the beginning parts of this book slower than I would've liked....and in Liath's chapters' case, painful to read.  Liath spends several of the early chapters as the slave of a monster named Hugh, who wants her for her knowledge of sorcery....and her body.  I tend to avoid books with such major abuse plot elements like this, and wouldn't blame anyone if they felt that way about this one.  Liath's story gets substantially better once she gets away from her abuser, although that abuser's specter always hangs over her for the rest of the book.  Alain's story isn't painful, it's just slow, with things moving slowly until the end of Part 1 of the book.

Fortunately, after Part 1, the book leaves the abusive parts of Liath's story and both hers and Alain's storylines, as well as the story in general, picks up pace quite nicely.  I should point out that both Liath and Alain are excellent characters in the end, as they both try to figure out both who they really are and who they can really be - and who they can trust to help them become something new.  This is not a SOIAF or Game of Thrones-esque book with gray lead characters, both Liath and Alain want to do good, although both are constantly in situations in which doing "good" is something far less relevant than just surviving.  But the two are excellent and their own insecurities and actions taken as a result of them work really well to carry both of their stories.

The less prominent characters are all generally well done, with even characters with bit parts tending to get pretty well rounded roles in the story, which has a setting that contains so many characters and places and things....and yet works.  One prominent aspect of the setting which might be of more interest to other readers is the church of this world, which is clearly based in large part upon sects of Christianity.  As I'm not Christian, it's very possible I'm missing some references in these church descriptions, but it works well at showing how characters act and react in this world, with different heresies and beliefs causing issues here and there...and hints being laden throughout that some aspects of this religion may not be as intangible as others might believe.  And then of course beyond the church there are the mysterious elves who stay entirely in the background and the dangerous Eika who are not quite as universally evil it seems as the human characters might believe.

It all sets up a series with some really interesting characters all over, some global plots just beginning to turn, and sequel hooks which portend plot developments I'm not sure I could even guess at, but are tantalizing in their own way.  I've reserved book 2 of this series by inter-library loan, so let's see how that goes next.  I have high hopes, from both Elliott's other work, and from this one's setup.