The Dragon Engine

The Blood Dragon Empire #1

by Andy Remic

Five noble war heroes of Vagandrak get drunk one night and sign a contract – to journey to the Karamakkos in search of the Five Havens where, it is written, there is untold, abandoned wealth and, more importantly, the three Dragon Heads – jewels claimed to give unspeakable power and everlasting life to those who wield them.

But the Dragon Heads aren’t what they think, and the world has not encountered their like in generations!

Think Smaug was fierce? You ain’t seen nothing!

Genres: Fantasy, Dragons, Fiction, Epic Fantasy, Adventure

382 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 2015

About the author

Andy Remic lives in Lincoln, UK, although his heart and viking soul belong to the Scottish mountains. Married with two children, Andy has a variety of esoteric and sometimes contrasting loves, including sword fighting, climbing, mountain biking, kick-boxing, Ducati motorcycles and retro-gaming. He recently wrote the computer version of his novel Biohell for the 48K Spectrum, in which many people are still stuck. He writes in both SF and fantasy fields, and is sometimes accused of literature. Current novels include: Spiral, Quake, Warhead, War Machine, Biohell, Hardcore and the upcoming Cloneworld, Theme Planet and TOX for Solaris Books, and the Kell’s Legend trilogy, Kell’s Legend, Soul Stealers and Vampire Warlords for Angry Robot Books.

Reviews

[Bookwraiths · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally reviewed at Bookwraiths Reviews

If J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin had gotten together to write a grimdark interpretation of The Hobbit, The Dragon Engine would have been what they came up with. Centered upon a quest to dwarven halls filled with mounds of gold and once inhabited by mighty dragons, it is a tale filled with pulse pounding combat, explicit sex, cringe worthy torture, and plenty of vulgar language. Literally, it is a story that gets your attention the simple, old-fashioned way.




For lovers of Andy Remic’s The Iron Wolves and The White Towers , this is a continuation of that series in that The Dragon Engine takes place in the same world several years after those stories. The mad King Yoon is still in control, swimming in absolute depravity and allowing the whole Kingdom of Vagandrak to go to hell. Meanwhile, a group of war heroes from the time of Orlana the Changer have grow bored of their fame and riches and determine to set out on one last, grand adventure together. Their destination the frigid, nearly inaccessible Karamakkos, where legends hold that the ancient Dwarven Lords ruled the Five Havens under the mountains, hoarding untold wealth as well as the three Dragon Heads — jewels claimed to grant everlasting life and great power to those who wield them!

Immediately upon starting this one, a long time reader will see that the main characters here are a bit different than those from the Rage of Kings series. Where Kiki and her friends were some of the most despicable pieces of human filth to ever grace the pages of a grimdark, Remic’s latest group isn’t quite so repugnant. Sure, they are still disgruntled war veterans, even though they are wealthy heroes, and they each have their own issues, but not one of them rivals the drug addicted, serial killer excesses of their predecessors. Rather Beetrax the Axe-Man and his friends struggle with more ordinary issues like growing old, loved one dying, relationships ending, and losing the zest for life.

Since this is begins as a classic quest tale, each of the Beetrax’s group seems designed to fill typical dungeon crawler roles. Beetrax is the damage dealer; Lillith is the healer; Talon is an archer; Dake and Jonti experts with the blade . . . You get the point. But it really isn’t the roles they play that makes Beetrax’s gang so fun to read about. Nope, unlike the Iron Wolves, these guys actually seem like old friends. There is plenty of playful banter. Occasionally their conversations will sparkle with feelings, revealing their past history together and the fragile sides of their nature. Old sorrows from romantic splits or new problems from being together will arise and be explored. Each interaction slowly revealing how close, how devoted these old friends are to one another, no matter the danger to themselves.

Every hero needs a villain however. And in today’s literature, it isn’t satisfactory to have nameless enemies or the shadowy of a dragon lying over the horizon. Nope, readers want to get to know their heroes’ nemesis, experience their evilness, and decide for themselves whether they love or hate this person. And so Andy Remic quickly splits the narrative into Beetrax and his friends quest and the life of one Cardinal Skalg of the Church of Hate, religious leader of the Harborym dwarves.

As you’d expect, the dwarves here are fairly standard fantasy versions: strong, stoic, and prejudiced against outsiders. (Beetrax’s group also believes they are long-extinct, which is why they are on their way to collect their long used and forgotten treasures.) Skalg, however, is an especially vile avatar of his race. Maybe, his maiming, torturing, and killing doesn’t reach Orlana the Changer levels, but he is still a fairly disgusting dwarf, no way around it, willing to rape innocent girls or do anything else to get what he wants. And his bad qualities only grow as the political struggle between himself and King Irlax of the dwarves grow. For, you see, in this kingdom under the mountains, king and cardinal are equal; each tasked with different things, but fated to eternally clash about everything. Skalg and Irlax’s constant bickering and machinations quickly growing into a societal revolution that will see either the crown or the church consumed in its flames.

Once our heroes arrive under the mountains and encounter Skalg’s dwarves is where the grimdark really shows up in our grimdark story, for the initial encounters are graphic, brutal affairs. Cruel, painful, cringe worthy even. In fact, many readers might believe Remic has gone too far in some cases, that these episodes are merely for shock value alone. I can understand why some would feel that way (even if I saw the horrible events fitting into the narrative), and I felt I should, at least, warn prospective readers about this section.

Thereafter follows a deluge of death, destruction, and betrayal as Remic concludes this opening chapter of The Blood Dragon Empire in classic grimdark style. Climatic clashes occur. Combat rages. Characters and civilizations end. And the real meaning of the dragon engine comes into focus, ending this first installment with a cliffhanger that will make grimdark lovers begin clamoring for the next book.

Since beginning to read Andy Remic, I’ve come to appreciate two things about his writing. One, he has a raw, visceral style that slaps you right in the face. No sugar coating the vulgar nature of humanity and the horrors of combat and war. No, they are vividly portrayed upon the pages, daring you to look away. Curse words abound. Buckets of blood and gore are tossed around indiscriminately. And, two, he creates vivid characters that never bore. I don’t always like these guys. Many times I actually despise them and want to personally decapitate them, but they definitely evoke a deep emotional cord with me, which means it is never a chore to flip to the next page.

I’d love to be able to sum The Dragon Engine up into a nice paragraph, but I really can’t. (Hey, I did try at the beginning, right?) This book dug its claws into me on so many levels it is hard to isolate what exactly made it a 4 star novel. Perhaps it was the complex but flawed heroes. Maybe the familiar Hobbit-esque quest morphing into a grimdark nightmare did it. The wonderfully paced story and realistic action definitely entertained. No matter the ingredients though, Remic casted a spell with this one, and if you haven’t experienced his take on grimdark yet, you really should give this one a try.

Angry Robot and Netgalley provided this book to me for free in return for an honest review. The review above was not paid for or influenced in any way by any person, entity or organization, but is my own personal opinions.

[Scott Hitchcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

This was a group read where we discussed the book and the opinions were varied. First off if you don’t like GrimDark in general don’t bother with this book. Second if you thought books such as Broken Empire, First Law and the like were too graphic please proceed to the other side of the tracks.

Some of the complaints in the group read that I cannot deny and that I generally want to see in a great series are as follows. The world building isn’t different or special. Ditto for the characters. The use of sex, violence and cursing are often gratuitous and don’t further the story. All the character talked the same crusty way even the ion old dragons. All valid.

So why did I still enjoy the book so much? One of the main things I want a book to do is elicit a reaction from me. Laugh, cry, sorrow, happiness…..give me something. This book did this on a few levels. I found the banter between different characters humorous and enjoyable. The torture scenes were cringe worthy and vile. This is GD and in a war scenario, although graphic, through history acts of extreme malice like this take place often. I wanted the payback and retribution I knew was coming with extreme prejudice.

The book was still fun for me. It's like watching an action movie where they blow shit up and Bronson or Segal can't act their way out of a paper bag and yet still a guilty pleasure.

[Samir · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has two parts; first half is pure fun, our heroes are on a quest for gold and glory and everything looks promising, and the second half, where nothing is going as planned and things get brutal, dark and very bloody. Some scenes are very graphic and cringe worthy and they're the most violent thing I have ever read.

Comparing this to ''The Hobbit'' would be like this; imagine Bilbo going on a quest with the dwarves and everything is great and life is good, and then they arrive at the Erebor and next thing you know, Bilbo is being tortured and covered in blood and dwarves are the ones doing it.

I played a lot of role-playing games and this book had a similar feeling to it. There isn't much of character development but I didn't mind that because this book is mainly story driven.

To sum up, I enjoyed this book, it has fun characters, strong villains and an interesting story which ends with a cliffhanger so I'm continuing with book two.

If you like grimdark books and don't mind when things get a bit more brutal than usual, I recommend this book to you, and if that's not the case, these aren't the droids you're looking for.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Until about half way through, I may have given this book 4 stars.

Swearing and violence have a place in Grimdark, of course they do. But when every other word is a swear word, when every character swears (including the mythical beasts), there's nowhere to go when you reach the climax of the action and story, nothing to indicate that this is worse than any other scene.

A well placed swear word emphasises. But so much swearing just distracts from the story and even becomes absurd. And the Grimdark..it was DARK.

I didn't see enough of the promise this book showed in the first half. The author is saving too much for the sequel. I wanted to know more about the dragons. I wanted to know more about the magic which created the 'Splice', a hideous and terrifying creature we meet in the first third of the book.

Worth a read if you can get past the gratuitous swearing every other sentence.

[Marjolein (UrlPhantomhive) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

The Dragon Engine was my first book by Andy Remic, so I was completely unfamiliar with the world presented in The Blood Dragon Empire. However, since it had a nice old fantasy feel to it, it didn't feel like it was a great loss, or that you should have read the previous series (as I also understood that it features other characters).

Here, we are introduced to a band of war veterans, coming together one final time to steal that one final, huge, treasure. What they don't know is that the Dwarves who said treasure belongs to are not quite as extinct as expected, and they are headed by the main villain Skalg, Cardinal of the Church of Hate.

Indeed, it has been done before, and most certainly, there were some cringe worthy, eye-rolling scenes for sure, but still I mostly enjoyed reading The Dragon Engine. The dynamics between the heroes of the stories was nice, as they felt like old friends. The story was very raw, very dark, which is why I think it will not appeal to everyone. But I for one, am looking forward to reading the sequel.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

[Caroline Mersey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Andy Remic's new novel, The Dragon Engine (Angry Robot, published 1 September 2015, review copy via NetGalley), aspires to be an old-school D&D style adventure story.

A group of seasoned adventurers come out of retirement, lured by the promise of treasure. That treasure is not just the prospect of wealth beyond a person's wildest dreams, but also a cure for the bone cancer afflicting one of the party. But, inevitably, the treasure and the quest turn out not to be what any of the group expected.

My heart sank in the second chapter of the novel, when we were introduced to Skalg, one of the villains of the piece. He's an extremely unpleasant dwarf priest who has crawled his way up to the top of the Church of Hate (yes, really). But Remic feels the need to bludgeon you with lazy and offensive tropes by making him physically deformed and having Skalg use his position of power to force a pretty and very reluctant junior priestess to have sex with him. Repeatedly. Rape in chapter two is never a good sign. I finally gave up on the novel towards the end when sexual violence and threatened sexual violence were used yet again to 'torture' our heroes.

Not that the heroes are any better characterised than the villains. Lazy and offensive stereotypes abound. We are initially introduced to Dake, a classically dull as ditchwater hero, who is besotted with his wife Jonti. Jonti is apparently dying from bone cancer, but seems in remarkably good health, able to engage in a physically demanding adventure and a lot of sword fights. But it turns out that the real focus of the story is Beetrax, an axe-wielding oaf with an intermittent heart of gold. He's trying to get back together with his ex, a pacifist witch called Lilith. Who's a vegetarian (yes, really). Despite her objections to all forms of violence she seems pretty happy to accompany a bunch of fighters on a dangerous quest. The party is rounded out by a promiscuous gay guy called Talon, who conveniently becomes bisexual later in the novel so he can be paired up with the other member of the party, an exotic femme fatale called Sakora, who seems to think silk harem pants and bare feet are suitable clothing for going hiking in the mountains in winter.

The plot has holes you could drive a coach and four through. For example, it's never explained why the noble and heroic Dake would serve as Sword Champion to such an unpleasant ruler as King Yoon (Remic's 'subtle clues' that Yoon is not a nice man include that he wears make up). Surely a man of his principles would have mounted a coup at the earliest opportunity? The remainder is predictable stuff.

If you like this style of book, then I'd recommend Jen Williams instead. She's head and shoulders above this nonsense.

[Lynn Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://lynnsbooks.wordpress.com/2015...
Just finished reading The Dragon Engine by Andy Remic. Dragon Engine is your basic quest adventure. A bunch of rough and surly characters head off on an adventure seeking gold and immortality. In fact it has a very Tolkien(ish) feel to it really – well, in that there’s a fellowship type of feel to the start of the story followed by a whole bunch of dwarves and dragons. That’s kind of where the similarity ends though because these dwarves are downright nasty.

In Dragon Engine we have a band of characters who have fought in wars together. They’re maybe getting a little long(er) in the tooth nowadays or perhaps have a bit more girth around their middle, in fact all things being equal, you could say they’re comfortable in life. There is no need for any more adventure. They’ve had their fill of blood and guts and they can now enjoy the rest of their years in comfort. And yet, at the start of the story, getting together for a raucous gathering, they agree to embark on a treasure hunt to the Aramakkos in search of the Five Havens. The promise of gold, a map to lead the way, the potential for healing powers and immortality and all this booty lying beneath the mountains where the dragons and dwarves are now extinct – what more could you ask for really?

The world. We have the usual sword wielding, axe swinging faux mediaeval set up. Horses are the main mode up transport. Crossbows the weapon of choice for the would-be assassin. The time of men seems to be one of peace – or at least I didn’t detect any wars or political intrigue but that being said the King (Yoon) seems to be a piece of work and his nephew a bit of a snivelling trouble causer (but I’m getting ahead of myself).

The main characters are Beetrax, who seems to be the self appointed leader of this adventure and is a huge bearded mammoth of a man, Lillith a peaceful woman who joins the journey in search of medical knowledge, Sakora a rather kick ass woman who seems to be fluent in the art of martial arts, Jonti and Dake are a couple very much in love and who join this quest with much at stake and finally Talon who is a rather dab hand with his bow and arrows and joins the party for personal reasons.

And the plot. Well, as you can imagine this simple adventure is going to end up being anything but simple. The heros of the piece are perhaps a little bit over confident when they embark on their journey and are about to pay a rich price for their complacency. Basically, and I don’t think this is really a spoiler. The dwarves are alive and kicking and the dragons – well they appear to be captive, contained and servile, maybe sleeping – or perhaps just waiting.

I think Remic does a great job with both the characters and the action scenes. The first half of the book is probably a little bit more of a gentle introduction – but when I say gentle just let me be perfectly clear, this is not a book for the faint hearted. In fact this is a story that really tests the phrase grimdark. Even the start of the story which has a lighter feel is still fairly liberally splattered with nasty – particularly those alternating chapters that take us into the mines of the dwarves and bring to us the rather brutal character of Skalg, First Cardinal to the Church of Hate. Here is one twisted individual who doesn’t take prisoners and isn’t shy of murder, torture or rape. Things below ground are a little more heated than things above (in more ways than one).

This is a story that definitely puts the grim into grimdark. There is violence and bloodshed, bones get crunched, viscera is sprayed willy nilly, profanity, torture, rape, sex. It’s all here and I’m just going to be blunt and say it gets to a point almost bordering on uncomfortable. But, whilst Remic doesn’t balk at telling things as they really are he does draw a line in the sand. He walks you right up to the line and then he leaves you there, teetering on the edge, to imagine what lies beyond. So, whilst we do have some fairly detailed and bloody fights, the scenes in which torture and rape occur, well, you’re told what’s going to happen and then you’re left to your own imagination knowing that horrible things are taking place.

What Remic does manage to do, particularly using the earlier chapters in the story where you gain a sense of the long friendship between the heroes of the piece and take part a little more in their banter, is make you care for the characters. I also think he does a great job of portraying the mines and the scenes of captivity. The darkness, the claustrophobia, the sheer magnitude of the place. On top of that, and don’t get me wrong because this book isn’t just a set up for the next in series, but it does end on a note that gives you an idea of what is yet to come and it promises to be very good.

I enjoyed this. Like I said above, it may not be for everyone. It is undoubtedly violent and ugly in places and the author doesn’t give you a spoonful of sugar to make the brutal any more palatable. But, if you really do like your grimdark then here it is in spades. I don’t want to overdo it though, don’t go away from this thinking that it’s all doom and gloom because it isn’t. There is a great feeling of camaraderie, there are moments of pure heroics and skillful sword fighting plus daring escapes and a feel good type of ending – well as ‘feel good’ as it can be when tempered with the knowledge of what’s about to come.

I received a copy of this courtesy of the publishers through Netgalley for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

[DarkChaplain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review also published here

The Dragon Engine is a controversial novel - and for good reason. It is full of adult humor (or juvenile humor, depending on who you're asking), and explicit, sexual content (both in the positive and negative sense).
So if you are uncomfortable with that, do not even think of picking this book up, or you'll regret the money spent. If you're unsure, get the sample, which should include the start of the chapter "Skalg", which tackles the reader with some very explicit scenes right off the bat.

If you can get over those explicit contents, you'll find a novel that very much resembles a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The protagonists are a diverse bunch, three men, three women, including a bisexual archer, a supposedly-pacifist witch/healer who is also vegetarian, a ginger, one-eyed, stubborn axeman and so on. It really covers a bunch of the tropes and character classes you'd find in most pen & paper roleplaying games, with the added bonus of all of these six characters being veterans of a previous war (which seems to be covered in Remic's other books). As a result you have them wax nostalgically about the good old days and past glories, and decide to go on one last adventure together.

This adventure sees them going on a treasure hunt, searching for the lost dwarven cities under the mountain Karamakkos. Things don't go as planned (at all), even from the outset, and the group of heroes just tumbles from one problem to the next.
I actually found that really entertaining, as it resulted in a lot of comedic problem solving - until about halfway through the book, when they actually enter the dwarven realm and things take a massive turn for the worst.

The group gets captured and put to slave labor in the mines of the thought-extinct race. But since they weren't compliant enough, they go through a very long chapter of torture, which sent each and every one of them through hell. This involves mutilation, threat of castration and ball-crushing, psycho-terror, rape and more.
It really wasn't pretty and, again, if you're faint-hearted, move on.

However, it did provide some very neat insights into the characters. For the most part the book focuses on Beetrax the axeman, and his past love with Lillith. We get the biggest chunks of background on them, whereas the others are less obvious in their background details. During their rough time in the Five Havens, all of them are confronted with their own fears and insecurities, and became more interesting to me. But then, I also hated those scenes for making me worry so much, and being utterly relentless. They were some of the moments where I genuinely wanted the antagonists to die in hell.

The antagonists themselves are well-established and actually evil, especially Cardinal Skalg of the Church of Hate, who is a despicable prick of the highest degree. There isn't really much I want to say about his role here, as it has a bunch of twists I don't want to spoil. But you will hate him. There is nothing redeemable about him, and there doesn't need to be. But then, few, if any, of the dwarves can be said good things about. They're an isolated race of awful people, selfish, brutal, hateful. Just the kind of mess you wouldn't want to run into.

And then we have the Dragon Engine itself, a machine utilizing enslaved metal dragons to power the dwarven cities. There isn't as much about this in the book as I was expecting, but when it hits, it is with a sledgehammer and turns the book upside down, with a gigantic cliffhanger for Twilight of the Dragons . I'm very excited to dig into that sequel, with how this story (hasn't) wrapped up here.

The Dragon Engine really is a mixed bag that will divide readers (and already has). There is sexually explicit content here in bucket loads, some relatively tasteful, other parts excessively detailed to the point where I was cringing, thinking that a curtain call would have fitted the scene better. Little is left ambiguous, and characters are foul-mouthed (especially Beetrax and the antagonists) throughout the whole book. But then, there are genuinely well-written human relationships here too, with the group of six splitting into three couples of different stages. There is plenty of humor here to balance the grim, though it takes second fiddle once things get darker in the mines. While some may react with eyerolls at Beetrax in particular, I thought him to be a well-presented character with more depth than immediately obvious, and often quite funny.

More than anything though, this book has made me want to play DnD. Getting a group together and just start a silly adventure with characters who poke fun at one another all the time, but also stick up for one another when it counts. If you told me this was originally based off of one long campaign Remic had with friends, I could well believe it, and it maintains the lighthearted tone of such sessions, despite the grim parts.

As such, I quite enjoyed my time with The Dragon Engine, though I cannot make a clear-cut recommendation for it. It really comes down to your own sensibilities and tastes, and state of mind. You might praise it for its unashamed style, or hate it for its crudeness. I can only recommend trying the sample to see if you can stomach it.

[Vaelin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I needed an "easy" book to read in between reading academic literature and proof reading chapters of my dissertation. I went into The Dragon Engine thinking it would just be purely hack n slash but I was pleasantly surprised that it kept me as hooked as it did, with a manageable amount of characters and different story threads, none of which are boring or dull. Definitely an adults only grimdark fantasy but well worth checking out! Would be perfect for say a 5-10 hour flight.

[Jennifer Melzer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I should have stopped when I got to the bulging dwarven cock and rape, but I put on a brave face and kept going. The king's orgy was more than enough for me to know this book wasn't my cuppa. I felt like the author was attempting humor with a lot of this stuff, but I didn't find any of it funny at all.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

*copy from Netgalley in exchange for a review*

The Dragon Engine is a fantasy novel by Andy Remic. It’s got some interesting world-building, a party of squabbling misfits, high stakes action, and… quite a lot of blood.

The novel takes place as a party of heroes come out of retirement, heading into a mountain range in search of riches. Remic does a decent job of building out his initial world. The kingdom that these heroes inhabit is only sketched out, but depth is added in incidental dialogue between characters.

There’s mention of villains from the past, wars which are slowly being forgotten, loyalties and betrayals bubbling under the surface of the world. Whilst the attention paid to this initial setting is a bit sparse, what is in place manages to feel vivid and alive.

The setting shines, however, when it explores the Dwarven caverns that our party of heroes are planning to loot. There’s a cavernous claustrophobia to the underside of the mountains, a feeling of a society turned in on itself, self-contained and self satisfied. At the same time, there’s a wonderful sense of scale – the towering gates of the Dwarves, the intricacy and baroque nature of their works, is emphasised in a narrative style which otherwise feels very spare and clean. There’s a grandeur in the Dwarven city, but also a sense of statis, and Remic manages to tease these out and combine them without overwhelming or browbeating the reader.

The characters are an interesting conundrum. They seem almost designed to fill roles – the axeman, the archer, the assassin, and so on. An adventuring party, off on a dungeon crawl. But the nature of these old heroes, the bonds that tie them together, are inferred and unspoken, and so we get hints of a more complex set of relationships through the cracks in the narrative. There’s moments of sparkling humanity in between the banter and the action. The axeman’s relationship with his ex-fiancée is particularly well done, given a sense of emotional freight and a level of nuance that it would have been nice to see explored further, across all the character relationships. There are other quiet moments between the characters of course, and it seemed like they had a lot of room to grow, if given the chance – hopefully that’s something we might see in later books in the series.

The villains are a mixed bag. There’s a couple who feel a tad flat, more evil-for-the-sake-of-it than anything else. But there’s also a couple with more complex histories, especially once the Dwarven plot gets rolling. Whilst there’s still a lot of evil minions, there overlords have a bit more heft behind them. Much like the heroes, I’m hoping that this level of depth is something we might see strengthened and further explored in any later novels.

That said, the lion’s share of the book, when it’s not sliding character complexity in behind the reader’s back, is the plot. The quest into the mountains, to retrieve a mountain of dwarven gold, is wonderfully self interested. It also, of course, doesn’t go even slightly to plan. Remic manages to pace the opening of the story perfectly, dropping the reader enough context not to feel lost, then ramping up into moments of action which are genuinely gripping. As the text progresses, and the reader picks up more of the world, the action sequences become grander, and the stakes higher.

There’s some great stuff here – Remic’s fight scenes are elaborate, visceral, and gripping. Sometimes it feels like they go a bit overboard – but at the same time, this is a story which knows what it’s providing, and is hitting that mark. There’s sword fights. Bowshot. At one point someone steps on a spine. There’s blood everywhere, and most of the people who get an axe deserve it. The stakes for the characters gradually increase, and Remic certainly had me invested by the end.

The novel as a whole is rapid, unrelenting, gleefully bloody, and happy to occasionally subvert expectations. I’d like to see the characters explored a little more, but was typically distracted by this when someone’s head fell off, or a chase began, or someone did a bit of cool magic, or…well, you get the idea. This is unreformed fantasy, filled with treasure, violence, the odd bit of magic – heroes you can understand, and villains you can hate. It succeeds very well at doing what it wants to do – and I’m hoping it’s going to expand on that as the series continues.

[Alexander Páez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abandonado en la página 76.

No sé si fue la portada, o no encontrar referencias de la obra, pero Angry Robot es una editorial que suele darme confianza (en su catálogo está Kameron Hurley, Chuck Wendig, Lavie Tidhar, entre otros). Pero un vistazo a la sinopsis ya avisa de que no es una muy buena idea escoger este libro. Voy a tratar de resumir los aspectos que no me han gustado.

Estilo soez, vulgar y exagerado. Que el segundo capítulo empiece con la descripción de un enorme pene, justo antes de violar a una pequeña joven indefensa, dice mucho. Pero no se trata de algo que tengamos que rechazar, el autor se recrea en ello e incluso se burla de la víctima. La violación dura varias páginas hasta que el personaje alza por el cuello a la chica y la tira por un precipicio.

La novela se inicia con el típico discurso en una cena de bodas del mejor amigo del novio, pues como os podréis imaginar, haciendo chistes soeces sobre el novio y la novia, como le han "perdido" por haberse casado, etc.

Esto son solo dos ejemplos, en las 5 primeras páginas aparece la palabra orco varias veces. La trama va de cinco amigos que se juntan para ir a buscar un tesoro custodiado por unos dragones (#OriginalPlotNotFound), etc. Una partida de rol de D&D. Es cierto que la novela tiene un elemento "curioso" por decirlo de alguna forma, pero no salva el libro.

Puede ser que a alguien le guste este estilo de fantasía, que para mi gusto, es una mala mezcla entre fantasía épica y grimdark extremando ambos ejemplos y creando una mezcla agria y poco agradable.

[Kdawg91 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andy Remic is the BOMB. I got a ARC of this and dropped what I was reading and plowed through it (sorry other books!, well........not really)

If you havent read the Rage of Kings series, go get them, damnit! The Dragon Engine is a new series in the same world (SOOOOOOO YAY)

If you are into fantasy, this is a must read, Andy is one of the few authors that I can recieve a ARC for and then go buy it anyway, yes kids.....its that damn good.

violent, great characters, great world building, and FUN, FUN and FUN.

9 out of 5 stars. (Mr. Remic feel free to autograph something and send it to me :)

[Bart · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 stars.

Brutal take on the classic quest story, with an amount of violence and torture I normally stay away from. But the story is good and at least a good part of the violence makes the story realistic and adds to the characterisation. The ending promises a totally different sequel.

[Greg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Do you enjoy rape, torture, and depravity? Then this is the book for you . There isn't any secondary character who *doesnt* deserve to die. If this is Remic's world, let it burn.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new Andy Remic novel is cause for much merriment in my hous. Here is an author who is consistently reliable when it comes to action packed, adult themed fantasy. I’ve been reading his work for years now, and when The Dragon Engine appeared on my Kindle I dived in with gusto.

Though set in the same world as The Iron Wolves and The White Towers this follows a completely different group of heroes. If you haven’t read those books then you won’t be at any disadvantage. That said, there are a few nods to both novels that eagle-eyed existing readers are likely to spot.

One of the things I always enjoy about Andy Remic’s writing is his vivid characterisation. You can always guarantee that the people you meet are never going to be boring. The Dragon Engine is no exception to that rule. Beetrax the axeman is great fun; brash, sometimes blustering, and a little bit past his prime, he is normally a gregarious sort that loves nothing more than wenching and drinking to excess. In his heart however, he longs for the call of battle. Violence and bloodlust sing to him at a near molecular level. He is never happier than when he is given the opportunity to indulge his darker side. The moments when Beetrax gets the opportunity to indulge his inner beserker are a bloodthirsty delight.

The other heroes also get the opportunity to shine. The relationship Beetrax has with each member of his dysfunctional little warrior family are so well observed, in particular the constant back and forth with Talon the archer. The depth of feeling Beetrax has for Lillith, the group’s healer, are also deftly captured. In addition, there are Dake and Jonti, both experts with the blade and utterly besotted with one another. The final member of the group is Sakora, an enigmatic martial arts master who is as deadly as everyone else, even when she is unarmed.

The second strand of the narrative follows the political infighting between Cardinal Skalg, religious leader of the Harborym dwarves, and King Irlax. Skalg in particular is a nasty piece of work. He will happily kill, torture or maim, if it mean he will get his own way. In a city-state where royalty and religion hold equal sway, a clash between these two powerful leaders is inevitable. As a reader, we get a front row seat watching a society beginning to implode upon itself.

When the dwarves and our heroes finally meet things don’t go well. What follows is vintage Remic. A delicious deluge of death, destruction, torture, betrayal and more death. Remic has real flair when it comes to dragging his characters through the wringer. I think it is fair to say that things do get brutal, and occasionally even a little bleak, but it makes for a better story because of it.

The Dragon Engine kicks off The Blood Dragon Empire series in fine style. As I’ve come to expect from Andy Remic, his fantasy has a raw, visceral edge that is difficult to beat. A word of warning to the more delicately natured amongst you. There is a good chance you’ll want to give this a miss. There are buckets of blood and some gloriously violent scenes. The language used by our heroes tends to be quite descriptive in a full-on adult 18 certificate sort of way as well. Personally I love it, but I can appreciate some readers don’t enjoy that sort of thing.

How best to sum up The Dragon Engine then? A coterie of flawed heroes, a city of angry dwarves and a trio of dragons who could best be described as hard done by. The author brings his A-grade storytelling skills to bear and unveils a pacy, action driven plot that is easy to get completely engrossed in. I could wax lyrical about Andy Remic’s writing all day. It’s not difficult to waffle appreciatively about an author whose work you really enjoy. If you’ve never experienced Mr Remic’s work before, and you aren’t adverse to the odd beheading or two twelve, then I urge you to give this book a try. Hell, let’s be honest here, I’d say that for any book he’s written.

[Galaxial · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is bad. Objectively bad. On objective quality alone, this book deserves about a 3/10. But I also hated it. So it gets lower. This is a rant. I've taken the time to put individual bullet points. Brace yourself for this disaster.

-It's plot is not the worst point against it, but it IS unoriginal. There is nothing new about this work, except how royally it screws up every other matter of storytelling. This story is about a band of heroes past their prime who decide to go and seek some adventure. There's nothing new about the dynamic. Nothing new about the adventure (which is quite boring. We sift through the actual journey part of Remic's "fellowship" within 2 chapters or so), and nothing new about the goal. One of them upsets the king. He sends a monster after them. They do some rescuing. They get to the place. Etc. Nothing new added to a story reused again and again.

-The world is pretty against it. As far as originality, the plot is more original than the world. There's no map, so Remic just throws places at us without giving us any context. There's no individual identity for cities/villages. The countryside is largely the same. There's dragons. They act like every dragon in the thousands of fantasy realms do. There's mud-orcs. Do we get any sort of idea who they are? Nah. But they're MUD-orcs, not just orcs, so, very original. There's dwarves. They live in a mountain and have treasure. Yay? And there's so many place names and things mentioned etc...but there's no nuance to them; they're just a bunch of random jumbles of letters that sounded vaguely fantastical, so Remic stuck them in there.

-The characters are atrocious. One of them dies in the end and I just laughed at how little I cared and carried on. And Remic does something really, really obnoxious that I've come to hate: he throws in WOKEness into his fantasy world for no other reason than to point to it and say: "Look! I'm woke! Give me an award!" I don't care about "WOKEness" being in books. I really don't. So long as the author legitimately cares and it's the author's own voice and style at work. This wasn't it. Remic's "characters" have one characteristic each, and that's ALL they're defined by. Though I must say Remic hit every amazing character trait spot on:

-The gay guy. He's gay. All he talks about is how gay he is. And all anyone says to him is how much he's gay, and how he's always been gay. And isn't that funny how he's gay? - Check
-The ultra-feminist. She exists to remind the audience that the author isn't, to all evidence to the contrary, sexist. She talks about women's rights, and how women are better than men and men don't understand. And she can give strong men re-education so they know that women are amazing and awesome and incredible. Everything men aren't. So we need to re-educate them. And that's all she talks about. Check.
-The toxicly manly man. He's manly, and a man. He exists to be re-educated, because he doesn't understand the value of womanhood the way he should. Cause he's too manly. He's drunk and big-muscled and stupid. Only thing keeping him from being perfect is his manliness. Manliness = evil virus of Hell. Check.
-A church that is literally just the Catholic church with no attempt to change anything and make it clever or thematically appropriate? Check. (It's literally called the "church of hate" with no explanation LOL. So nuanced there, Remic).

I'd also like to point out that literally all of Remic's villains have opening scenes in which they are raping a young girl. And that, when we meet them, again, and again, and again, Remic graphically describes the rape and how good it feels that the girl sticks the guy's penis in her mouth. His villains have no personality beyond: evil cause rape. Anyone who is in power is corrupt. Corrupt and they love sex. That's it.

-The authorial style. Let's talk about this cess pit, shall we? We're going from bad to worse here. As prose styles go, Remic's descriptions are fine. They're not fantastic. They're a little boring and I glazed over most of them. But they're fine. But his prose style is so FAKE. Let me explain. He writes like he's copying dry, classic fantasy. The descriptions, the worldbuilding (if you could call it that), the setting, introducing characters, etc. That's a stylistic choice. Some people like that. Nothing wrong with that. But then comes the kicker. He writes the dialogue of these people who live in a classic fantasy world like they're living on the street. And by that I mean swearing. A LOT. Swearing every single line, from every single character, no matter their bare personalities, no matter the social status. Swearing when swearing isn't even necessary, just putting the word "fucking" before every single thing he can think of, even when in natural conversation you'd sound weird if you fucking said it fucking before fucking every fucking thing. There were actual sentences like that.

Now do not misunderstand that I am against swearing in books. I love stylistic choices. But it needs to sound natural with the rest of your authorial voice. It shouldn't sound forced. It should carry weight when you do it, as it often does when you're in the real world. Stephen King is an author I enjoy who swears a lot in his books. But his style is simplistic enough that I barely notice it. It flows, smoothly, from one line to the next. My point is, this tremendous amount of meaningless cussing is JARRING with Remic's ordinary style. It took me the entire book to get used to it. It was meaningless and unnecessary, and sounded more like Remic was trying to sound cool than anything else. It sounds unnatural. It didn't flow, it didn't work with the world he was trying to make, and it certainly didn't elevate his already boring prose in any way.

-It felt like the author was having a constant erection while he was writing this. And I'll address the romance later. But right now I'd like to discuss Remic's absolute obsession with sex. He consistently described, in detail, every graphic rape committed within the pages. There was just a sense of great sick enjoyment emulating off of every page as he described every part of multiple naked women's bodies, their breasts, their lips, their "flowing silk hair," their "childbearing hips," their mouths on your dick, suckling, like the little animals they are. That's what all the women in this book felt like. They were hardly people. They were animals. It was disgusting and confusing for a book written in 2015. Not only that, but Remic constantly describes what's happening to every man's balls in the story. From the insults (always, as I said above, accompanied by the same word): "I'll slice your fucking balls off" to having a scene where one of the main character literally is tortured by having his balls squeezed off of him, written, as always, in the most gruesome and disgusting detail, to having a device called the "Ball cracker" it's just disturbing and gross.

-The romance. Oh my word. I don't even---I don't even want to talk about what this book calls "romance." Every chance he gets, Remic includes a sex scene. Do they mean anything for the characters and plot? No. Do they give Remic a chance to describe how good it feels have sex, over, and over, and over, and over again? Yes. Does it give him a chance to sexually torture all of his female characters? Absolutely. And the romantic dialogue. Mmm. I could cite many long sections and paragraphs completely devoted to a man showing his affection for his girlfriend ONLY when she's naked, and telling her that, and that's all she wants to hear. And she feels "safe" with him and secure with him. And she can't do anything without him. I skipped over a couple sections. They were SO cringy and so badly written and...the only romance outside of the supremely cringy dialogue was graphic sex. No flirtation, no signs of affection like, I don't know, doing chores for your lady love to beg forgiveness, no emotional hardship. Nope. Just hard porn sex. Yeaaaaaaaah let's gooooooooo. Torture porn and porn porn. My favorite gateway into fantasy. Characters? Nope. Plot? Barely. Setting? Pfft. Sex? Mmmmmmmmm.

Yeah anyway. Don't waste your time with this book. The theming is nonexistant, but after the first couple pages I knew we weren't going to get anything meaningful in THAT department. We're doing a bonfire at my school here shortly. And just like the completely wasted potential of the cool idea of a "dragon engine" that powers a city this book is going to burn, burn, burn, burn.

[Chris Dow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short version of this review: Repetitive, unimaginative swearing, and a rushed conclusion mar what could otherwise have been a great book.

Full disclosure, I won the paperback edition of this book in a giveaway from Galleywampus (http://www.galleywampus.com). Great review site with well-written reviews, getting books onto my wish list that I would ordinarily never have heard of.

A warning up front, I may use some words which are considered in poor taste, so if you're offended by that kind of thing, don't bother to read the review. Don't bother to read this book, either, for that matter. Consider that your warning. I will also try not to spoil much more than the cover seems to spoil, itself, but there may be mild spoilerage involved.

This is grimdark fantasy, my friends, in all its (expletive self-censored) glory. I knew the genre before I got into it. I knew what I was in for. I knew there would be graphic sex, swearing, and lots and lots of gory death. Still even knowing that, this book seemed...gratuitous.

The story is masterfully woven throughout most of the book. The heroes of the mud orc wars getting together for one last shot at hope, glory, health, and riches beyond imagination. The beginning is much like the Dragonlance Chronicles, but there the similarities end, for as I said, this is grimdark. Nothing is going to go as planned. There will be captivity. There will be graphic torture. And there will be death. There was all of that in spades. I enjoyed the lead up until about the midway point of the book. At that point, Remic almost seemed as though the story's scope was going to get away from him, requiring this one tale to be split into several books just to get the heroes out of their predicament. Perhaps that is what should have happened.

What happened instead was an improbable escape, followed by an improbable task. Then came the dragons. Yes, the (expletive self-censored) dragons. I was excited to see them get their comeuppance, but for crying out loud, the f--- word was used as every part of speech in most of their sentences. They've been imprisoned for 10,000 years and they wake up dropping f-bombs like they grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in the last couple hundred years. I expected archaic forms of speech, maybe not noble, but more creative than THAT!

That, probably, was the defining moment that dropped what could have been a 4 star review into an obvious 3-star review which reaches into the 2-star realm. I don't mind language. But every other word is the f-bomb. It's like that scene from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, but we need to remember...PTA was a comedy. And for crying out loud, does "quim" really need to be used all THAT OFTEN?

In short, I liked the story. It could have been a solid 4-star story, but the unimaginative swearing, and the overuse of the words "fuck" and "quim" really did me in. Over and over, until the words lose their punch, their shock value. It becomes repetitive and boring, at that point, and that's where I ended up with this book.

I was glad to have the opportunity to read it, and I may even continue on when the next one comes out, but my expectations will be tempered.

[Greg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jesus Christ in a top hat, I've never read a book so enamored with the genitals before. Characters are punched there, stabbed there, kicked there, fondled there, worried about brushing up against there (like that's an actual thought by a character, cognizant of not brushing against someone's bare ass), threats against them, jokes about them, on and on. Genitals plague their dialogue, their thoughts. There's genital torture, rape, and sodomy. Some can be as part of the story, but such overuse of it seems to push it to the very forefront of thought through the pages. It's like the author looked at the darkest parts of Game of Thrones and wondered "How can I take that and punch it to the max?". I can see why some reviewers simply couldn't finish the book.

Setting that point aside, the story is also sub-par. First, these so-called "heroes of Vagandrak", warriors of such tremendous skill and acclaim that they're discussed in schools, known across the lands. Yet this band of heroes only seem to win two battles: they defeat an inept bunch of bandits and defeat a tankard of ale. The splice? Nope, didn't beat that. They escaped by the skin of their teeth. A group of dwarf slave masters? Nope, got their ass handed to them easily the first time, then spared from a second battle/execution by Skalg's timely interference. Palace guards? Nope, escaped another execution due to the dragon's attack. How on earth are these the great heroes when their skill seems to be turn on and off like a light switch? They cannot defeat a handful of slave guards. Dwarf slave guards. Sure, the dwarves are strong, but muscle isn't everything, and reach can matter a lot in a battle. Besides, isn't Beetrax supposedly strong too? Yet they're all easily thumped by the dwarves. Not dwarf warriors, mind you, but slave masters. That's like saying a top tier special forces unit getting beat up by run-of-the-mill prison guards. Not one of them is especially heroic, except for a few remote times when their skill suddenly returns and they're a force to be reckoned with.

The story itself ambles along with little direction. The first third perhaps is dedicated to reaching the lost, supposedly extinct dwarf city in search of fortune and healing gems. Once they're captured by the not-so-extinct dwarves, the healing gems are all but forgotten. And so is the hero's ambition and drive. And the splice, this horrific creature supposed to be tracking them to kill them, is completely gone and forgotten from the story at this point. The middle is following the division between church and state in the dwarf city, a struggle for power between king and cardinal that essentially is all for naught, a lengthy distraction that feels like page filler more than story arc, the dragon's inferno erasing any thought of church or state politics, all that simply left to burn (perhaps it's resurrected in the next books, but considering how I felt with the first book it's not something I'll discover). And it's here in the middle where the story feels really lost, at least for me. The torture and imprisonment. The author doesn't just beat down the heroes, but actually breaks them. Firmly, without question and without remorse. Genital torture and mutilation, rape (of both men and women), peeling skin and scarring. It's just too much. Yes, you want the heroes to battle back from hardship, but the problem is (1) they don't, not at all, each carrying the scars like spurned puppies, tail tucked, ignoring it rather than overcoming it, and (2) all too often they cower. They toss down weapons more often than they lift them, at least it seems. They cry, they weep, they mew like kittens in the face of hardship. Yes, some things are hard and it's good to see them emotional, but you must balance that with forthright, with courage, with a willingness to stand tall. there are a few moments of this, but it's completely out of balance with the number of times they cry, pout, cower, kneel, and so forth. A hero can show courage even when taking a knee. These characters do not.

The final part of the book is the awakening of the dragons and "escape" by the heroes, an escape that is simply doing the bidding of the sinister dwarf cardinal in trade for their freedom. Assassinate the king (yes, the king of the very kingdom they're prisoner in) and they'll get their freedom. What does this troupe of heroes do? Goes to assassinate the king. No thought of trying to escape on their own, no thought to bargaining with the king (which he does offer to them), just go kill the king. I suppose I expected a little more thought, more cunning from a group of heroic figures. Nope, go in axe swinging (at groins, of course) and arrow's flying.

Which brings me to the characters themselves. As I said, the heroes don't feel like heroes. Beetrax has to be persuaded to help rescue the young lad being tortured by bandits (yep, very heroic); Lillith spends more time pouting and standing in the background of battles as if it's her first time seeing violence; Jonti, the supposed "ghost" of lightning-quick fighting, is a ghost in most fights, vaguely noted at best (the focus primarily on Beetrax and occasionally Dake); Talon, the archer, finds it sensible to waste arrows shooting them into dark shadows to check for hiding forces in the palace (yes, literally he shoots arrows into the dark as a way to see if there's anyone hiding there... arrows that he has in limited supply against a dwarf population of thousands); Sakora, supposedly a master of hand-to-hand combat, can't overpower a group of dwarves despite having both speed and reach (again, not warriors, but ordinary prison guards); and Dake, husband of Jonti, good with a sword but is so demure and cowling he's almost a forgotten shadow. The antagonists of the story aren't any better, fighting for power against one another in some shadowed chess match. But like I said, the political squabble for power is a moot point once the final act begins, as is most of the rest of the story points.

Honestly, just about every character in this world is deplorable. Everyone curses like teenagers, throwing in the f*cks with the angst of a high schooler, forced into sentences awkwardly as if overtly trying to be cool. Even the dragons, yes, the dragons curse with this forced notion that a curse word makes their statement so much more powerful. But that's not how it works. Power comes from behind the words, not the other way. Saying "These f*cking dwarves are a bunch of f*cking c*nts!" sounds more like a fourteen year old having a hissy fit. The dialogue is riddled with this style throughout. And aside from talking like wanna-be teenage thugs, they're all a bunch of deplorable cretins. I truly cannot think of a redeemable character outside the hero's party. No one else is anything but a despicable being. Every. Single. One. The king, the cardinal, the guards, hell even the people back in Vagandrak (who are also completely forgotten about after the first chapters of the story), all of them terrible people.

The idea behind the story had great potential, but it just went off the rails. The overt focus on the groin - yes, getting hit/stabbed/kicked in the groin hurts, but damn if you don't need to focus on strikes there in every fight - and the sexually-charged focus (from rapes to torture to casual scenes all having a sexual tint of some sort) makes the whole cast seem frustratingly horny as a high school. The general story arc feels lost, the tale of the dragon engines mere set pieces, the story choosing to focus on the political subterfuge and the heroes capture/enslavement. Maybe trying to set a stage for a grander story, but for me the Dragon Engine burned itself out of my interest.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me just say that I loved this book. It grabbed me from the very beginning and had me enthralled all the way to the end. Not only did I not want to put it down, but I really didn't want it to end. I finished it in two days. It left me with a need to know what happens and I am looking forward to the next book.
There were quite a few of the elements that I feel make a great fantasy. It contained lots of action, unexpected happenings, swordplay, scary creatures that are hard to kill, war heroes, dwarves, evil villains, and dragons! The characters are well developed as is the world they live in. There were even some touching scenes that brought a tear to my eye. Overall, the execution of the story was well done.
Even though all the characters were well developed, I got annoyed with Beetrax now and again because he could be irritating at times. My favorite is Dake. I can't wait to get to know them all better though as the story continues.
I hope it doesn't take long for the second book in the series. I think I'm going to have to give this one five stars.

This review can be found on Word Gurgle at www.wordgurgle.blogspot.com

[Maryam · Rating 1 out of 5]

I should have DNF this book after chapter 2 but since it was the only book I had with me on holidays, I forced myself to read it. It is so not for me, it's is extremely vulgar, badly-written, the dialogues are cringeworthy and Remic used tropes that I personally hate such as:

- The main villain Skalg suffers from deformity
- King Yoon is so awful he wears makeup, that must be a sign that he's a bad guy
- Beetrax is completely stupid, he kills for nothing, he's incredibly selfish and gross BUT he also managed to have a gold heart.
- Talon, a character introduced as gay at first suddendly becomes bisexual toward the end of the novel just because, if he didn't, one of the main female characters would have stayed single and who wants that? A woman must be with someone is she wants to be happy. Ugh.
- Last but not least, Remic repeatedly used rape as a from of character development and torture.

I may give a try to his Tor.Com novellas but I'm done with his novels that's for sure!

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grimdark. Gets better as it goes forward, but had some inconsistencies of relative character strength, tone switches, and a few mighty Hail Mary requests of suspensions of disbelief. There were probably too many POV characters, particularly when the story feels a bit forced along by the characters' wills. Much of the plotting was well considered. Profane and grisly and full of psychopaths and murderers and rapists and power-hungry, smug bastards. Ultimately not my cup of tea.

[jonathanka K · Rating 1 out of 5]

The most horrible book I have ever read. The torture is awful and the characters are the same as in other books e.g. Tolkien or grrm . I would not recommend this book to anyone. Also I should not forget to mention that the dragons are of metal and not the real thing( for the fans of dragon stories).

[Kron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast paced, addicting, great characters, and bloody battles. DRAGONS!

One star off because I felt like the two stories that ran parallel connected far to late in the book. Both stories were intriguing.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 4.5 of 5

I believe that Andy Remic is the natural successor to Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber and the other authors of 'sword and sorcery' heroic fantasy. But Remic may also be the successor to the Marquis de Sade.

Just when I was starting to think that I didn't really like the epic journey fantasy stories because I'd read quite a few lately and didn't really like any of them, comes Remic with this Lord of the Rings-like 'buddy' fantasy that grabbed me right off and held my interest through every page (even if I was cringing just a little bit at times).

The Dragon Engine is book one in Remic's The Dragon Blood Empire, which gets off to a tremendous start with a group of former war heroes, friends, plan a great adventure together - to seek out the massive wealth that dwarves are reputed to have underground, including three jeweled dragon heads.

What strikes the reader immediately is the friendship among this band of warriors. Their camaraderie feels genuine and it's hard to say if there's even a leader to the band as they work as a group so well. The fighter, the most warrior of them, is Beetrax the Axe-Man and he comes across as the de facto leader, but it also often feels as though the others simply let Beetrax think he's the leader.

We have your almost typical D&D group - aside from Beetrax the brutish fighter, we have Talon who's an expert with the bow, Lillith a healer with an on-again-off-again relationship with Beetrax, and Dake and Jonti who have prowess with swords and daggers.

Remic sets up the characters nicely and establishes the world, which is familiar to those who have read Remic's The Iron Wolves and/or The White Towers. It's the same world with the same rulers, but we're exploring with a different band of characters.

It's difficult to say anything without giving too much away, but suffice it to say that the book takes a very dark turn about half way through and the group's search for treasure is put on the back-burner as they fight simply to survive, facing torture - both physical and mental - that will challenge them individually and strain their relationships.

It is powerful writing that Andy Remic has accomplished - building us up with a great cast and then making us hurt with them. I've written before that I prefer books that are character driven, rather than adventure stories filled with stock characters. Here we have an adventure story with stock characters, but the characters are well-defined and drive the story. If we didn't care about this band of warriors, the narrative wouldn't have nearly the impact that it does.

The climax of the book rings true to the heroic fantasy saga but ... ah ... the book is left with a gigantic cliff-hanger. Though in some strange fashion, Remic manages to make this a complete story, but opens the door to the next book, not just inviting you to read it as well, but rather thrusting the reader into the next portion of the story.

Looking for a good book? Andy Remic's The Dragon Engine is a powerful adventure story with characters that will become the readers' friends.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

[ModernDayArachne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting story - reminded me of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, knowing who was the Barbarian, the Ranger, the Cleric, the Monk....you get my point. I appreciate the dragons at the end with the Black one being the worst (which totally fits with the DnD Monster Manual) and I'm confused by other things that maybe were explained in other books? I checked this out of my library and my review of this is two stars for a few reasons that others have mentioned:

1. I felt that the amount of sex scenes was gratuitous at times and didn't really serve to move the story forward. Part of the pain in the later stories is because the sex is driving the story forward. And that's good. But the rest, I could leave it. I'm not sure if that's in the rest of the different series' that others have mentioned that these characters are in.

2. The violence - it was okay. Probably could have used a little bit less of it, but meh. It wasn't terrible and it seemed like it was accurate-ish.

3. This wasn't at my library with the other series' and I felt like I was missing information from these other series'. It kind of frustrated me a little because I feel like a series should stand on its own unless it's specifically said that it is part of different series. Personal opinion, but that's that.

4. I wasn't a HUGE fan of Beetrax. It felt forced and the character felt....dry. There was no growth, no character development, nothing. And it felt like he was the main character, which made me wonder about the rest of the characters and their backstories. I would have rather read this from different perspectives, especially since it did feel like a DnD party campaign. Like I want to know more about Jonti and why she was called the Ghost (see point 3 again).

5. While I KNOW that this is definitely not a DnD Dragon mythology or something like that, the Brass dragon and the Silver dragon would definitely have been on the side of "good" (whether chaotic or lawful). I KNOW that it isn't technically wrong especially in this world, but I mean.......it's tough for me to get rid of that DnD knowledge in my brain.

6. I wish that I knew more about the different parts of the world. Just felt like I was missing more information here, again. And who's Orlana??

7. I wish I had gotten more Talon. I liked Talon, even though he felt like a token (gay?) bisexual character. And I wish that the women were there for more than sex or for being token women. It felt unnatural and forced, like the dialogue was stilted and frustrating to read.

8. Lillith's change of heart really frustrated me. Like if you wear her down enough you'll eventually get her into your bed - just like, no. That's not how you should be writing your characters and it feels icky, especially as a woman reading it.

Overall, from the issues that I had with it, I'll try to read the next book. But I'm annoyed and I'll need a break from this series for at least a day. It'snot terrible, but I wouldn't personally recommend it.

[S.B. (Beauty in Ruins) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it shares the same world as The Iron Wolves and The White Towers, Andy Remic's first book in The Blood Dragon Empire is an entirely different. While those books were very much high-stakes epic fantasies, complete with massive battles and bloodshed, The Dragon Engine is more of a traditional quest tale - albeit one that subverts the usual tropes.

For starters, our heroes seem to be the typical gang of adventurers - complete with barbarian, archer, cleric, assassin, and more - but they're actually retired war veterans whose quest days are comfortably behind them. As it turns out, one of them is dying of cancer, one is drinking his sorrows away, and several are nursing broken hearts. While all but one would have turned down an adventure based solely on greed, they find a common purpose in seeking out a magical cure for their dying companion.

While you don't need any prior knowledge of the two Rage of Kings novels to enjoy this, fans will be pleased to discover that King Yoon is still in control, and as debauched as ever. He has serious competition for the most over-the-top, scene-chewing villain however, in the form of First Cardinal Skalg, High Priest of the Church of Hate. While the Dwarves here are hearty and stoic, as you'd expect, they're also sadistically prejudiced against the surface, exceptionally cruel, and on the brink of civil war. They're also presumed long-extinct, which poses a challenge for our heroes, who intend to help themselves to their forgotten treasures.

Where the story takes a sharp left turn in terms of both plot and tone is in the second half of the novel, following the heroes arrival beneath the mountain. What began a fun adventures becomes very dark, very quickly, as our heroes are taken captive. Without saying too much, the torture they endure at the hands of the Dwarves is not for the squeamish - it's cruel, it's painful, and it crosses lines that will make some readers very uncomfortable. What's important is that it's not done merely for shock value. Remic has established his heroes, exposed their faults and their flaws, and also pointed out their all-too-human weaknesses. It's important that they be tested, if not broken, if they're to shake off the complacency of retirement and become the heroes that the world needs once again.

The final chapters are some of the most powerful Remic has ever written, with the core conflicts coming together in a climactic clash. It is here that the true significance of the The Dragon Engine comes clear, leaving us with a cliffhanger that poses a dire threat for the world above. It is a very different story arc than the Rage of Kings, but readers who appreciate a more mature, more adult, no-hold-barred kind of fantasy that rivals any big screen R-rated action flick will once again find a lot to enjoy here.


Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins

[Lissibith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A copy of this was received from Netgally in return for an honest review.

Everyone who knows D&D-style gaming knows the scenario - the group of adventurers gathering around a table in a tavern, learning about the latest quest that they'll all eventually agree to go on, in search of mysteries, money and fabulous magical items. The only difference is that instead of a young group of adventurers out to make a name for themselves, the crew in The Dragon Engine are already famous, their exploits beginning to drift into history books and awed legend.

Beetrax The Axeman has a map said to lead to the five fabled abandoned dwarven cities in the mountains - a place with lakes of molten silver, heaps of gems and - because sheer money would not be enough for avowed heroes of the realm - three jewels known as The Dragon Heads, rumored to have healing properties and grant immortality. So they're off - the band coming back together for one last grand hurrah before time takes the chance away from them.

I think the fact that this is a set of older heroes, of retired heroes taking one last grand adventure, is one of the things that really made this book sparkle for me. The world is full of strapping teenagers fulfilling their destiny through bravery and perhaps a bit if stupidity. And this book itself sort of pays a compliment to the way the younger generation must come up, and how the older generation can shape them. But the fact that these are adults, full-fledged adults in a fantasy world dealing with personal lives that are looking for more stability, made it stand out.

Our main character, more or less, is the previously mentioned Beetrax, also called Axeman by his friends. He's joined by his best friend Dake (a swordsman), Dake's wife Jonti, aka The Ghost (also a swordsman I believe), Lillith (some sort of magic used, mainly a healer), Sakora (a melee fighter) and Talon (an archer). And the interactions between these characters are one of the best parts of this book. They are people with history, some stated outright and some implied in more subtle ways. To take Beetrax as an example, his friendship with Dake is painted in the way the latter knows when to push the former and when to leave him alone; his history with Lillith is spelled out pretty explicitly; and his past with Talon, I don't even know because they are apparently friends and also apparently kind of hate one another. So who knows, maybe it's just how two very different characters end up finding a common ground, or maybe it's that they already have a common ground. After all, when it comes time to stand and fight, they're the two most likely to do it, the martial heart of an incredibly martial group.

Oh, and speaking of explicitly, just be warned - there's a lot of references to groins in this book. Groins are constantly being grabbed, punched, stabbed, squished or used in more violent or more... pleasurable ways. Lots of groins. You have been warned.

But much as I like the characters, the plot also kept me moving along. It's high-action stuff-never-goes-right stress at its best. By the time the group gets up into the mountains, I had a hard time putting the story down because stuff just kept happening, and I had to know how they would deal with the new stuff, and as they dealt with it, more stuff would happen. Situations get to the point where all seems hopeless, and the solutions, incomplete as they sometimes are (in a good way), never feel cheap.

I also have to give a shout out to the descriptions - all of them, but especially the dwarven cities, painted in a dark cast with their fire pots illuminating the deep delvings, the streets lined with metal trees. The fight scenes are also created to be crystal clear and splashed with gore, so you understand every stab and slash, every lopped off head and split spleen.

There were times I really wanted to give this five stars, but there's a few things that hindered it, for me.

First and biggest is that this isn't really a complete book. I understand that it's part of a series, but it's a pet peeve of mine when an individual book in a series doesn't have its own arc. It almost was - it could have been. There's a decision made nearly at the end which could have wrapped things up nicely, but since the decision had already been discussed and essentially made earlier in the book, it felt like they simply started the next phase of the story and then the book just stopped.

Also, every character pretty much gets a little bit of a backstory flashback. However, some of these feel more integral than others. For instance, when Dake was first introduced, I sort of expected him to be the group's leader, and his flashback, in addition to explaining some of his previous actions, also helped me understand why his bearing made him feel like the leader at first. But for other characters, it doesn't seem to have that much impact or connection to what's going on. Maybe it'll prove more important to later books.

Finally, there's this phenomenon in fanfic called "pair the spares." It's just what it sounds like - the author puts together the characters who have chemistry (in their eyes) and then, if there's two extras, they sort of end up together without having many scenes or showing terribly much chemistry. Others may disagree, but there was a couple in this who seemed to be together out of obligation. Again, I hope later books will justify it more.

Still, this was a highly enjoyable book, well worth reading. It's unapologetically fantasy - The good guys are our heroes, the bad guys are unabashedly evil, and there's adventures and fights and sneaking into people's homes while they're presumably out to take all their stuff. :D I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Kyra Dune · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was okay. It had a well fleshed out, detailed setting. Good world building. And the characters were mostly pretty interesting. Talon was my favorite, though he wasn't one of the focus characters so he didn't get a lot of page time.
The story started out kind of slow, but things really picked up once the companions reached the mountains. There's a sort of old school, epic fantasy kind of feel about the quest, but the book deviates off from that in most other areas.
This book is pretty graphic, so if you're not into that you might want to stay clear. But if that doesn't bother you, this a decent read.

[Mota · Rating 3 out of 5]

For me, the characters and the quest they were on were the reason I finished this book. I became deeply attached to the adventurers in this book and just had to know how it all ended. At times I didn't like the writing style but it was well worth finishing. However, I really liked the writing when it came to describing the different battle scenes. I will probably be reading book 2 in the future because I need to make sure my babies make it out alive and well.... Just thinking about it makes me so nervous. Ugh. Good book.