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published 1997; hardback 1997, DAW Books
King's Dragon begins badly. The title itself has nothing to do with the rest of the story (or at least only vaguely so), and the prologue, as well as the first few chapters, are quite hard to get into. How the prologue ties in to the rest of the story isn't explained until halfway through the novel, leading the reader trying to grasp at what's happening. The story improves after the reader meets up with the two main characters, Liath and Alain.
The book weaves the tale of Liath and Alain's two separate paths in the same fantasy land together. Liath's father is a sorcerer who has been on the run with his daughter for years. When he is killed Liath is sold to pay off his debts, to a local churchman who wants her magical knowledge, both what she has been taught and that contained in her father's book of sorcery, which she has hidden.
Alain seems to be the simple younger son of a man in a northern village, but when he is taken in for a year of service at a local count's castle, he proves to be something else entirely. One of the best parts of the story was Alain's interaction with Count Lavastine's hounds and a captured barbarian prince. It's obvious the author means for Alain's releasing of the prince to have large repercussions later in the series.
Both characters end up on large (and quite separate) battlefields, where they play heroic parts and lose new friends. Alain's storyline is the better written, with the characters more clearly defined and worth caring about. In Liath's story, on the other hand, my understanding of the characters was murky; when they died, I was uncertain why I should care about them. The way Liath quickly falls in love with the King's bastard son, Sanglant, is unconvincing, and the way he reciprocates is just as unbelievable. Her fear of the man who bought her after her father's death is also strange when the character doesn't reappear during the book. I'll have to assume that he will reappear sometime in a later book.
Because of the ending, I'll be waiting for the next book in the Crown of Stars series, but I hope that Kate Elliott will take more time with her emotions, characters, and solutions. The evil people also could be slightly more evil.
Review by Catherine George
Reviewed February 15, 1998
ISBN 0886777275
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