City in the Dragon’s Eye by Jordan Loyal Short

Blurb:

Red Dragons. Black Comedy. White-Knuckled Adventure.

Viktor’s magic is turning him into a dragon. And it’snotpretty.

To save his friends who've bumbled into a deadly ambush, Viktor draws too deeply on the power of the Dragon Well, and now a magical tumor has begun to change him...one scale at a time.

Viktor sets off on an irreverent quest for a cure that will lead him to a remote sanitarium. Here, he will uncover a mad doctor’s strange experiments, a stubborn dwarf with stinky feet, and rumors of an ancient mirror that may hold the key to Viktor’s very survival.

As a mustache-twiddling secret society of dragon fanatics closes in, Viktor must choose between the power his transformation offers, and the hope of finding a cure.

To the fabled Tyrant’s Tomb, Viktor races the mysterious Thule Society, where deadly traps and cryptic puzzles protect a treasure of unspeakable power. With every heartbeat the tumor’s corruption spreads. Can a court dandy and a disgraced scholar help Viktor find his cure? Or is it too late to save the city from a mad doctor’s dark designs?

Review:

Oh boy, it's been a while since I've sat down to write a book review. Life kinda got away from me at some point. This book was sent to me last year, however I still remember most of it, especially the warning the author gave me about the amount of crude jokes in the book. Where to begin with this novel?

If I had to describe this book to anyone interested, I'd give them this short descriptor:

“Viktor overused magic in war, now he's paying the toll, until he finds out about a possible way out. And then things start going awry.”,

and if they are interested in more, I’d pull this book and a dragon figurine out and attempt to explain how and why I liked this book.

To start off, let's talk about Viktor, the main character of this novel. He’s introduced as a member of this book's military, and when push comes to shove, he used his magic to protect his comrades. Then he gets sent home and everyone questions what happened to him. And since he wanted to get rid of the affliction, so to speak, he tries to find a way out by going to a sanitarium. What does that tell us, the readers, about his character? This shows that he wasn’t resigned to his fate, and furthermore, shows that he was driven enough to go about finding a way out. I liked how Viktors inquisitive nature led him down the road this book follows in an uncontrived way.

From there, the story, the plot? Think roaring twenties, but with dragon supremacists who are hell-bent on taking things over. Viktor is just an unfortunate, or fortunate, depending on how you look at his role in the story, cog in the machine who, once he learns about a potential way out of his curse, starts throwing the Thule society (the dragon supremacists) society for a loop. Shenanigans ensue. Magik is tossed about, and there are zeppelins. About halfway through the book, things are more akin to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, while still keeping the world more or less in the steampunk twenties. The plot and story move along well with each other, with no real hiccups between the two, which keeps it enjoyable.

As for the magic system in this book, at least focused on the dragon magic, the law of equivalent exchange is in effect. Use a little magic and things are fineish, one loses some strength, maybe one needs to go to bed earlier than normal. Use too much and it’s like handling an unknown chemical in a lab that may or may not kill you. And the way that people who don’t touch magic fear the unknown, once someone goes scaly, they become an outcast, a pariah of sorts.

If I had to critique one thing about this book, it’d be about the massive amounts of adult humor the author warned me about in the beginning of the book. However, if you are okay with that part, it's an enjoyable read, and if you are a history nerd, you can see parallels to our own world in this one.

All in all, if you really like dragon curses, secret society attempts at world domination and a bit of Indiana Jones, this novel is for you.

As always, if you are reading this,  thank you for reading my long overdue review for “The City in the Dragon’s Eye”, and I hope I’ve helped you decide on a new book to add to that ever expanding TBR list. If not, don’t fret., we here at SFF Insiders have a variety of reviews ranging from historical fiction mixed with a lot of fantasy like this one to reviews about space operas that conclude in dramatic ways by the end. Usually I’d toss in a link to a random review on the site around here, but since I am on a flight that lost its ability to perceive the internet, I cannot do so, but once I get off the flight, random review links will pop up in the end of my sometimes rambling reviews again.

Wherever you are reading this, have a wonderful good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night.