SEASON OF THE DRAGON, the first installment in Natalie Wright’s the Dragos Primeri series, is set in the world of Menauld, in which mages, dragons, and Nixans – shapeshifting beings – form integral parts of the social strata. Quen, the hero, may well be one of the latter. Born with the distinctive markings of a Nixan, and possessing their swift reflexes (among other things), she tarries with her father tanning hides for a living; but when a Nixan demands Quen is turned over to her as part of a contract signed long ago between Quen’s mother and the creature, Quen’s father refuses to abide by it, and is burned to death by dragon fire. Even as she agonizes over having had the truth withheld from her by her father, Quen is heartbroken, and begins her quest for revenge.
Though it seems odd to say of a novel topping out at almost 500 pages, Wright’s expository writing is clipped and economical. But the work really shines when it comes to dialog. Characters’ voices are distinctive, and regional accents and dialects are by and large well realized. But there is also a wealth of expository detail to be found in the dialog itself – the patient description by one character to Quen of the “gib-rig”, a contraption we would recognize as a hot-air balloon, is one of many such delights.
Still, there is the odd wrinkle. With a world so intricately presented as this, the trappings can come across as idiosyncratic and arcane unless the reader is acclimatized to them swiftly. Wright is aware of this, and makes efforts to provide terms and names that allow the reader to intuit, or to infer the meaning from context. Still, the sheer number of world-specific titles, honorifics, and names for things is so great that it can be difficult to keep track of them all; the thirty pages of appendices, including a dramatis personae, glossary, and an explanation of the universe’s theology and magic are indispensable. Once this is overcome, however, SEASON OF THE DRAGON reveals Quen’s world to be a rich, heady, and exciting place – and Quen herself as a strong-minded, willful, and sympathetic hero. As an exemplar of serious sword-and-sorcery fantasy, SEASON OF THE DRAGON can hardly be bettered.
Beautifully realized and brimming with detail, Natalie Wright’s fantasy epic SEASON OF THE DRAGON offers a delightful take on the vengeful child trope.
~Craig Jones for IndieReader