Book Review: The Dragon Orb

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Those who know me are all aware of the fact that I rarely give low ratings. Because I don't want to be mean and do damage to the author. I always take the book off from my shelves if it was an ARC and neither rate it nor review it. But I do rate and review books that I buy. And this here was one of them.

I bought it a while back because of the lovely cover and cool title. Because it has dragons!! And dragons are my thing! I love everything about them and will try to read every book that has them.

Unfortunately however, it was a disappointment.



The premise is great. A kingdom in danger and a group of youngsters embarking on a dangerous quest to save it. Wizards and powerful magic, friendship and adventure, political intrigue and a whole lot of action, and of course a dragon - this book has it all.
Unfortunately however, the execution is lacking.

The plot is tight and the pacing is good, but the story is quite predictable and falls flat because of way too much tell instead of show. We are expected to believe what we're being told, without making our own impressions.

The characters are cardboard, ranging from Mary Sue/Stue to spoiled brats. And don't even let me get started on the arrogance some of them exude. I wouldn't want any of my kids taking them for a role model. That's for sure.

And inconsistencies abound.
The fight scenes are great at times but either clumsy or eye-rolling at others. In one particular instance I read one of those fight scenes out loud to my husband and kiddo to see if I was getting it wrong.
It turns out I wasn't and their reactions were something like:
Hubby: "Wait! How can she do this when she was holding that?"
11 year old son: "Is she an octopus with extra magic hands?"

The magic is fabulous but over the top powerful at times while spectacularly failing at others. Wizards seem to be practically godlike in power at times, while completely helpless at others - despite all those cool powers.

Female characters seemed to be introduced into the story only to abruptly die for no apparent reason (unless we consider a boy's romantic interest as a reason that is). I personally found that a little bit off-putting to say the least.

Then there's the dragon I was so eager to meet, who proved to be a disappointment too in the end. And that should say something coming from a huge dragon fan like me.
This must be the first dragon ever that I did NOT like!

All in all, this just didn't work for me and I would not recommend it.

Check out this book and more of Mike Shelton over at http://www.twitter.com/msheltonbooks