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Dragon Aster #1
Dragon Aster
Sybl has endured the first years of being a teenager both unloved and forgotten. When an Awl takes her from Earth to the realm of Aster, she will discover a place where fantasy is the reality. A world of dragons. But that will not be all that she finds.
Still distraught from having lost his best friend, Cirrus has tried to move on with his life. His world is falling apart, and it is a fight the High Guard cannot win. All that remains is a Prophecy from the ghostly memories of those he loved. A Prophecy that a Fay would return to Aster, restoring the balance of life and death. For without her, his kind will side with the forces of war. An onslaught of destruction would follow, and he is a dragon tired of death.
When he finds Sybl, he takes it on himself to become her protector. Within her memories, she holds one from the friend he lost. She may be the last hope that the Prophecy has yet to come about. But he will have to outfly the shadows from his past first, for the demon who is after them does not fear a death it can weave.
Still distraught from having lost his best friend, Cirrus has tried to move on with his life. His world is falling apart, and it is a fight the High Guard cannot win. All that remains is a Prophecy from the ghostly memories of those he loved. A Prophecy that a Fay would return to Aster, restoring the balance of life and death. For without her, his kind will side with the forces of war. An onslaught of destruction would follow, and he is a dragon tired of death.
When he finds Sybl, he takes it on himself to become her protector. Within her memories, she holds one from the friend he lost. She may be the last hope that the Prophecy has yet to come about. But he will have to outfly the shadows from his past first, for the demon who is after them does not fear a death it can weave.
220 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 27, 2011
7 people are currently reading
1079 people want to read
About the author
S.J. Wist
9 books151 followersS.J. Wist is a fantasy author, reviewer, and an artist on the side. Addicted to books, blogs, chocolate mint ice cream, and all things creative. She lives in Toronto, Canada.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 8, 2011
I purchased this book from Amazon, Dragon Aster. It's not just a fantasy, but a romance between Cirrus from Aster, and the protagonist Sybl from Earth. There is only one set of remaining doors that joins both univeral realms, and let's just say they're in bad need of repair. Once you get all the dragons lineage figured out it's a very enjoyable read. They don't need to use auditory speaking they can communicate with 'Threads' that can be picked up and heard within their brains. The dragons from Aster can change into a somewhat human form and back into a dragon, and can heal themselves once injuried in battle. The ending leaves you wanting to know who fired the shots, but that will have to wait until the second book. S.J. Wist has a vivid immagination, and this is a very unusual book. It takes you into places that only a truly gifted writer can take you. I think my favorite character was Loki and then Sybl and Cirrus. Laura L Helland
December 19, 2011
This has never happened to me before. I have never not been able to finish a book or at least get half way through it before giving up and I have never given a book one star before. I hate giving a bad review but I am so disappointed with this book. I might try and pick it up again another time but it wasn't what I was expecting at all. The writing style was very poor. At some points I found myself re-reading a paragraph about three or four times to try and understand what was being described. At first I thought it was just me, but after comparing the writing to another book's, I knew it wasn't. I think if you can understand books by Tolkein, Jane Austen and C.S. Lewis, then you can pretty much understand anything.
I wouldn't recommend this book but I wish luck to those who do read it and hope they enjoy it more than I did.
I wouldn't recommend this book but I wish luck to those who do read it and hope they enjoy it more than I did.
June 30, 2015
I tried to read this, but found this too confusing. Far too many characters being introduced up front, with no depth given to them to be able to keep them separate. Lots of unique terminology being used (which sounds great) but hardly any reference point to help the reader understand what is meant. Awkward sentence structure, which only added to the issues I had. There were times I had to re-read a paragraph to try and make sense of what was going on.
It's a shame, too. The concept of the story sounded very good. The author seems to have a very creative imagination.
It's a shame, too. The concept of the story sounded very good. The author seems to have a very creative imagination.
March 13, 2012
I felt like I was in the middle of a very personal conversation between two friends ... IN MANDARIN!. I was not able to understand absolutely nothing of .Who are these people? ... Some description would have helped.
Too many characters being introduced in the first 20 pages, lots of unique terminology without any reference to help the reader understand what is meant.
The concept of the story sounded so interesting that maybe my expectations were too high.
I can´t finished
Too many characters being introduced in the first 20 pages, lots of unique terminology without any reference to help the reader understand what is meant.
The concept of the story sounded so interesting that maybe my expectations were too high.
I can´t finished
October 29, 2011
Really good book, but I wish there'd been a list of terms and what they meant, and a family tree. That would've been very helpful! And the ending! I want more!!!!
December 14, 2011
I was totally excited to win this book on Goodreads First Reads!
The cover is absolutely beautiful. The story within also has potential to be beautiful, but as it is the first in a series, we do not know how it ends yet. So far it is doing well.
I did have a little trouble understanding the language of the new world introduced in the book. I never did figure out the difference between a dragon and a dragoon. It was also a little difficult keeping track of the history of Aster and how it affects the present story. The characters could use a little more development, but are still interesting and carry the story along well. Once you start to figure out the language of the book the story comes out really nicely.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and am excited for the next one.
The cover is absolutely beautiful. The story within also has potential to be beautiful, but as it is the first in a series, we do not know how it ends yet. So far it is doing well.
I did have a little trouble understanding the language of the new world introduced in the book. I never did figure out the difference between a dragon and a dragoon. It was also a little difficult keeping track of the history of Aster and how it affects the present story. The characters could use a little more development, but are still interesting and carry the story along well. Once you start to figure out the language of the book the story comes out really nicely.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and am excited for the next one.
August 5, 2016
I am a sucker for romances and this has a great romance in it (considering it is the first in the series). I have never read a book about dragons before but I won this book on GoodReads and it gave me a chance to read something new. My only complaint is that it can be a little confusing but it still a really good book. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
January 4, 2012
It was a pretty good book, but it was just a bit hard to follow at the beginning. I can't wait to read the next book in the series! Write on!
January 24, 2012
LOVED IT!!!!
October 8, 2014
I read this in 2011 for a librarything.com review.
I didn’t think this book was terrible, in fact I thought it had a lot of potential, I just don’t think it is ready to be published yet. Maybe another reader will understand the author’s wavelength a lot better than I did, but I honestly found myself itching to edit this all the way through. My review is more directed at the author than a possible buyer and although I might seem harsh, my initial intention was to help.
The best part of this novel was the overall creativity and originality. I can see a great story hiding in this book but I would say it is far from being a final draft. The way the character’s talked was fitting and the invented names were easy to read (unlike some books). There were obviously a lot of ideas and thought placed into the plot, but again, the way it was written held it back.
The character use psi to communicate telepathically, which although creative, it is formatted inconsistently. Sometime it is in speech marks and italics, whereas sometimes it is just in italics.
I often found myself confused who was talking from the lack of tag lines, especially when psi was being used. It was hard to guess who begins the chaining and therefore impossible to tell who is replying and what characters holds which opinion.
An example of this is in the opening dialogue. The reader has to guess which is Sybl and accept that there isn’t a reference to the other speaker. I think I could probably decipher this mystery character and take an educated guess, but withholding this information just makes it confusing.
The general flow of dialogue seemed awkward and unnatural at times. Sometimes a character will say something completely out of the blue or within some context kept from the reader, making the writing disjointed. This is also reflected in the general structure of the story although the way the character’s talked brought character to the novel. I got the general feeling that the author knew what they were talking about and assumed it was enough without considering an outside view.
Ideas weren’t explained in enough detail for me to work out what was happening, what the characters were aiming for, and why. Concepts are thrown in without context as if I’m already supposed to know what a dragoon is (when I thought it was a typo), and how the whole ‘human dragon’ thing works, what the limitations are etc. In reality, I have no idea, and found it increasingly difficult to hear these things being referred to when I knew nothing about them. Lots of concepts, new characters, and a general flood of information was how the novel started but there was too much for me to get familiar with so instead I stayed lost throughout the novel.
I get that it’s better to learn neologisms by reading, but these novel terms were in abundance. Some examples of the terminology used without any explanation – Regal, Ancient, Threads, Aragmoth, somn, dragoon, Atrum Lord, Awl, estus. I found an online glossary afterwards which kinda hints that people don’t naturally know what these things are and so would benefit from some explanation. Alongside the heaps of characters and lack of description, there were too many words without context for me to snuggle into this novel. I find it difficult to follow a book and lose myself in it when I’m constantly stopping in confusion or because there’s another word or phrase I don’t understand.
Character’s will pop up like daisies. A guy called Quinn started speaking for the first time as if he had been there years, and there was no further note about this randomer e.g. description, a line about who he is or why he’s there. I was so confused. No idea what his relationship to any of the characters
was but it’s fine because I think he pretty much got blanked anyway. This is only one example of many randomers.
Some of these problems could stem from the fact there wasn’t much description of the surroundings – the focus is always on dialogue and disjointed bits of action. At the beginning of each chapter, I had no idea who was present, where they were, and this rarely get’s elaborated on. All these problems could easily be fixed which makes it feel like an edited first draft rather than a revised novel.
It’s hard to remember all the characters too because names are dropped like leaves during autumn. There are way too many for each character to be meaningful, especially in the opening. Character description is extremely rare, making them harder to remember. I don’t know how the characters know each other / their relationships. I don’t know the characters. Throughout the novel you learn which ones are important and which you can ignore, and scanning back through there are so many names I barely recognise. This could also be because it was hard to work out who was saying what and where they are, what they are doing etc. It just wasn’t well written.
The sentence structure and grammar was also something that could do with sharpening. Vague language should be avoided more often to mop up some confusion (such as referring to ‘him’ when there are two male characters, possibly more, present).
‘Congrats[,] Kas[,]
Page 108 =Fevre[,] stop working for five minutes – Commas are needed for terms of address.
After reading the book, I feel the blurb is completely misleading. I didn’t know of Sybl’s lonely teenage years, I wasn’t aware Cirrus had lost a best friend, and the prophecy was new to me. All these features were slightly hinted at, but they weren’t big factors in the story line, nor were they stressed as integral to the plot which the blurb suggests. To be honest, Cirrus didn’t feel like one of the most important characters either. Just one of many.
The story seemed full of unnecessary back story and character info that could be deleted. This in turn could make room for the story to focus on just a few of the dragons as well as descriptions of places and characters; Loki’s castle is an easy example to pull out. Originally, I didn’t have a clue what it looks like but later on it was mentioned that it was possibly scary looking. I felt the author could have shown me this castle and then later mention this fact to accompany the image.
The part where Sybl is being blown around for not controlling psi was a particularly confusing part of the novel for me. It would highly benefit from description of surroundings; I’m not sure how this gets resolved either. But then I didn’t understand the problem and what would make it work, or how the chasm and psi connection works in the first place.
It would also be better to see Sybl on earth first, then to watch her get trapped in the dream, and then find out why she is important. Otherwise, she seems important for no reason and everyone knows of her significance just because they do. The dragons don’t seem to discover her as much as randomly begin to pull her into their world. Maybe I just didn’t understand these parts of the story because I was too confused to take on much more information, but even scanning back over the book didn’t really give me any answers. In fact, there is too much that I don’t understand I think the novel just needs the author to go back over it, delete what isn’t needed for book one and replace it with all the missing information needed for context.
The ending, however action filled and exciting, was so abrupt it felt like the cut off was midsentence. I prefer the first in a series to be able to stand as a completed novel on its own but make you want to carry on reading to the next. Even just summing up the book on the chapter before and making the next part an epilogue would have been better, but it still felt incomplete to me. I kept checking for extra pages because it didn’t feel right to end where it was.
Dragon Aster is not a boring book in my opinion, although sometimes I kept reading without understanding any of it in hopes I would pick the storyline back up at some point, which always happened eventually. It definitely has potential. I would suggest using the current version as a draft, work on it for a few months, and then consider publishing or finding a literacy agent. If not, I wouldn’t recommend it. I didn’t go into this novel with an axe to grind and I’m actually quite interested to read a revised draft but I have a feeling the author probably doesn’t want me near their precious life and joy again.
I didn’t think this book was terrible, in fact I thought it had a lot of potential, I just don’t think it is ready to be published yet. Maybe another reader will understand the author’s wavelength a lot better than I did, but I honestly found myself itching to edit this all the way through. My review is more directed at the author than a possible buyer and although I might seem harsh, my initial intention was to help.
The best part of this novel was the overall creativity and originality. I can see a great story hiding in this book but I would say it is far from being a final draft. The way the character’s talked was fitting and the invented names were easy to read (unlike some books). There were obviously a lot of ideas and thought placed into the plot, but again, the way it was written held it back.
The character use psi to communicate telepathically, which although creative, it is formatted inconsistently. Sometime it is in speech marks and italics, whereas sometimes it is just in italics.
I often found myself confused who was talking from the lack of tag lines, especially when psi was being used. It was hard to guess who begins the chaining and therefore impossible to tell who is replying and what characters holds which opinion.
An example of this is in the opening dialogue. The reader has to guess which is Sybl and accept that there isn’t a reference to the other speaker. I think I could probably decipher this mystery character and take an educated guess, but withholding this information just makes it confusing.
The general flow of dialogue seemed awkward and unnatural at times. Sometimes a character will say something completely out of the blue or within some context kept from the reader, making the writing disjointed. This is also reflected in the general structure of the story although the way the character’s talked brought character to the novel. I got the general feeling that the author knew what they were talking about and assumed it was enough without considering an outside view.
Ideas weren’t explained in enough detail for me to work out what was happening, what the characters were aiming for, and why. Concepts are thrown in without context as if I’m already supposed to know what a dragoon is (when I thought it was a typo), and how the whole ‘human dragon’ thing works, what the limitations are etc. In reality, I have no idea, and found it increasingly difficult to hear these things being referred to when I knew nothing about them. Lots of concepts, new characters, and a general flood of information was how the novel started but there was too much for me to get familiar with so instead I stayed lost throughout the novel.
I get that it’s better to learn neologisms by reading, but these novel terms were in abundance. Some examples of the terminology used without any explanation – Regal, Ancient, Threads, Aragmoth, somn, dragoon, Atrum Lord, Awl, estus. I found an online glossary afterwards which kinda hints that people don’t naturally know what these things are and so would benefit from some explanation. Alongside the heaps of characters and lack of description, there were too many words without context for me to snuggle into this novel. I find it difficult to follow a book and lose myself in it when I’m constantly stopping in confusion or because there’s another word or phrase I don’t understand.
Character’s will pop up like daisies. A guy called Quinn started speaking for the first time as if he had been there years, and there was no further note about this randomer e.g. description, a line about who he is or why he’s there. I was so confused. No idea what his relationship to any of the characters
was but it’s fine because I think he pretty much got blanked anyway. This is only one example of many randomers.
Some of these problems could stem from the fact there wasn’t much description of the surroundings – the focus is always on dialogue and disjointed bits of action. At the beginning of each chapter, I had no idea who was present, where they were, and this rarely get’s elaborated on. All these problems could easily be fixed which makes it feel like an edited first draft rather than a revised novel.
It’s hard to remember all the characters too because names are dropped like leaves during autumn. There are way too many for each character to be meaningful, especially in the opening. Character description is extremely rare, making them harder to remember. I don’t know how the characters know each other / their relationships. I don’t know the characters. Throughout the novel you learn which ones are important and which you can ignore, and scanning back through there are so many names I barely recognise. This could also be because it was hard to work out who was saying what and where they are, what they are doing etc. It just wasn’t well written.
The sentence structure and grammar was also something that could do with sharpening. Vague language should be avoided more often to mop up some confusion (such as referring to ‘him’ when there are two male characters, possibly more, present).
‘Congrats[,] Kas[,]
Page 108 =Fevre[,] stop working for five minutes – Commas are needed for terms of address.
After reading the book, I feel the blurb is completely misleading. I didn’t know of Sybl’s lonely teenage years, I wasn’t aware Cirrus had lost a best friend, and the prophecy was new to me. All these features were slightly hinted at, but they weren’t big factors in the story line, nor were they stressed as integral to the plot which the blurb suggests. To be honest, Cirrus didn’t feel like one of the most important characters either. Just one of many.
The story seemed full of unnecessary back story and character info that could be deleted. This in turn could make room for the story to focus on just a few of the dragons as well as descriptions of places and characters; Loki’s castle is an easy example to pull out. Originally, I didn’t have a clue what it looks like but later on it was mentioned that it was possibly scary looking. I felt the author could have shown me this castle and then later mention this fact to accompany the image.
The part where Sybl is being blown around for not controlling psi was a particularly confusing part of the novel for me. It would highly benefit from description of surroundings; I’m not sure how this gets resolved either. But then I didn’t understand the problem and what would make it work, or how the chasm and psi connection works in the first place.
It would also be better to see Sybl on earth first, then to watch her get trapped in the dream, and then find out why she is important. Otherwise, she seems important for no reason and everyone knows of her significance just because they do. The dragons don’t seem to discover her as much as randomly begin to pull her into their world. Maybe I just didn’t understand these parts of the story because I was too confused to take on much more information, but even scanning back over the book didn’t really give me any answers. In fact, there is too much that I don’t understand I think the novel just needs the author to go back over it, delete what isn’t needed for book one and replace it with all the missing information needed for context.
The ending, however action filled and exciting, was so abrupt it felt like the cut off was midsentence. I prefer the first in a series to be able to stand as a completed novel on its own but make you want to carry on reading to the next. Even just summing up the book on the chapter before and making the next part an epilogue would have been better, but it still felt incomplete to me. I kept checking for extra pages because it didn’t feel right to end where it was.
Dragon Aster is not a boring book in my opinion, although sometimes I kept reading without understanding any of it in hopes I would pick the storyline back up at some point, which always happened eventually. It definitely has potential. I would suggest using the current version as a draft, work on it for a few months, and then consider publishing or finding a literacy agent. If not, I wouldn’t recommend it. I didn’t go into this novel with an axe to grind and I’m actually quite interested to read a revised draft but I have a feeling the author probably doesn’t want me near their precious life and joy again.
July 16, 2013
1/2 star
This book was so confusing! No explanations were given as to context right from the start.
This book was so confusing! No explanations were given as to context right from the start.
February 6, 2012
Looking forward to the next one!
February 23, 2012
Sorry, just couldn't follow or get into this one. I might try again later.
Currently reading
May 22, 2012My Kindle has quit on me so I have not even gotten started on this one yet. Hopefully I can get it going again.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews