Book Review | The Rage of Dragons
Introduction
The Rage of Dragons, the debut novel from Evan Winter, is going to be my first foray into story reviews. This review is will be devoid of spoilers, so don’t worry about needing to skip through it to ensure that you can have an untarnished reading experience if you do pick this one up. This will be the case with all of my reviews, and I intend to review all books using the same criteria: World-Building, World, Pacing, Characters, Plot, and Writing. My reviews are based on a five-star system like you’d see on most review sites. For me, three stars indicate I believe that the story is average, not bad, so please bear that in mind.
With all of that said, let’s dive into the review.
If you would prefer to experience my review in video form, you can check out my video review of this book on my YouTube channel!
Book Summary
Tau, a lower-class citizen within this book’s caste system, is on a quest for vengeance that leads him to join his people’s military. There, he trains to become a better fighter, but better will never be good enough for him. He aims to be the best and will accept nothing less of himself.
The Review
Presentation
First, I'd like to talk about the way the book is presented. The presentation does not affect the overall score that I give the book, it’s just something that’s nice to discuss.
Firstly, the cover of the book is just awesome. It’s very minimal and nontraditional, both things that I love. The imagery on the front is eye-catching, I appreciate the subtle notes here and there, it’s amazing and looks great on my shelf.
The interior of the book is excellent, as well. I really liked the way that the book was divided. We have chapters and within those chapters are several shorter chunks, making it really easy to consume this book. Each portion of the book bled into the next, threading you along until you sadly realize that you’re nearly at the end.
There’s a glossary in the book, which is great, but I was disappointed to find that it is lacking a pronunciation guide. I’m not sure if the next book will have one or if they’re planning to release one. I wasn’t able to find a guide online, but I have heard that the audiobook is incredible and breathes new life into the story, so I might give that a listen just to ensure I pronounce the words and names correctly when I read book two.
Overall, this is a four-star presentation for me.
Plot
The Plot of The Rage of Dragons is expertly done, in my opinion. I haven’t released a review, yet, so this will be the first time I talk about one of my weaknesses: revenge stories. I love a good vengeance story, particularly mindless vengeance or a story that explores accurately just how destructive a quest for vengeance can be. I enjoy seeing reasonable vengeance sought to an unreasonable degree, so The Rage of Dragons really got to me in that regard. It was the perfect story for me.
In this book, we follow Tau, a member of the lowest class of people within this world’s caste system. The first few chapters of the book showcase Tau’s life before showing us the monumental loss he suffers to warrant the vengeance he will seek through the rest of the book. Tau goes all in for his vengeance with reckless abandon and little regard for himself. He behaves foolishly and unhealthily, which is what you’d expect from someone who is blinded by his quest for revenge.
To enact his vengeance, Tau has to join up with the military. He starts off training with a group of sword brothers, but his usual training regime just isn’t enough for him. It’s making him a better fighter, but he has to be the best, so he pushes himself a little farther and a little farther. At first, I was on board, as I’d expect when presented with a revenge story. I was all for every step he was taking to reach his ultimate goal. However, over time, the sacrifices he was making in the name of vengeance became unnerving. He was risking too much and going too far. This was further exacerbated by the people around him telling him that he was being reckless, foolish, and stupid. I found myself wanting him to slow down and hoping that he would listen to the people who were cautioning him to do so. This was written expertly.
I’m giving the plot five stars. It was focused, well-told, and had an excellent scope.
World
The prologue paints a very quick, very brief picture of the overall world. We’re shown how the magic system works, the history of the setting’s inhabitants, and even given a few details that will become important much later in the story. This prologue flies by quickly and is jam-packed with vital information.
I really appreciate that Evan Winter seems to have set out to create a world that I’d describe as “just shy of epic”. We have so much grandiose, epic-scale fantasy out there right now and Evan has created a setting that’s just a few degrees lower than that. It’s big enough for there to be room for growth without being so large that readers are overwhelmed by info dumps.
The dragons in this setting are beautifully done. They take a backseat to much of the story, but every time you see a dragon in this book it is a monumental event. It’s terrifying, dreadful, and awesome, all simultaneously.
This world isn’t epic in scale, but it is perfectly sized for the story being told. The magic system is simple and--from what I have experienced--unique, yet it has some interesting applications and consequences. I can’t wait to learn more about the creatures, locations, and forces that make up this world in the coming books.
I’m giving the world a very positive four stars. I expect that this will become a five with the coming books as we learn more about this setting that Evan Winter has created.
World-Building
So I enjoyed the world, but what did I think of the way the world was presented? Overall? Pretty well. The prologue is where we get the broadest stroke of world-building, and it wasn’t done through exposition for which I was quite grateful. It was shown, not told, and it was done quite well. I actually learned more about the world than I thought I did, as some of the seeds planted in the prologue that didn’t seem too important were harvested several chapters later.
There was one part that did feel a bit clunky to me. I say this with hesitation because I know this is the first book in a series and I know that it was information that we and the protagonist needed to have. So the scene was necessary. But there is a moment later in the book where the protagonist needs to have some aspects of the world explained and then has it explained to him in great detail. More detail than I thought was necessary, and it seemed to go on for quite a while and stopped feeling like a realistic way that the information would have been presented.
I am glad that we received the information and it was important for us to have it, but the presentation felt heavy-handed compared to the way the rest of the world-building is done. It’s a small gripe, overall, but a gripe nonetheless. No book is perfect.
Well, except Reaper Man.
The world-building is getting four stars from me. Most of the world-building was done in a non-expository way, which counts for a lot.
Characters
We have an excellent cast of characters in this story. This story has a focused plot, so we can’t waste time on unnecessary and irrelevant characters. I’m pretty confident I remember and can describe the main cast from memory and it’s been about a few days since I finished the book. The characters in this story, not just Tau, are well done and have defined personalities. I wish we had spent more time with several of them, but I’m sure we’ll get a further exploration of the people in Tau’s life in the next book. The problem is that we only see them through Tau’s eyes, so while I can tell that there is depth to these characters, we only scratch the surface of the majority of the cast.
The focus is of course on our protagonist, Tau. Tau is an interesting and well-developed character. Every change in him that took place during this book was earned, justified, and sensible. I watched him grow at a breakneck pace, always pushing himself to improve and reach his full potential. He was never good enough for himself--he could always be better. At a certain point, though, I found him leaving me in the dust. He was continuing onward and throwing himself into his quest for vengeance while I remained behind, wishing he would pull back on the reins and see how destructive he was being not just to himself, but to those around him who cared for him.
The men in Tau’s scale, as his training group is called, are all unique and interesting. You learn about their quirks naturally and come to love or hate some of them. The way that the relationships are developed is done remarkably. I would compare the dynamic of the scale to something akin to Ender’s Game--another book I enjoy--wherein you have a consistent group of characters who grow together largely out of necessity.
I will say that there were some characters who I think should have been explored with more depth, particularly the love interest. I got the impression early on that Tau already knew her and she knew him from well before the first chapter--they’d had a friendship of some sort for a while, though the details were never explored, at least not that I recall. Some additional insight into her, or even a few pages from her perspective, would have been great to experience. Only seeing her through Tau’s eyes was limiting, as I never got a full picture of who she is or how she views herself.
In the end, I’m giving the characters four stars. Again, I expect this to become a five in the next book as we learn more about the people around Tau and about Tau himself. I’ll note that if it weren’t for how well-developed Tau is, I’d be giving this three stars. We primarily see everyone around Tau just through his eyes, and he’s so focused on his goal that he doesn’t pick up on a lot of the nuance that you can see when you’re really paying attention to the people around you. I’m eager to see these characters fleshed out and hope to get that in book two.
Writing
The writing in this book was extremely well done. The only time I felt taken out of the story was the scene I mentioned in the world-building portion of this review. Overall, the writing blew me away, especially for a first-time writer. His descriptions were brief, his dialogue was natural, and his fight scenes were incredible. I came in here with the expectations that there would be some challenging portions of the book that I’d have to get through with this being an author’s debut, but Evan Winter has absolutely raised the bar, here. His prose surpassed my expectations, was easy to ready, and he fully immersed me in his world.
I already docked a star for the scene I mentioned in the World-Building section, so I won’t dock anything here. Five stars for the writing.
Pacing
And at last, we come to the pacing of the book. Now I’m glad I took notes on this because my first impression of the book’s pacing was not great. I agreed with a lot of people who initially said that the book was slow to start. I do still agree with them. Some reviewers I’ve found said that it felt like a rush from the start, but for me, it felt gradual. I wasn’t sure where the story was taking me--there seemed to be several possible plot threads and it took its time to pick one that it wanted to chase.
When the plot did start moving, though, it really moved. We went from doing fifteen in a school zone to going fifty-five on a highway ramp in no time. Everything changed in an instant for both Tau and the pacing of the story. It was artfully done.
We maintain a steady pace from there for a good while, but shortly after the halfway point, we just rocket for the end. It felt like the story was on a race track, just shooting forward. I normally set out to read about sixty pages, but the last day of reading I did for this book was a two hundred page endeavor; I just couldn’t put it down.
Because I wish that the plot had started moving a bit faster and can see where some readers are coming from when they say that it felt like a slow start, I’m going to give the pacing four out of five stars. As I’ve said with my other points in this review, I expect that we’ll have better pacing in the sequel.
Overall
I absolutely wanted to recommend The Rage of Dragons to everyone I know--even people who wouldn’t ordinarily read fantasy. The world is small enough and the story scope is narrow enough that I think anyone could pick this up and find something to love. There are some pitfalls to it, but they are all minor and can be glossed over. This book is the best debut book I have read from an author thus far, hands down, and I cannot wait to get started on the second book.
The Rage of Dragons gets four out of five stars from me. It has a few points that could be improved, but I expect the story and world to grow into themselves and make up for these minor issues in the books to come. I can’t wait to see where Evan Winter takes this.
Conclusion
Thanks very much for taking the time to read this review, I hope it was informative. It’s my first published, full-effort book review, so… hopefully, it isn’t too unbearable to read. Just like this book, I’m sure I’ve got room for improvement. I'll put my social media links below if you want to follow me anywhere. Any amount of support is appreciated, whether you're subscribing to my YouTube channel, liking my video/posts, giving notes, telling me what I should do with my hair, I don’t care. I’ll take all your criticism. Bye!