Master of Dragons

The Dragonvarld Trilogy #3

by Margaret Weis

In Mistress of Dragons we were introduced to a world where political deception, greed, and avarice have lead to a violation of the “hands off” policy of the Parliament of Dragons concerning the affairs of men.

In The Dragon’s Son twins born out of violence and raised apart discover the secrets of their legacy and the plot to incite a war between dragons and men.

Now as the evidence of deceit, betrayal, and perdition is revealed to them, who will emerge as mankind's savior as the

Master of Dragons
A divided Parliament of Dragons where division and self preservation incite war and threaten the order of the ages.

A hidden stronghold where insidious and outlaw dragons hatch a race bent on the subjugation of all mankind.

The ancient city of Seth and its mystical order of warrior priestesses who have the power to fight back against the attacks of dragons.

The twins Marcus and Ven must unlock the secrets of these places and their own powers and overcome their own personal differences as they prepare to clash in a war that may pit brother against brother and dragon against dragon to determine dominion of the world and the survival of the fittest.

Master of Dragons is the epic conclusion of Margaret Weis's triumphant Dragonvarld trilogy, an epic of politics, war, and the delicate balance of the ways of dragons and men.

Genres: Fantasy, Dragons, Fiction, Audiobook, Science Fiction Fantasy, Adult, High Fantasy

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Margaret Edith Weis is an American fantasy and science fiction author of dozens of novels and short stories. At TSR, Inc., she teamed with Tracy Hickman to create the Dragonlance role-playing game (RPG) world. She is founding CEO and owner of Sovereign Press, Inc and Margaret Weis Productions, licensing several popular television and movie franchises to make RPG series in addition to their own.
In 1999, Pyramid magazine named Weis one of The Millennium's Most Influential Persons, saying she and Hickman are "basically responsible for the entire gaming fiction genre". In 2002, she was inducted into the Origins Hall of Fame in part for Dragonlance.

Reviews

[MissBecka Gee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series is pretty good, but it's no Dragonlance.
I dislike how this series ends. It felt like she was setting up for another book, but sadly, there is no more books in the series.

[Becky · Rating 1 out of 5]

Head's up, massive content warning for rape and forced pregnancy on scores of kidnapped women. This book is absolutely wretched.

Before I get into talking about the story itself, I just want to say that this book has one of the more nonsensical covers I've seen for a fantasy novel. I get that slapping a dragon on a cover is a real marketing technique for this genre (and I have read books based on how cool the dragon looked, like Dragonsbane and Dragon Wing) but it's still really funny to have this large, looming dragon just kind of...stand there and wait while a tiny half-dragon lady blasts a knight somewhat ineffectively with a beam of magic. This combined with the title (which feels a good deal more generic than the previous two books') almost makes this a parody of fantasy book art instead of an earnest attempt at describing the contents within.

Oh, where do I start with the actual contents...

When reading a trilogy, especially a medieval fantasy trilogy in a genre where there are millions of books with knights and dragons and castles and sorcery, all competing to become the next "big thing", I try to look at the books as a whole and think to myself "what do these books offer that's different from the others". What can I remember when I recall this story? What kind of story is this trilogy trying to tell me?

In The Dragonvarld's case, what sets it apart from the other books on dragons - the thing I can remember from this series years after reading it - is the dragon-on-human breeding program in which one of the dragons involved in the secret evil plot proceeds to rape several scores of women over a span of several decades so that they give birth to hideous dragon/human hybrids while he wears the body of a human that he ripped the heart out of in a terrible shapeshifting ritual.

Yep. This is The Dragonvarld Trilogy . Dragon rape and dragon breeding programs and occasionally dragons wearing human skin-suits because dragons hate humans just that much.

It sounds like I'm griping on one plot point and how it "ruins the books" for me, but not only is the rest of the book so bland and by-the-numbers that this is really all you remember, but that's also really what drives all the conflict in these three books. This is the big secret that the renegade dragons Grald and Maristara (and a third dragon) are keeping from the dragon council as their solution to the rising technology in human society. This is how the dragons are amassing an army to take back their lands and become the true masters of the world once more. This is why there is an all-female coven in the first book that's taught to attack dragons on sight (to prevent members of the dragon council from finding out the secret) and why there are mad monks. All of the conflict, all of the horrible things in which the heroes must stop is centered on awkward bestiality. Something tells me this series is not getting a movie adaptation anytime soon.

I can't help but wonder what kind of reactions Grald and Maristara would've got if they just...went up to the Dragon Council and tried to pitch this idea instead of tried being all sneaky with their awful strategy. I'm picturing some awkward silence and a bunch of dragons trying to avoid eye contact as they realize just how far they've fallen as a species.

Really, the whole driving force of the villains' plot is jawdroppingly stupid to the point where I almost feel sorry for the villain dragons. So because humans might, in the future, be able to stop dragons and dragons are too proud to establish any alliances with humans, they're going to...breed more humans, only magical humans who have even more of a means to stop them. Only they're going to make these humans loyal to dragons somehow! And, on top of that, dragons are going to make freakish dragon/human hybrids by raping their daughters and disguising this as an honorable ceremony, because there is no way this can backfire horribly on them and make humans want to kill them more.

Isn't that like enforcing gun control by sending out loaded guns to random households and using a gun to shoot random civilians?

Plot-wise, this book soundly wraps up the events in Mistress of Dragons and The Dragon's Son. The author does do a good job at making sure every dangling plot thread is addressed while creating some twists and give us a satisfying dragon fight complete with fire-breathing, blood raining from the sky (which is probably one of the few visuals that I liked from this novel), and knights. The villains meet their end, the humans rise triumphant, Marcus and Ven and newcomer Sorrow finally receive their happy endings, Evelina has several tons of karma dropped on her head after a book of suffering through her once comical but now pitiful antics, and the dragon council finally exposes the traitors among their ranks.

Yippee.

This sounds like it would be exciting, and the prose is written well enough, but I really didn't feel any strong emotions one way or another involving the events that took place.

Because, in the end, dragon rape or no dragon rape, I really didn't care whether the bad dragons succeeded or not even after spending three books with this cast of characters. Even if you ignore the awkward plot points revolving around sex, this book is boring. Even Evelina, who I said was the best part of the second book, turns into something completely obnoxious in this book and I ceased to care about her story arc around the time she started to fake a pregnancy in order to control Marcus. (Yes, this is a plot point! This book is terrible!) None of the characters feel like actual people anymore and jump to conclusions in ways that feel alien, and none of the characters introduced in this novel are notable in any way beyond "wow, that person is half-dragon, that's kind of gross". Marcus is the most likeable but he's also the human equivalent of off-white paint. There's a half-dragon girl named Sorrow who...I guess mirrors Ven's character development but doesn't actually play a large part?

It's a hot mess, basically. And from one of the writers of Dragonlance, no less. Which turns this book from just a stupid book on really dumb dragons into an absolute insult. The same person who helped create Raistlin and Tanis and Caramon and Goldmoon created this. You helped write Time of the Twins, one of my favorite books of all time, Weis!

Also, after building up the untapped magic in the two sons, they never really use any of their powers and instead the evil dragons are dispatched of with the traditional cannons and mortar and dragon fights. We have a troupe of half-dragon children, but they exist mostly to make the reader feel uncomfortable and to have a just angry mob tear down the dragon rape factory headquarters. Ven and Sorrow in particular feels like they could've been cut completely from this book and nothing of value would've been lost.

In short, not Margaret Weis's best works and I hated reading this. I would go so far as to say this is one of her worst, even, unless there's a Dragonlance novel that totally eclipses this one in wretched awfulness. If you like dragons, there are thousands of books way better than this. Even if you like the idea of half-dragon hybrids or humans with some dragon magic in their blood, Dragon Weather makes for a less revolting read.

[Connie53 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Een beetje een doorsnee drakenverhaal. Niet echt erg speciaal.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised with this book. I didn't go in expecting much so I guess I couldn't have been too disappointed. I was glad that most characters were actually able to pull their heads out and start realizing what was going on although a certain royal family were pulled into a clear trap and left me calling them all idiots.
I very much enjoyed the conclusion of Evelinas fate at first but really wish Weis would have done more and left Evelina cowed for life with no contact with other people and not in any situation that would leave the possibility of a rise to power

I do have one complaint. throughout the trilogy it left me with a sense of, "when all is said and done the world is going to have to change." which in many ways it was working toward by the end but the Dragons still chose to exile themselves from the humans which leaves them in the same position as before; still apart from but able to meddle in humas lives.

[Bukcrz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Note to self: story was good until the epilogue. I wish I did not read the epilogue because instead of the backstabber getting a comeuppance, she was given more opportunity to ruin more lives.
If I ever pick up another book from this author, I hope I'll remember how she treats her bad guys.

[Scott Block · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like her Dragonlance books, I could read them forever! I wish this tale kept going as well. I place it as my number three most favorite trilogy, behind The Lord of the Rings and The IronTower.

[Ronnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Oh, Margaret Weis! I love Margaret Weis! Sure, I'll buy this entire trilogy on audiobook!" I naively said to myself many months ago.

I'm glad I finished the series. Not because I was really excited to make it to the thrilling conclusion, but because I'm glad it's over.

I enjoyed this book more than the second book in the series at least. But only a little. The characters end the series as the same characters they started as. None of them have had much character growth. There's romance in this book that comes out of absolutely nowhere with zero development (oh look, new female characters have been introduced in the final book! Their only purpose is to instantly fall in love with the male leads as soon as they look at one another. What?). The plot remained more or less predictable in exactly the way you'd think.

But on the other hand, it's schlocky fantasy and it's not like I went into the books expecting high literature. They're fine overall. The kind of story that's fine to kill time with.

[Kim-Lost-In-A-Book · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first time reading anything by this author. I thoroughly enjoyed the first two books and simply loved this final book. I love the writing style, the vocabulary, and how the twists in the story are written. They're so well done and not entirely predictable. I thought the battle scenes were really exciting, a lot more emotion in this book (although definitely some in the first two as well). I will absolutely be looking into more books by this author.

[Chet · Rating 2 out of 5]

It felt like the ending was a bit rushed (and telegraphed) but did manage to wrap up all the storylines fairly well. Overall though this series lacked the likable characters that usually populate her books. The only exception was Draconas but sadly he did not have enough chapters focused on him.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid read. Just not for me.

[Laurens · Rating 5 out of 5]

More please, tell us about the war

[Tina Lamb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this fantasy fiction so much, I read the remaining two books in the trilogy. It was easy reading.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish the writer would have taken a bit more time for the end battle. A build up of three books and then it was over in a flash. I was really looking forward to the dragons fighting, too bad...

So overall 2,5-3 stars for the trilogy and kind of a meh-feeling after reading.

[Kat Hooper · Rating 2 out of 5]

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

2.5 stars
Master of Dragons, the final book in Margaret Weis's Dragonvarld trilogy was a tasty but sloppy finale -- like a cheesecake that didn't quite set.

This last book wraps things up, as we knew it would, and everything is finally well in the world, as we knew it would be. There are some fine moments (Draconas showing tenderness to a female dragon, Ven finds a family, Marcus falls in love) and even some hilarious ones (Draconas darning socks, Evelina's ironic fate). Characterization, especially of the bad guys, continues to be a high point, and the writing is nothing brilliant, but certainly pleasant enough.

But this otherwise entertaining novel suffers from internal inconsistencies:

* On page 38, Draconas is said to wear "the guise of a human male in his thirties," and 5 pages later he is described as "a human male of undetermined years."

* Draconas has cast the illusion that he is a little girl while staying in DragonKeep. He is able to eavesdrop on adults because of his keen dragon hearing. But, later, we are told that as a little girl "his hearing was so reduced that it seemed his ears were stuffed with wax."

* Much of what Anora (Prime Minister of the dragon parliament) says to the parliament is illogical and none of the dragons ever notice. For example, she says she should have removed Draconas from his post as "walker" because he was starting to become emotionally involved with humans, but she didn't remove him because he was the best walker they'd ever had because he was able to stay detached from humans. Then she says that she became involved in Maristara and Grald's plot 200 years ago because humans had become such a threat (she cites their canons), but a few lines later she says that because their plot went awry, the humans created canons (a few years ago). Sometimes she indicates that the canons are a threat which, though they are no threat, show that humans are, for the first time in their history, preparing to fight dragons.

There also seem to be inconsistencies about dragon magic vs dragon blood, who can see through illusions and who can't, and to what extent thoughts can be shielded from others with dragon magic. These sorts of "rules" seem to be conveniently flexible. For example, one of the monks is able to see through illusions, yet he doesn't recognize Draconas?

Then there are the unbelievable elements. For example, Anora's betrayal just doesn't ring true -- it sounds like a forced plot twist. And, Anora says that to keep their plot secret from Draconas, they had to kill some good dragons (which she seems to regret) when, if they had just killed Draconas instead, everything would have been fine. And it didn't make sense to keep the plot from the dragon parliament if the purpose of it was to protect the dragons from the might-someday-be-threatening humans. It would have made immensely more sense, and been a lot less stressful, to just go to the parliament and say "hey, these humans want to kill us -- let's kill them first." That seems a lot easier and a lot more likely to be successful than to embark on a 200 year breeding program in order to try to figure out if they might someday rule the humans with half-human, half-dragon creatures and a pack of mad monks. (And let's not forget that the humans weren't even starting to threaten the dragons until AFTER the breeding program started.) (And let's not forget that Anora even says herself that the humans are not actually threatening yet -- they just might be in the future.) The whole thing just seems sloppy. Half-baked.

I listened to this on audiobook. The reader, a woman, did a great job with the female voices. At first I thought she was doing a great job with the male voices too, because her voice for Grald, the first male speaker, was excellent -- really slimy. Unfortunately, she used the same slimy voice for every male character in the entire book.

My overall opinion of this series: Unless you've just got a thing for dragons, I'd recommend choosing something better.
Read more Margaret Weis book reviews at Fantasy Literature

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was hoping that I would be able to give this book 4 stars instead of 5 so that it wouldn't look like I'm mindlessly fangirling about the series. However, any flaws in this iteration of the series (and indeed, the series as a whole) are largely outweighed by all the parts that shine flawlessly.

One thing I particularly enjoyed in this book is that Weis doesn't hold the hand of her reader- at several points there are cases of mistaken identity, and while it is easy to glean from context clues who is who, Weis doesn't come outright and state it in the text until chapters later.

I noticed in the series that far more named female characters die than named male characters. While I don't think she necessarily uses the women's deaths as the "women in refrigerators" trope, I could understand if someone else thought so.

Overall, Weis ties together the series in a believable and satisfying way. The trilogy was a pleasure to read and I will definitely enjoy more of Weis's work in the near future.

[Liszi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the plot of the entire trilogy was very interesting however, I do not think it should be a trilogy. This would have been much better if it would have just been two books. The third book was extremely slow. It felt like she was dragging it out just to make it a third book. Also, the ending of this book was terrible. I didnt care what happened to the stupid girl. I was more concerned about the actual main characters.

[Bob Wind · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really weak ending to the trilogy. *Spoiler* What was with following the girl to the monastery at the end? I would much rather have read about the wedding. The ending was so abrupt that I finished the book and went to the library to get the next book in the series. I love Margaret Weis, and the writing in this book was good, but it really left me wanting.

[Beverly K · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I greatly enjoyed this book, there were moments in here in which I had to cringe. It seemed all too contrived (particularly with the role Anora played) and it also wrapped up far too quickly.

I feel like this would have worked rather well as part of a larger book or, indeed, continued with another trilogy, because a few things were left undone.

Overall, though, I loved the series.

[A.B. Shepherd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read book one of the series, but skipped book two. This is book three. I don't feel like I missed anything by skipping book two. This book has lots of action, a little romance and a satisfying conclusion.

[LeBoldus Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I found this series to be an entertaining diversion, but I did not find it as engaging as other trilogies that I have read. Although the world is well conceptualized, I found the characters to be quite predictable. Evelina, in particular, did not resonate much with me.

[T J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dragon's sons have found each other and now have to deal with the mess their father as caused. In their own way they work to make their world a safe place to live. This is high adventure to the max, with magic, dragons and mystery. This has more twist and turns then a snakes belly.

[Angelica Taggart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sort of sad to see this series end. What happens to Marcus and Ven as they grow older?

Wies kept my interest through out this whole series. For me it was a new world, and new kinds of characters, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Going to have to some of her other books.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

a good capstone to the series

[Ben Eiynk · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't realize this was the third book in a series... the pages and pages of tiresome exposition to get me caught up is rather off-putting.

[Marco · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great ending! I loved this trilogy.

[MarsianMan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The characters realistically bumble around and try their best. The series is average at best.

[Gaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was OK for what it was--what I call "fluff" reading. I enjoyed the trilogy; I like on-going sagas!

[CJ Gosling · Rating 4 out of 5]

A satisfying finish to a romping trilogy. I really enjoyed Margaret Weis' take on classic fantasy.

[Edenvered · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't think Evelina should have lived. She was such a terrible character, the nuns should not have to live with her. Would have made more sense if her sniveling got her killed.

[Sasha Strader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, what a stunner. After two good first books, Weis just dropped the ball on this one. It was a dull read up until the last 25 pages or so.