Tag: Joe Manganiello

Review of Dragon Blood by Patricia Briggs

SFFaudio Review

dragonbloodDragon Blood (Hurog Duology #2)
By Patricia Briggs; Performed by Joe Manganiello
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
[UNABRIDGED] – 10 hours
Themes: / fantasy / dragons / Hurog /

Wardwick of Hurog wishes to live in peace. Destiny has other plans. He is about to be arrested and imprisoned in the Asylum for Nobel Embarrassments and Inconveniences. Worse still, Ward has learned that the same man bent on his imprisonment, Jakoven Tallven, High King of the Five Kingdoms, is seeking Hurog blood to activate the supernatural equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction.Once again Ward must play the fool to survive. Yet, that will not suffice. Ward’s closest companions all must risk their lives and fortunes to keep Jakoven and his malevolent mage Jade Eyes from destroying their world.

After finishing Dragon Bones I was left with some lingering questions and looking forward to this book. For some reason this story wasn’t as much fun. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why.  My best guess is the pacing. For such a short book, it felt like the plot meandered too much on unimportant details. The beginning was strong. It pulled me right back in again, and I thought everything was good to go. But then it got slow in middle, and felt sort of rushed at the end. I was sort of underwhelmed by the final confrontation especially.

I guess since I wasn’t having as much fun with the story this go around and it made the quality of the writing more noticeable. I’m not one to spend much time commenting on the writing too much. I tend to leave that for English teachers/literary types. I care a lot more about story and character development than I do about how elegant the prose is. If you’re entertaining me, I’m not going to notice bad sentence structure/dialogue.

If I had to sum this book up with one sentence it would be “Hurog means Dragon.” Why you ask? Well because it’s said at least once per chapter. Often more than once. Or at least that’s how it felt. Eventually I groaned every time another character said it.  I wonder if the writing was just as bad in the first book and I didn’t notice. “Hurog means dragon” was said a few times in that book as well, but it didn’t seem nearly so frequent. I didn’t really find the dialogue or prose that bad.

Glancing over other reviews it seems like I may be in the minority. It’s quite possible that if you liked the first book, you may enjoy this as well, but I mostly found it to a disappointing sequel.

As far as the audio goes, Joe Manganiello once again does a fine job without really adding or subtracting from the story.

Review by Rob Zak.

Review of Dragon Bones by Patricia Briggs

SFFaudio Review

Dragon Bones by Patricia BriggsDragon Bones (Hurog #1)
By Patricia Briggs; Read by Joe Manganiello
Publisher: Brilliance Audio (print 2002)
Publication Date: 1 May 2014
[UNABRIDGED] – 8 discs, 10 hours

Themes: / fantasy / dragons / Hurog /

 Publisher summary:

We all play roles at times. Wardwick of Hurog played the role of a fool till he reached adulthood, just to keep his father from murdering him. Now he must overcome the image he so carefully built and fight not simply for his birthright but to free the five Kingdoms from tyranny and the rising tide of darkest magic that threatens his world.

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 turn. For he has seen a pile of magical dragon bones hidden deep beneath Hurog Keep. The bones could prove to be dangerous in the wrong hands, and Ward is certain his enemies will stop at nothing to possess them.

This is my first novel by Patricia Briggs. The name was familiar to me, but I wouldn’t have been able to have named you any books or series by her.
I couldn’t tell you if this is her usual style of book, but if it is, I’ll definitely be interested in reading more. This doesn’t seem to be as popular as some of her other series though. I found this a quick and enjoyable listen.

It’s a play on the chosen one trope, but there is more of a focus on politics. Our protagonist has been playing stupid for years in an effort to reduce the chances his father finds him a threat and killing him. Unfortunately for him, this means that his father also doesn’t trust him to take over after he’s gone and names his uncle to rule in his place, at least until his 21st birthday. So of course our hero sets out to make a name for himself and show his uncle that he’s not really the fool he’s been pretending all these years. He gets swept up into events bigger than himself and must rise to the occasion or see his friends, family and home suffer.

In a worlds where dragons are long extinct and magic is dwindling, this is more political than fantastical overall, but there is certainly enough in there to make it more than a historical fantasy.

This is book one of a duology, but I feel like it came to a pretty good stopping point where I don’t feel I need to rush out right away to read the second book, or (given it’s shorter length) like it was simply one book that was split in half.

Joe Manganiello is a fine reader, though nothing special. He neither adds nor detracts from the story at all.

Overall, I found this a fun and lighter book and I’m looking forward to listening to the conclusion soon.

Review by Rob Zak.