Stephen S. PowerReseñas

I'm certain there's the right reader out there for this book, but that reader is definitely not me. I felt like the characters were weak and the plot read more like strung together short stories than a novel. Overall, I didn't like any of the characters and the narrative didn't feel compelling; instead, reading this book felt more like a chore. I truly hope someone out there enjoyed this book more than I did.

Just not interesting or engaging. Gave up after 40 some pages.

Well, THAT was depressing! I don't know if I am missing a larger metaphor but the main lesson seems to be 'revenge is bad' and everyone dies. It had some very interesting characters, all but one dies, and some interesting world building - at first. Then it get super gory and depressing and most everyone dies. The end.

2.5 Stars

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First, I want to say that I completely love the cover. The colours work wonderful and it immediately caught my eye and would certainly also do so in a book store. Yes, I'll even admit I wanted to read this book mainly because I liked the cover so much. At least I'm honest about it.

After an encounter with a dragon a mutiny takes place that leaves Captain Jeryon and his apothecary in a small boat on a very large ocean. Stranded on a small island and obviously frustrated about the situation, he's plotting his revenge. His bloody revenge.

I had high expectations, because besides the cover there was much more to like about the book. Ships, dragons and the like! Unfortunately, however, the main part of the book is not focusing on survival, but on revenge. The Dragon Round follows the revenge he has planned for each and everyone that was on the original ship. Individually. So, the story moves from one to another revenge plot, which in the end, I'm sorry to say, just got boring. And that with the final revenge being on a very, very large scale (one might have even said overreacting).

But if you like to read about revenge (a lot) this is the book for you. The world certainly is interesting.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I’d like to think that I keep up with new released in my favorite genres. But with so many new books released every year a few are sure to slip through the cracks. The Dragon Round by Stephen S. Power is one of them. The book jumped out at me when I was perusing the new acquisitions shelves at the library, but not for the reasons you might think. It wasn’t the beautiful cover design, nor was it the dragon in the title. (While I love dragons, it isn’t a make or break thing for me in the fantasy I read.)

Funnily enough, the author’s name was close enough to an old elementary school teacher of mine to make me do a double take. Even more ironically, the author’s bio in the back of the book states that he lives only a few towns away from me. I’d never heard of this author before, which was odd both because Power is a local author and because his work was previously nominated for a Pushcart Prize. So, I decided it was only fair – nay, my duty! – that I read the book.

The Dragon Round is a tale the promises swashbuckling seafaring adventure and dragons. It delivers on both these fronts, and that’s just the beginning. The story follows Jeryon, a veteran captain of a shipping conglomerate, and Everlyn, the ship’s healer and apothecary. After a dragon attack and a mutiny, Jeryon and Everlyn find themselves in a small boat adrift in the ocean. But there’s a little more than they bargained for on the island they stumble across. While devoid of people, there are dragons there. And, just maybe, the baby dragon they find can be trained.

Let me tell you something you may not know about me. I read a hell of a lot of the old swashbuckling adventure stories when I was in middle school. I went through a real pirate phase. I mean, if you asked me who my favorite literary character was when I was ten I’d probably have told you Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island, probably not something you’d hear from every ten year old. On the swashbuckling, seafaring adventure front, the story doesn’t disappoint. The book opens at sea aboard the ship Comber. We meet many of the crew at once – the captain, mates, apothecary. The main characters are the captain and apothecary, but the others are no less important, flitting through the pages of the story sometimes long after you think their portions are done.

There is a good amount of ship language, for lack of a better term. Power doesn’t shy away from using technically terms for things and expects the reader to keep up. I enjoyed this aspect a lot. It’s been a long time since I’ve read any seafaring adventure story, and it brought back a lot of good memories. However, I can see people who haven’t read anything involving old sailing ships before getting a bit annoyed or perhaps lost while reading. If this is the case for you, I would definitely suggest getting the e-book version of this story. (The look up definition function on my Kindle has definitely saved me in similar situations before.)

The second third of the book takes place after Jeryon, and Everlyn when she refuses to go along with the plan, are given ‘The Captain’s Chance’ – set adrift in a small boat with no food or water in the hopes that maybe the ocean will have mercy on them. After much woe and tribulation, they are washed up on a small island. I really enjoyed this section of the book. I’ve read and liked other books where the characters were stranded on a deserted island, but this one in particular I was impressed with. No other author has made me terrified of crabs before. No other author has shown the issues of taming or training a dragon in so realistic colors.

The relationship between Jeryon and Everlyn was also wonderful. Unlike most other authors who would take the opportunity to have the two form a romantic relationship takes another, and in my opinion more realistic, approach. These two, who were little more than coworkers before, form a partnership of sorts. It’s a slow road to friendship, but the two learn to survive together. I can’t describe how refreshing it was to see two adults of the opposite sex forced into a situation where they rely on each other to become friends instead of lovers. It made the book feel more relatable, the characters more human, and the story better.

This aspect permeated not just their relationship with each other, but how they trained their baby dragon as well. Two very different styles of training were presented, the two often butting heads over what would or would not work. We get to see the issues which arise from both, and, again, I enjoyed this section a lot.

The last third of the book is how Jeryon and Everlyn escape the island, and Jeryon’s long journey as he seeks justice. This is the section where I had a little trouble.

The characters we were introduced to on the ship begin to filter back into the story. We are suddenly moved to their perspective, able to see what has become of them almost two years on from that fateful day when the story opened. It was quite interesting to see Jeryon’s actions both from his enemies point of view and his own. We get to see the line between justice and revenge straddled. Often, the reader is left to make their own decisions on what Jeryon’s actions mean, if he is accomplishing his goal, or accomplishing anything at all.

Where I had the most trouble, though, is when we finally reach Livion’s point of view. We are transported to a city spoken of previously in the text yet never visited. And, suddenly, a whole host of characters are introduced. Jeryon isn’t in it half as much as I expected. Even worse, Everlyn is left out almost entirely, only getting a few pages here and there and a very brief mention at the end.

I found Livion an interesting character. I wanted to learn more about him, and happily followed his perspective. However, I couldn’t really bring myself to care about many of the other characters whose perspective I was suddenly thrust into.

The story began to feel different here. The city is on edge, a war brewing on the boarders. I liked being able to see the stark contrast between Jeryon and Livion – how one’s search for justice and revenge is playing itself out and how the other has moved on, and the rest of the world with him. Yet, the things that made me love the first two thirds were largely missing – the established main characters felt more like secondary characters, there were no boats, no swashbuckling, and even the dragon aspect was mentioned only as rumors by unreliable sailors.

On top of that, I wasn’t satisfied with the ending. Important events were relayed so quickly as to feel almost glossed over. One character who’s fate I really wanted and expected to learn of was never mentioned again despite being a rather central character. Everlyn was mentioned within the closing paragraphs, but I got no real sense of closure from her story line. To be honest, I didn’t really get a good sense of closure from the story at all.

In the end, I wound up giving this story fewer stars than I really expected to upon reading the opening chapters. It seems as if this is the start of a series, which can explain some of the plot lines left open at the end of this book. And you know? I would read the next book in the series. Power’s prose is lovely, his world incredibly fleshed out, and I would love a bit more closure for several of the characters. If you like books involving dragons, you probably want to pick this title up. If you don’t like seafaring stories, or stories that use a lot of technical jargon, this one may not be the one for you.

I received a copy of The Dragon Round from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. The Dragon Round by Stephen S. Power is a story about mutiny and revenge. I found this story to be intriguing and full of suspense. It is written well, and the characters are very vivid. I'm looking forward to the next installment in this series.

Mutiny happens when ambitious mates see a way to steal a ship from its captain. After a dragon attack, the ship is in disarray and a scheme is formed to dump the captain and haul the valuable corpse of the dragon back to their company. A plague in their land was to be cured by their cargo, making it critical no time is lost returning. Still they stop and render the dragon. The captain is locked up. The healer objects . After the cargo is loaded, the captain and apothecary are left behind in a dinghy with no food, water, sails or oars to die at sea. Somehow they make it to an island where they find food water and a baby dragon. So ends the first half which really impressed me. During this episode circumstances define their chooses, limiting what they can do.
The second half concerns those who abandoned Jeryon and Everlyn. How a lie and the greed of the owners made them heroes. How the greed grew and grew until that was all that was left-tjhe bottom line. This second half made me very sad. Although I loved this book, if it hadn't had the epilogue to offer hope, I probably would have closed it and never looked at it again.
This author has that very rare ability to evoke strong emotion in the reader. The characters and setting are believable. Actions cause realistic reactions and I can't see any part of this book as YA. I recommend this to anyone who wants to read a good story. Look forward to more.
I received this book free for a review. Thanks to the author, Simon & Schuster and Netgalley.

The Dragon Round is a fantasy tale in which a honest Captain of a sailing ship was sent out to sea with one other person, without oars, water, food, or sail by a mutinous crew. The two were sent afloat and came upon an island and were able to survive. They found an orphaned dragon hatchling and adopted and cared for her. Jeryon, the Captain, plans to use her in his plans to get revenge on the crew using the dragon. The rest of the book, after the dragon grows up, is revenge based and loses it's attraction for me. Up to this point it was very interesting. I won't give any spoilers but I always hope authors would be true to their characters in their story, which is not the case here. The plot was fair, characters were good. Ending was unexpected and disappointing. Not likely to read sequel. Received this book for honest review.

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster as well as NetGalley for a copy of this e-ARC to review. Though I received this ebook for free, that has no impact upon the honesty of my review.

Goodreads Teaser: "For fans of Scott Lynch and Naomi Novik comes a high fantasy epic that blends swashbuckling adventure with a dark tale of vengeance--when a ship captain is stranded on a deserted island by his mutinous crew, he finds a rare dragon egg that just might be the key to his salvation and his revenge.

He only wanted justice. Instead he got revenge.

Jeryon has been the captain of the Comber for over a decade. He knows the rules. He follows the rules. He likes the rules. But not everyone on his ship agrees. When a monstrous dragon attacks the Comber, his surviving crew, vengeful and battle-worn, decide to take the ship for themselves and give Jeryon and his self-righteous apothecary “the captain’s chance:” a small boat with no rudder, no sails, and nothing but the shirts on their backs to survive.

Marooned and fighting for their lives against the elements, Jeryon and his companion discover that the island they’ve landed on isn’t quite as deserted as they originally thought. They find a rare baby dragon that, if trained, just might be their ticket off the island. But as Jeryon and the dragon grow closer, he begins to realize that even if he makes it off the island, his life will never be the same again. In order for justice to be served, he’ll have to take it for himself."

This story began pretty much as expected but turned down a different path than expected somewhere along the way. And I find the direction it went was interesting to say the least, especially the ending, which shocked the heck out of me (and that's not easily done).

Jeryon is a fairly straightforward character, a by the book kind of man. Which sadly doesn't serve him well. Luckily he learns from his mistakes, eventually. He seems to be a traditional sailor, and doesn't think much of women. So imagine his feelings when he ends up with his ship in mutiny; a mutiny that ends with he and the female apothecary surviving "the captain's chance" only to be stranded on an island far outside any shipping lanes. Luckily for him Everlyn, also known as "poth," is a strong woman in every way, maybe to strong for him, especially as he hasn't had any real contact with women in years by choice.

Much of this story revolves around Jeryon and Everlyn during their time on the island. First their initial struggle for basic survival, then discovering the newly hatched dragon. Their shared struggles and training of Gray, their dragon, developers into a strong bond between all three. But all good things must come to an end. And since Gray can only carry one rider at a time, they aren't both getting off the island together. While testing Gray's limits Jeryon is offered the chance he's been dreaming of for years, justice. He sees one of his old crew, now the captain of his own ship. It's at this point the story shifts once again. Justice, or revenge, is never as satisfying in reality as it is in theory. A lesson Jeryon learns in spades.

The pacing of the story is nice and smooth, with everything moving at a solid speed and not getting to hung up in developing heavy backstory or world building. Combine that with well crafted characters and a strong plot and you end up with one compelling read. It left me more than anxious for the next book to be in my hands immediately, if not sooner. So I sure hope you're busy writing the sequel already Mr. Power!