Dragon's Treasure by Elizabeth A. Lynn
01/09/2004 . Source: Donna Jones 
pub: Ace. 325 page hardback. Price: $23.95 (US), $35.00 (CAN). ISBN: 0-441-01196-9. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check
out website: www.penguin.com
Normally, round about here, I tell you what the book is about and give a soundbite
version of the full story. Unfortunately, part of the problem with this very
strangely written piece is that I cannot honestly say I understand the motivations
of the story.
There is a dragon that is actually a changeling
who spends most of his time as a man. He is in love with a minstrel and partakes
in a homosexual relationship, but he also loves a woman that is the daughter of
the woman that his father had an affair with.
Maia, whom Golden Dragon loves, has a brother which we are led to believe
is the bastard son of Golden Dragon's father, Black Dragon. Treion the
Bastard as he calls himself vows to avenge his mother because she marries another
lord who is a mean tyrannical man, so Treion decides to trailblaze through
his land thieving and raping as he goes.
That doesn't even cover a tiny amount of the full story, but to try to do this
would end in several pages of trying to untie a knotted ball of wool. It's as
if the book doesn't know where it wants to take a single thread and the novel
meanders along a path that is as bland as treadmill walking.
The story claims to be a romance, yet we very rarely see any sign of romance.
It is a fantasy with a despot dragon overlording humans, but there is very little
to actually make the reader dislike Dragon as he comes across as a pussycat.
He isn't technically even the lord of the whole realm. The novel's sex scenes
are awful, they are much like the rest of the book. Poorly drawn and inadequate
in purpose.
One of the characters, Hawk, is a changeling and can hear other minds.
She actually comes across as a female version of the Hawk in the TV version
of 'Buck Rogers', tacky and deplorable. Other characters are severely flawed.
For one thing, we have two that have the same name because of the lack of their
description and portrayal, you cannot really decipher who is who apart from
the main players.
The novel'scharacters are shallow. They are drawn in a stark almost naive way
that doesn't engage the reader, their speech and inner feelings are contrivances.
A four-year old boy comes across as much more of an eight-year old and, had
we not been told, near the end, that he was so young I would never have known.
The names of characters are just silly, Edric Edricson and Angelo
Angelino. Characters are named twice to add to the confusion, Karadur
Atani aka Dragon for one and Terrill Chernico aka Hawk
for another.
I can't honestly encourage anyone to read this book. There is nothing good
I can say about it and sadly cannot even pretend that this was a missed opportunity.
Maybe if the threads were separated and made into two books it might have worked
although it wouldn't change the fact that there really isn't a story to engage
readers here, no matter how it is presented.
I'd just like to ask if this book is a joke? No, seriously, it comes across
as a blatantly badly written book with no direction and little flare for the
trade of storytelling.
Donna Jones 
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