Scan barcode
A review by chaoskirin
Nice Dragons Finish Last by Rachel Aaron
3.0
I liked this book, but I didn't love it. It's definitely a solid three stars and I'll read the other books in the series to see where it goes. Overall, if you like fantasy, you will probably enjoy this series. This is a review for the first three books. (Nice Dragons Finish Last, No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished, One Good Dragon Deserves Another)
This review will contain minor spoilers in order to justify my rating.
First, the good. The plot is absolutely solid and it's clear the the author had a good idea of what she was going to do before she wrote it. It has a very mobster-type feel which I would expect with the way the dragons are characterized. The writing is occasionally clever and the main character is likable, relatable, and I'm able to empathize with his situation. The author may be projecting a bit as Julius' situation can get a little heavy-handed, but the theme of a found family is definitely present and well-executed.
I love the world that's been created. I'm originally from Detroit, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that the entire first book takes place in a sort of ghost-town version of it. I can picture the descriptions of the houses (I used to work in an old mansion converted in to an office, in fact!) and it's pretty clear that the author is from Detroit, or at least spent a lot of time there. Sometimes it got a little name-droppy as far as locations were concerned, but I kept hoping the author would namedrop the place where I'm from, so it's a fair trade. XD (She did not, sadly, but it was still fun to read about.)
The spirits and how they exist is also very interesting. Algonquin is an amazing villain in the second and third books, and I can't wait to read more about her and the other spirits in the last two books.
There's also a great amount of action interspersed with the narrative, so that kept things interesting! Some books tend to either get lost in endless exposition or endless action sequences, but this book balances them very well.
Now for the not-so-good.
I picked up the first book expecting dragons. The title is "Nice Dragons Finish Last," after all, and while it's very clear from the description that the main character, Julius, is "sealed," I had hoped that there would be at least some mythological creature action. This is kept to an absolute minimum, though, in favor of dragons in their human shape. It's even a rather contrived "rule" in Detroit that dragons aren't allowed to be there. This trope has become outright cliche... I've been reading books for years and this was a common theme way back in the days of Dragonlance--take an incredibly powerful being and shove them into human shape, but add a coolness factor by calling them a dragon. (I wrote this part after the first book: there's much more ACTUAL dragon action in books 2 and 3. I still wish there was more.)
But they aren't really dragons. They think like humans, they act like humans, they seem to have the same emotions as humans... Except for another fantasy trope, which is taking every member of a species and shoving them into a single alignment (lawful evil in this case). Julius is the one exception, so it's a very Drizzt Do'urden situation and it's always been odd to me that every member of a species could be evil/good just because of what they are. (this is especially a problem with goblins and rampant antisemitism, but that's another discussion entirely.)
It's a problem that allows justified racism. If the entirety of one species is mean, it's really easy to make everyone hate them, and you lose the nuance of what real racism is. I would suggest that people not write about racism unless they've either experienced it or they've consulted with members of their community who have been the target of it. This becomes more of a problem in the second and third books when Julius is trying to prove that Not All Dragons Are Bad. And it becomes clear that both humans and spirits are very racist against dragons, but it completely lacks the reality of what racism really is. As one poster on tumblr said, "racism isn't just one species being mean to another."
Essentially, it puts all dragons on an uphill battle against everyone else, fails to become a proper allegory, and discards depth and warmth.
A small problem that I should mention is that sometimes plot points sort of fade? There was a situation where but it's never actually addressed. It sort of fizzles and ends and then everything moves on. It should have at least been mentioned and tied up.
Another problem is repetitiveness or filler text. When I'm going through beta reading for my books, I ask my readers to tell me ANY TIME they skim over text. When your readers are skimming, what you've written isn't interesting, and it has to be changed. I found myself doing this a lot in this book. I forced myself to read back and see what I've skimmed over, and it was usually information I'd already read being presented in a slightly different way. A better book would allow the readers to infer information without explaining it into the ground. These first three books also explain plans extensively before they're executed, which gets tiresome. It's enough to say that your protagonist HAS a plan, then let the text speak for itself. These planning phases were what I tended to skip the most.
I can supply one sample of repetitiveness without spoiling the story too badly: One of the main characters is talking with a dragon character about a plan at the beginning-ish of book 3. And breaking the text down to its basics, it goes like this:
Amelia: You have to.
Marci: I don't know...
Amelia: But you have to.
Marci: I don't know...
Amelia: You really should do this.
Marci: I don't know...
Amelia: It's a good idea.
Marci: Okay I'll do it.
Amelia: Are you sure?
Marci: Yes I'll do it.
Amelia: Are you sure???
And the argument became VERY spread out over the whole chapter, interspersed with the same explanation of why Marci Should Do The thing, most of which I ended up skimming to the part where Marci ultimately accepted Amelia's idea. It never read as a character being scared or undecided. It really read as an attempt to raise the word count.
Another chapter I skipped was in book 3 where two human characters had lunch with Marci. And as soon as it became clear they were discussing stuff Marci basically already knew, I just skipped the whole chapter. It was an unnecessary bit of writing that could have been summarized in one or two paragraphs instead. I went back and actually read it later so I could review fairly. I didn't miss anything.
(my examples are from the third book because I just finished it and it's the freshest in my mind, but this is an issue in the first two books as well.)
And where this, again, seems like a blatant attempt to increase the word count, there is a certain surface level of realism to it? The problem is that when readers have already figured out where something is going, they want to get there. Fade this realism to black if you have to. Summarize it in the text as something like "They discussed this until the sun started to set." I really wanted to like this series, so I pushed through.
As a writer, I had to realize that it's okay to cut events out when they're uninteresting. If I hate writing it, I can almost guarantee readers will hate reading it. It would have been so much nicer if repetitive elements were summarized instead of stretched out every single time they came up. You want to bring a character who doesn't Know The Thing up to speed? Then a single line that says something like "_____ brought ______ up to speed" is FINE. Your readers will know what you're talking about, and they'll thank you for truncating it.
Next, Marci.
I first want to state here that my PREFERENCE is writing female characters. Most of my characters are women. And I understand there are a lot of readers who outright dislike all female characters, but I'm not one of them. I feel like that's an important thing to state before going into more detail about my issues with Marci.
I wanted to read more of the series before posting this review, because I felt Marci was a shallow character after book one. She felt like a female character who was STRONG, but NOT a strong female character.
And through the first book, she felt like a prop to the other main character, Julius, instead of a character all her own. (And to be fair, her ENTIRE story from the first book is sort of... hand-waved in books 2 and 3.)
In the first book, Marci isn't really written with a story arc. She's a sort of deus ex machina for Julius; she appears into his life mysteriously as he's looking for a mage, first of all. And while it SEEMS that she does have her own arc, it becomes clear by the end of the story that she's only a catalyst for the dragons' stories.
This alone may have prevented me from reading the rest of the series, but I'm VERY glad I did--While Marci has a slow start, her story does pick up in the second and third books and she becomes much more likeable. She still feels like a prop at times (other characters refer to her as a even) but within that description, she's fighting her own battles and has become much less shallow.
I do wish she had more agency. I wish her decisions truly felt like hers, instead of the manipulations/machinations of those with higher power. But she's not the worst-written female character I've ever read, and the author makes it clear in the second and third books that she knows how to write good female characters (cough chelsie cough) so I can forgive Marci's shortcomings.
There's one Bad thing that I want to address, too, which mostly came up at the end of book 2 and throughout book 3. And this is a fairly major spoiler, I'm sorry. I'll put it behind a spoiler warning, but I recommend everyone read this even if they haven't read the book yet. Because it's also kind of a trigger/content warning.
And book 3 is FULL of Julius refusing to let his brothers and sisters kill anyone, even when it's justified. This has always been a trope that rankled... You can't write about a coup and then have nobody die. It suggests that genocidal dictators Can Change If You Give Them The Right Opportunities, and we all know from real life that that doesn't happen. Tyrannical people in power will fight to keep that power. They don't learn.
(The author does show that these people don't learn, but at the same time... Her main characters don't learn either. They don't see these murderous characters NOT learning and change their approach. Everyone gets to live, and everyone gets to keep some measure of power.)
I was so annoyed with Julius by the end of book 3, and the hoops the writing had to jump through to show his decision was good and right. To me, he read as naive and almost stupid. And (VERY major spoiler here, just stop reading if you don't want the end of book 3 spoiled!) ... Julius' mother had enslaved his sister for hundreds of years. When the sister was released, she immediately tried to kill her mother.
This would have justified ALL of Julius' actions up until that point if he'd just LET HER. The mother (Bethesda) hurt Chelsie the most out of ANY of her children. It would have been a PERFECT way to allow Chelsie to get her well-deserved revenge AND end the problem of Bethesda (who REALLY deserves to die.) And Julius made her stop, because That's Not How We're Doing Things Anymore.
I don't like that Bethesda is effectively not paying for the thousands of atrocities she committed over the last thousand years because the main character is a pacifist. It just doesn't sit right. And IDK if the author is building to Bethesda's death in the last couple books or not, but letting Chelsie kill her would have been the PERFECT end, and I'm really disappointed. No end for Bethesda would have been better than that.
I think some writers tend to make pacifists into doormats. And this series is a great example of this.
Anyway.
As I said at the beginning of this review, I still recommend reading the series. It's a really interesting urban fantasy-type book, and while it crosses into YA territory, the fantasy aspect is interesting enough to keep me reading.
This review will contain minor spoilers in order to justify my rating.
First, the good. The plot is absolutely solid and it's clear the the author had a good idea of what she was going to do before she wrote it. It has a very mobster-type feel which I would expect with the way the dragons are characterized. The writing is occasionally clever and the main character is likable, relatable, and I'm able to empathize with his situation. The author may be projecting a bit as Julius' situation can get a little heavy-handed, but the theme of a found family is definitely present and well-executed.
I love the world that's been created. I'm originally from Detroit, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that the entire first book takes place in a sort of ghost-town version of it. I can picture the descriptions of the houses (I used to work in an old mansion converted in to an office, in fact!) and it's pretty clear that the author is from Detroit, or at least spent a lot of time there. Sometimes it got a little name-droppy as far as locations were concerned, but I kept hoping the author would namedrop the place where I'm from, so it's a fair trade. XD (She did not, sadly, but it was still fun to read about.)
The spirits and how they exist is also very interesting. Algonquin is an amazing villain in the second and third books, and I can't wait to read more about her and the other spirits in the last two books.
There's also a great amount of action interspersed with the narrative, so that kept things interesting! Some books tend to either get lost in endless exposition or endless action sequences, but this book balances them very well.
Now for the not-so-good.
I picked up the first book expecting dragons. The title is "Nice Dragons Finish Last," after all, and while it's very clear from the description that the main character, Julius, is "sealed," I had hoped that there would be at least some mythological creature action. This is kept to an absolute minimum, though, in favor of dragons in their human shape. It's even a rather contrived "rule" in Detroit that dragons aren't allowed to be there. This trope has become outright cliche... I've been reading books for years and this was a common theme way back in the days of Dragonlance--take an incredibly powerful being and shove them into human shape, but add a coolness factor by calling them a dragon. (I wrote this part after the first book: there's much more ACTUAL dragon action in books 2 and 3. I still wish there was more.)
But they aren't really dragons. They think like humans, they act like humans, they seem to have the same emotions as humans... Except for another fantasy trope, which is taking every member of a species and shoving them into a single alignment (lawful evil in this case). Julius is the one exception, so it's a very Drizzt Do'urden situation and it's always been odd to me that every member of a species could be evil/good just because of what they are. (this is especially a problem with goblins and rampant antisemitism, but that's another discussion entirely.)
It's a problem that allows justified racism. If the entirety of one species is mean, it's really easy to make everyone hate them, and you lose the nuance of what real racism is. I would suggest that people not write about racism unless they've either experienced it or they've consulted with members of their community who have been the target of it. This becomes more of a problem in the second and third books when Julius is trying to prove that Not All Dragons Are Bad. And it becomes clear that both humans and spirits are very racist against dragons, but it completely lacks the reality of what racism really is. As one poster on tumblr said, "racism isn't just one species being mean to another."
Essentially, it puts all dragons on an uphill battle against everyone else, fails to become a proper allegory, and discards depth and warmth.
A small problem that I should mention is that sometimes plot points sort of fade? There was a situation where
Spoiler
Julius' mom visits and Julius was very mean to Marci, and she was very upset about that,Another problem is repetitiveness or filler text. When I'm going through beta reading for my books, I ask my readers to tell me ANY TIME they skim over text. When your readers are skimming, what you've written isn't interesting, and it has to be changed. I found myself doing this a lot in this book. I forced myself to read back and see what I've skimmed over, and it was usually information I'd already read being presented in a slightly different way. A better book would allow the readers to infer information without explaining it into the ground. These first three books also explain plans extensively before they're executed, which gets tiresome. It's enough to say that your protagonist HAS a plan, then let the text speak for itself. These planning phases were what I tended to skip the most.
I can supply one sample of repetitiveness without spoiling the story too badly: One of the main characters is talking with a dragon character about a plan at the beginning-ish of book 3. And breaking the text down to its basics, it goes like this:
Amelia: You have to.
Marci: I don't know...
Amelia: But you have to.
Marci: I don't know...
Amelia: You really should do this.
Marci: I don't know...
Amelia: It's a good idea.
Marci: Okay I'll do it.
Amelia: Are you sure?
Marci: Yes I'll do it.
Amelia: Are you sure???
And the argument became VERY spread out over the whole chapter, interspersed with the same explanation of why Marci Should Do The thing, most of which I ended up skimming to the part where Marci ultimately accepted Amelia's idea. It never read as a character being scared or undecided. It really read as an attempt to raise the word count.
Another chapter I skipped was in book 3 where two human characters had lunch with Marci. And as soon as it became clear they were discussing stuff Marci basically already knew, I just skipped the whole chapter. It was an unnecessary bit of writing that could have been summarized in one or two paragraphs instead. I went back and actually read it later so I could review fairly. I didn't miss anything.
(my examples are from the third book because I just finished it and it's the freshest in my mind, but this is an issue in the first two books as well.)
And where this, again, seems like a blatant attempt to increase the word count, there is a certain surface level of realism to it? The problem is that when readers have already figured out where something is going, they want to get there. Fade this realism to black if you have to. Summarize it in the text as something like "They discussed this until the sun started to set." I really wanted to like this series, so I pushed through.
As a writer, I had to realize that it's okay to cut events out when they're uninteresting. If I hate writing it, I can almost guarantee readers will hate reading it. It would have been so much nicer if repetitive elements were summarized instead of stretched out every single time they came up. You want to bring a character who doesn't Know The Thing up to speed? Then a single line that says something like "_____ brought ______ up to speed" is FINE. Your readers will know what you're talking about, and they'll thank you for truncating it.
Next, Marci.
I first want to state here that my PREFERENCE is writing female characters. Most of my characters are women. And I understand there are a lot of readers who outright dislike all female characters, but I'm not one of them. I feel like that's an important thing to state before going into more detail about my issues with Marci.
I wanted to read more of the series before posting this review, because I felt Marci was a shallow character after book one. She felt like a female character who was STRONG, but NOT a strong female character.
And through the first book, she felt like a prop to the other main character, Julius, instead of a character all her own. (And to be fair, her ENTIRE story from the first book is sort of... hand-waved in books 2 and 3.)
In the first book, Marci isn't really written with a story arc. She's a sort of deus ex machina for Julius; she appears into his life mysteriously as he's looking for a mage, first of all. And while it SEEMS that she does have her own arc, it becomes clear by the end of the story that she's only a catalyst for the dragons' stories.
Spoiler
The thing she's protecting eventually ends up in the hands of the dragons; she's essentially just a walking suitcase for them. She's a roadblock for the villains. And there's not even a true explanation of Why She Has The Thing They Want except that it's really cool and she wants it.This alone may have prevented me from reading the rest of the series, but I'm VERY glad I did--While Marci has a slow start, her story does pick up in the second and third books and she becomes much more likeable. She still feels like a prop at times (other characters refer to her as a
Spoiler
"weapon"I do wish she had more agency. I wish her decisions truly felt like hers, instead of the manipulations/machinations of those with higher power. But she's not the worst-written female character I've ever read, and the author makes it clear in the second and third books that she knows how to write good female characters (cough chelsie cough) so I can forgive Marci's shortcomings.
There's one Bad thing that I want to address, too, which mostly came up at the end of book 2 and throughout book 3. And this is a fairly major spoiler, I'm sorry. I'll put it behind a spoiler warning, but I recommend everyone read this even if they haven't read the book yet. Because it's also kind of a trigger/content warning.
Spoiler
You don't give a tyrannical dictator power after you defeat her. You just don't. Julius could have banished his mother if he refused to kill her. He could have let someone else kill her. He could have done any number of things. But the first thing he does is give her a seat on the new council and is just like "yes you still get to make decisions." And as you can imagine, this goes very wrong.And book 3 is FULL of Julius refusing to let his brothers and sisters kill anyone, even when it's justified. This has always been a trope that rankled... You can't write about a coup and then have nobody die. It suggests that genocidal dictators Can Change If You Give Them The Right Opportunities, and we all know from real life that that doesn't happen. Tyrannical people in power will fight to keep that power. They don't learn.
(The author does show that these people don't learn, but at the same time... Her main characters don't learn either. They don't see these murderous characters NOT learning and change their approach. Everyone gets to live, and everyone gets to keep some measure of power.)
I was so annoyed with Julius by the end of book 3, and the hoops the writing had to jump through to show his decision was good and right. To me, he read as naive and almost stupid. And (VERY major spoiler here, just stop reading if you don't want the end of book 3 spoiled!) ... Julius' mother had enslaved his sister for hundreds of years. When the sister was released, she immediately tried to kill her mother.
This would have justified ALL of Julius' actions up until that point if he'd just LET HER. The mother (Bethesda) hurt Chelsie the most out of ANY of her children. It would have been a PERFECT way to allow Chelsie to get her well-deserved revenge AND end the problem of Bethesda (who REALLY deserves to die.) And Julius made her stop, because That's Not How We're Doing Things Anymore.
I don't like that Bethesda is effectively not paying for the thousands of atrocities she committed over the last thousand years because the main character is a pacifist. It just doesn't sit right. And IDK if the author is building to Bethesda's death in the last couple books or not, but letting Chelsie kill her would have been the PERFECT end, and I'm really disappointed. No end for Bethesda would have been better than that.
I think some writers tend to make pacifists into doormats. And this series is a great example of this.
Anyway.
As I said at the beginning of this review, I still recommend reading the series. It's a really interesting urban fantasy-type book, and while it crosses into YA territory, the fantasy aspect is interesting enough to keep me reading.