The Dragonscale

The Arbedenion #1

by J.E. Feldman

(Second Edition text, First Edition hardcover) Vampires have ventured out of their caves in the North to wreak havoc on the peaceful races. Their Queen will brutally slaughter thousands and push the races to extinction if something isn't done. Someone must rise above the masses and lead the war against the Vampires as members of each race tell their nightmarish journey to their uncertain fate.

234 pages, Hardcover

First published September 25, 2014

About the author

When not penning the next novel, J.E. Feldman focuses on mentoring authors and raising money for charity. The literature world is merely one facet of her life. Feldman haunts car shows, anime conventions, medieval fairs, and whatever else catches her attention.

She enjoys road trips ripe with history, crocheting blankets for the homeless, and can be found reading in cramped bookstores.

Website: www.jefeldman.com
Author Page: http://www.facebook.com/dragonqueen321
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/jefeldman
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dragon_queen321

Author of more than 200 titles.

Reviews

[Jasmine Brennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, I can’t get over the fact that this novel was written by JE Feldman when she was just 15 years old. Yes, it has a straightforward story line and seems to want to include every possible creature one might find in an epic fantasy novel, but the very fact that she manages to keep track of her cast of–maybe not a thousand, but at least several dozen—characters is a feat that most brand spanking new indie authors never accomplish. She also creates some truly interesting characters that I would like to see developed more in future books in the series (currently set as a trilogy). For one, the uber-evil vampire Valacotayda seems like a character who could have had a wider story told to round out her personality a bit. I found her fascinating and delightfully dark and look forward to more of her in future Arbedenion projects. Also high on my list of excellent things is Feldman's dwarf kingdom. It seemed well thought out and fully realized. I found myself wanting more of the scenes in that kingdom as well as among the dwarven army.

For me, the elves seemed to fill the spot that humans usually fill in a typical epic fantasy story. At first this caused me some concern and confusion as I'm used to reading elves who speak and behave very differently than the usual 'farmer-slash-peasant who lives in a fantasy village'. But, this unique portrayal of elves proved to separate them from their usual 'rarified' depictions in both literature, genre and film, where they can almost always be counted on to step in and save the day in some glorious glow of light and obtuse language. I ended up quite enjoying Feldman's elves, who came complete with their own set of heartbreak, foibles and petty behaviors. Although, it should be noted that this is the type of elf that might not appeal to everyone. Some readers VERY MUCH love their CGI-smoothed faced elves sitting around great tables in fantastic lands, speaking in florid sentences and generally looking down on anything that is not an elf. Feldman's elves want to save the world, for better or worse, and are not afraid to show their emotions, whether it be happiness, fear or mindless screaming when things don't go their way in wartime.

One caveat: It is very, very difficult to create dragons who are both ancient and wise and elemental and fierce without having them end up speaking like Worf on the bridge of the Enterprise. Hats off to JE Feldman for writing her dragons as just another character in a very full roster of characters and using a natural speaking style for all.

I very much enjoyed The Dragonscale and see it as rising above the crowded field of first time epic fantasy writers in both its scope and the amount of imagination put into building the complex world of Arbedenion. If this is any indication of where JE Feldman will be as her writing style grows and matures, I am very excited for the next offerings in the Arbedenion Trilogy!

[Andy Peloquin · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off, I have to say that the premise of the book was absolutely awesome. Vampires tend to be cast in urban fantasy books, so bringing them to epic/high fantasy was a move I could get behind. The main character of the book was the kind of person I could get behind, and there were a lot of things about the story that I highly enjoyed. For the story alone, I give it a 4-star rating.
Sadly, I can't judge ONLY on story, but I have to take the writing into account as well. This is where the book fell a bit flat.
The story looked like a "rough draft", without all the polish and shine that makes a story readable. I had a hard time getting past the VERY simplistic writing, and it completely ruined my enjoyment of the story. You'll see in the excerpt below what I mean.
The book had quite a few anachronisms--for example, there was a "Bengal tiger" in a land where there is no India or Bangladesh to give it its name. The speech patterns were a bit off. Some situations that should have been formal were far too informal, and the personalities and character traits often clashed with each other.
A few clichés were present (dwarves being named after rocks being just one of them), and A LOT of typos and grammar mistakes. For the writing alone, I have to give it a 2-star rating.
Which leaves us with a 3-star rating--GREAT story, iffy writing.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Right from the get go, I'll say that I very much enjoy the fact that Feldman didn't go the regular route with the villains in her fantasy world. Elves, humans, Dwarves, Dark Elves and Dragons are all present as usual, but the fact that she didn't go with orcs or goblins as her main antagonists is a refreshing change.

There are a lot of gripping characters here from General Rothgar, Protector of the Dragonscale, Aris, the young Elven girl who is obviously morethan she seems, Princess Selkina(thank you for writing a princess who is more than capable of looking after herself by the way) to Valacotadaya, the arrogant, evil vampire princess who I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing bad things happen to.

The general story is your pretty traditional "Good vs. Evil", but the way that Feldman is handling it here interested me a lot and I'm very much looking forward to seeing where the story goes. So get back to work on Book 2! hehe.

All that being said, the one quibble I had is with the fact that the book could use another editing pass. There were some typos and sentence structure difficulties that occasionally took me out of the story, which annoyed me because I really got into it otherwise. But at the core, the story is excellent. A bit of tightening on the mechanics, and you've got a kick-ass story brewing here.

[Amanda Grimm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just point blank, I loved the book! The detail the author put into it, the story, the characters. All of it was amazing. What did bother me was how fast everyone was dying. You couldn't really bond with the characters. And, when you did, BOOM! they were dead. I'm afraid to bond with the characters that survived, fearing that they will be killed in later books.

The author made sure that you had to read till the last page, and the book was filled with battle scenes and death. One thing this book didn't have was love, and while I love reading a love story, I'll admit it was refreshing to see that there wasn't much romance in this story.

What made me really on my seat was the ending. It makes me want to read the second book right away. And the detail on the characters, most authors change the characters as the story goes, but this author, she kept the characters strong. Like Vala, the vampire princess. She was mean and (what I call evil) to begin with, and as the story went, she didn't change her attitude. Throughout the whole story, she was still as mean as she was before.

Overall, it's a five star, a must read!

[Jennifer Grimm · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review. In this case, the book was just too short! It had a fast story line that kept you on the edge of your seat. There were so many characters and it was just so hard to like just one...they were all great. I did notice that there was a lot of killing off of the characters, and that was sad...I hated to see them go. I normally read romance novels so this was quite a change for me. I would love to read more of the trilogy though! As this is rather short, the book went quite quickly and I hated to see it end.

That being said, the writing was not as polished as I would have like. I think the author has the potential to write great things and this is a solid start.

I look forward to reading more from this author in the future!