Book Review: ‘The Rage Of Dragons’

Review by Lauryn Angel

Evan Winter’s debut novel, The Rage of Dragons, is described as “Game of Thrones meets Gladiator.” This is a pretty accurate description, but I, for one, would have preferred a bit more Game of Thrones and a lot less Gladiator.

The novel opens in the midst of a battle scene that takes place approximately 200 years before the action of the novel. As novel openings go, it’s a great one, putting the reader in the middle of game-changing battle in an epic war. There’s a lot of world building in this epilogue – we learn about the Omehi power structure, the Gifted, and the Enraged.

Then the story flashes forward to our protagonist, Tau Tafari. Tau is a common-blood, being trained as a warrior in the endless war. He knows his destiny is to be battle-fodder, but he has a plan to escape this destiny, marry his beloved, and become a farmer. This plan is never realized, as a noble makes an example of his family, murdering his father. Tau then devotes himself to vengeance, training to become an elite warrior in order to better place himself to achieve his revenge.

The novel is best when it focuses on the war and politics of the Omehi. Unfortunately, the middle third of the novel focuses on Tau’s training with Scale Jayyed. While this section does much to show Tau’s character and his dedication to revenge, there are only so many practice skirmishes I can read before I start to get bored and wonder how many pages are left in the book. That being said, I enjoyed the first and last thirds of the book quite a bit. I realize that there are readers who enjoy military fantasy with repeated battles. It’s just not my cup of tea – especially as I read hundreds of pages a day. Perhaps if I only read a chapter a day, these scenes wouldn’t feel as repetitive, but I really wanted more of the politics and more character development beyond battle skills.

That being said, I will read the next book in the cycle, as I’m curious as to whether Tau achieves revenge and whether the Omehi manage to break the cycle of war.