Storm Dragon by James Wyatt is the first book in a new trilogy called Draconic Prophecies. An interesting note about this novel, it is the first hard cover book set in the Eberron. Mr. Wyatt's first book in the Eberron world was titled In the Claws of the Tiger: War-Torn, Book 3 (War-Torn)and was part of the War-Torn series of stand alone novels. Based on the first novel by Mr. Wyatt, I had high hopes for this book as well. I am very pleased to say, I was not disappointed in the least. If this novel marks the quality of the rest of the trilogy then this has the makings of a superb series of novels.

The plot of this book is multi-faceted even in the simplest of terms. The main plot revolves around a prison escape of two convicts and the plans of each one of them. Being the title of the trilogy there is also much discussion and development of the Draconic Prophecy. Mr. Wyatt does a fantastic job when dealing with the prophecy. He never reveals more than a few lines of the jumbled prophecy at any one time, it is a very interesting, effective, way to deal with a prophecy in a novel. The two convicts that break out of Eberron's most secure prison are separate storylines in and of themselves as well. Gaven is the keeper of the prophecy due to events in the past that the reader learns about during the last quarter of the book. What having that prophecy in his head has done to him, and will do to him in the future, is an entirely different matter. Haldren, the mastermind behind the escape, has his own plans and motivation as well. Since the duo escaped from the super prison, there are many people hunting them, including four Dragon marked houses. There are still plot points I haven't discussed, but I will let you find those on your own. Suffice it to say that this novel is packed with plot, but it is never so packed that it drags the story down. It was obviously well thought out and I am curious to see where it takes us in the next two books.

The characters of this book, and there are many, are all well written and have their own voices. What I mean by that is; when one character talks it's evident who it is. The dialog is well written, it helps the characters become their own unique entities. The is truly a plethora of characters in this book, once I realized just how many there were, I was a little worried that some lesser characters would be lost in the shuffle. However, that was not the case in this novel, at no time did I feel like I didn't' know where a character was or what they were doing. I think that speaks volumes of how well Mr. Wyatt planned this novel out.

The one criticism I have about this novel is there are about three or four places where there are, what I can only call, time-jumps with little to no explanation. These jumps kind of take the reader by surprise as one minute the character is talking about doing something or going somewhere and the next paragraph they have accomplished everything they were just talking about. I am not sure if this was intentional, a victim of editing, or just what the case was, but it was something I noticed.

As with most, if not all, books that start a series or trilogy, this book is forced to provide a lot of information to the reader in a very short time. However, Mr. Wyatt does this in a way that it does not feel like an information dump. Rather he makes it feel as though the reader already knows these characters, and he is simply reminding us of what we already knew. When in fact, to my knowledge, this is the first time these characters have seen print. That is a major plus for this novel.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. Fans of the Eberron world will surely find the small pieces of information and background interesting. Fans of the fantasy genre should also enjoy this novel as there seems to be elements that will please everyone. With this novel, Mr. Wyatt has proven he will no doubt make a name for himself as a fantasy author. I, for one, hope his career is long and storied as his books are a joy to read. I can easily see myself recommending this novel to many, many people. ( )

Submitted by Bradley...
I liked this book. It is about magic, and could not be true.