Dragon Companion
(Callander's Dragon series, Book 1)
Don Callander
Eastland Press
Fiction, Fantasy
*
DESCRIPTION: Librarian Tom Whitehead was sitting on a subway train, minding his own business, when he finds himself suddenly and inexplicably transported to a magical world. A dragon, Retruance Constable, finds him and takes him to the locals, who are elves. To them, humans are the myth, but Tom is accepted into the local culture readily enough. He quickly earns a title and a place in the local troubles, which involve sieges, kidnappings, and missing dragons.
REVIEW: I bought this book because, once upon a time, I found a cheap copy of the sequel, Dragon Rescue, and I don’t like reading any series out of order. I
had skimmed parts toward the end, and it looked reasonably interesting: dragons, jaguars, and such. Then I finally found the first book, and I made the mistake of reading it.
I barely had the perseverance to finish this extremely dull tome. That experience exhausted my supply; I've been unable to get past the third chapter in book two. Anyone who
read my review of the sci-fi trilogy The Visitors knows why I created the "Terrible" rating, as a last-resort means of striking back at books I found unusually and
painfully bad. This book proved its continued usefulness.
One of my many problems with this book is that the author likes to have his plot proceed at a very orderly fashion. Problem A, once solved, leads to Problem B, then to C, and
so forth. Though occasional lip-service is made to bigger problems, at no point is there ever any sense of an overarching plot that gels these events together in any
interesting fashion. One result of this, aside from sheer boredom, is a total lack of suspense. All the characters are essentially the same person, even the dragons. People who
panic upon seeing Retruance are calm and friendly in the next five minutes, just like everyone else. The title, Dragon Companion, refers to the rare status of one whom
a dragon chooses to carry, or so claims a character early in this book – to the contradiction of all other evidence. Not only does Retruance make a snap decision to bestow
this most honored of titles on our librarian hero (whom he'd just met), but throughout the book dragons carry everybody and anybody all over the place, no questions asked!
Callander must've done extensive research on medieval politics, titles, and such, because a substantial portion of the text deals with such things, in a manner so dull
as to completely undermine what little thread of plot he runs through these tortured pages. If I'd wanted a lecture on medieval society, I wouldn't have bought a fantasy
book.
The most annoying thing about this book is that Callander wrote the wrong story. Much more could have been made of Tom earning a place among the elves, teaching them that
historical records indeed have value. He finds them in shambles on his first visit to the local castle, and everyone seems fascinated when he uses old documents and castle
plans to drive out invaders. Here might be found the grains of a story, or at least something to hold the reader's interest. But, no, the matter is quickly forgotten, glossed
over with a passing remark that he trained some underlings to file and catalog the archives. If not that, then how about describing a strange human - considered a myth among
local elves - earns the coveted Dragon Companion title? Nope - Callander devotes nary a word to that. Maybe a subplot involving an actual courtship of the princess love
interest? No luck there, either; their engagement is presented as a side point in the story, with no romance leading up to it. Of course, since Tom's the hero and she the
only available girl his age, the engagement was inevitable. Those were just a few of the possible ideas Callander failed to mine, ideas that might have had a chance of holding
my interest. At least, if I had been given this basic story, I would've tried to find something a reader might give a rat's rear about to make the subject of my book, but,
heck, I’m just the unpublished, no-talent hack. To polish this study in coma-inducing literature off, he enacts the Whoops, You’ll Have to Read A Sequel, Sucker! ending,
which I find aggravating. (This is an ending that doesn't really end the story, but leaves characters hanging in one's mind's eye until one can obtain the sequel... unless, like
me, you'd happily watch them plummet to their deaths and not lift a finger to save them.) Unfortunately, by that point, this book was already at the rock-bottom rating level in
my mind, so I couldn't even take pleasure in knocking it down a space.
Perhaps the author has a heart condition which would be aggravated by too much excitement, or maybe he doesn’t like intimidating readers with suspense or plot twists. Maybe he
didn't realize other people would actually read his manuscript, or he didn't know that he was writing a fantasy story per se. Those are the only explanations I’ve come up with
in my efforts to understand why this book was so dreadfully boring. To paraphrase Johnny, the all-knowing shoe shiner from the Police Squad! TV series, it doesn’t excuse
what he does, but I think we understand him a little better.
You might also enjoy:
Dragons Wild (Robert Asprin, Fiction - Shapeshifting dragons in modern New Orleans)
The Vlad Taltos series (Stephen Brust, Fiction - A human assassin/detective works with a dragonlike familiar)
The Dragon and the George (George R. Dickson, Fiction - A man, searching for his missing wife, finds himself in the body of a dragon)
The Fire Within (Chris D'Lacey, YA Fiction - A college student's clay dragon figurine seems to come to life in his head)
Dragonsdale (Salamanda Drake, YA Fiction - At a special riding academy, human children bond with fire-breathing dragons)
Dragon Rider (Cornelia Funke, YA Fiction - A dragon bound for a legendary sanctuary befriends a human boy)
The Familiar Dragon series (Daniel Hood, Fiction - A murdered wizard's dragon familiar forces a bond with a human detective)
The Dragon Quartet (Marjorie Kellogg, Fiction - Elemental dragons and their human companions travel through time to save Earth)
Song in the Silence (Elizabeth Kerner, YA? Fiction - A girl dreams of finding legendary dragons, one of whom may dream of finding her)
The Dragonling books (Jackie French Koller, YA Fiction - A boy finds an orphaned dragon)
Pern books (Anne McCaffrey, Fiction - On the distant planet of Pern, dragons and their bonded riders fight deadly Threadfall)
Temeraire series (Naomi Novik, Fiction - Alternate-world Napoleanic wars are fought by land, ship, and aerial dragon corps)
Eragon (Christopher Paolini, Fiction - A farmer boy's life forever changes after discovering a dragon's egg)
The Glass Dragon (Irene Radford, Fiction - A world's fading magic relies on its vanishing population of invisible dragons)
The Dragon of Lonely Island and The Return of the Dragon (Rebecca Rupp, YA Fiction - Three children befriend a three-headed dragon)
The Iron Dragon's Daughter (Michael Swanwick, Fiction - A human girl abducted into an alternate world befriends a menacing iron war dragon)
The Pit Dragon trilogy (Jane Yolen, YA Fiction - On Austar IV, dragons are bred and trained for bloody pit fights)
Return to Top of Page - Return to Book Review List
Return to Brightdreamer Books Home
Brightdreamer Books is created and maintained by TBW, a.k.a. "Brightdreamer."
E-mail: tbweber AT comcast DOT net. (Remove spaces, replace AT with "@" and DOT with "." - please put "Brightdreamer Books" in the subject line, or your e-mail may be deleted as
spam! Thank you!