Dragon Companion
The Dragon Companion series, Book 1
Don Callander
Eastland Press
Fiction, Fantasy
Themes: Bonded Companions, Dragons, Fantasy Races, Portal Adventures
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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 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 one-star (a.k.a 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. That's fine as far as it goes, but that's quite literally all that happens. 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, no hint of greater tension rising. 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, though, 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. Well, okay, if not that, then how about describing how a
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's 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. 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; it could've been notes for a lecture, or a
cupcake recipe gone horribly wrong. 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.