An infamous relic hunter. A legendary dragon. The journey of a lifetime.
Twillo lies bleeding out in a volcanic desert. Towering over him is a snarling red wolf, death only seconds away.
Right as his vision is going black, a mysterious voice offers Twillo a chance at survival.
Do you agree to bind souls?
It is the voice of a dragon, one that hasn't been seen for hundreds of years.
By agreeing to soulbind with the dragon, Twillo will tie himself to the dragon's destiny, one of future conflict. He will need to cultivate the highly illegal magic power known as dragonessence, and seek instruction across the Four Kingdoms of the Sagaland. It will take practice, circumstance, and luck from a divine source.
Even then, Twillo may not survive. The entirety of the world is at stake, and no one knows that their fates are in the hands of a mysterious relic hunter turned unlikely hero...
Legacy and triumph await, but at what cost?
About the series: Embark on this dragon cultivation saga by Harmon Cooper, Amazon bestselling author of Pilgrim, War Priest, and Cowboy Necromancer. Set in a world that blends Norse history with Japanese mythology, The World According to Dragons is the debut novel in the Sagaland Chronicles, an epic progression fantasy series with a unique magic system inspired by Hunter X Hunter, Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, and action-adventure RPGs.
"The World According to Dragons is what happens when you take the premise of a coming-of-age dragon rider story and replace the 15-year-old farmer boy with Indiana Jones if he were an elf. Of course you should read it!" - Caerulex, author of The Menocht Loop
Harmon Cooper is the author of over sixty fantasy works. His bestselling series include Pilgrim, War Priest, Cowboy Necromancer, and Tokens and Towers.
His series, The Feedback Loop, is one of the earlier GameLit works first published in 2015. An earphone award winner for the series Death's Mantle, Harmon won the LitRPG/GameLit Audiobook of the Year award for Sacred Cat Island, narrated by Legends and Lattes author Travis Baldree.
Harmon write progression fantasy, cultivation fantasy, and LitRPG/GameLit.
Beautifully designed, enigmatic, intriguing and exciting ! A 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ instalment in another fantastic new series by excellent writer and one of my favourite authors Harmon Cooper!
Something about this book reminded me of the Zagor Chronicles, which I read as a kid. It's fairly passively-written, harmless fantasy, with characters I could see a kid or early teen imprinting themselves upon.
That said, as an adult reader, this book didn't have a lot to offer me. It's certainly not progression fantasy (or litrpg!) if that's what you're looking for. It was fine as an undemanding palate cleanser, but I won't be progressing with the series.
I'll add that the worst part of the book was the prologue, which was full of gobbledygook - you can skip over it without missing out on anything.
Way to boring for me. Names overly cumbersome to read or remember. Way, way to many back flashes in the form of long stories told by the MC. Interesting premise, but just when it would get interesting the author would insert a history lesson or a "story". Some of the dialogue was weird too. I tried, but just couldn't get interested.
An interesting world and characters that suffers from execution and lack of progression.
Twillo is an exiled prince turned magical relic hunter who soul bonds with a dragon and must return magic to the world to stop an evil god. The plot and premise is pretty standard fantasy fare, although the prose and execution isn’t always great. Where this really fails is as a progression novel. Characters constantly mention how the monks of the south or the emperors magi have ranks, but then the character doesn’t pursue any of them. If this wasn’t pitched as a progression fantasy then fine, but it really dangles the genre in front of the reader and then yanks it away. Honestly, the broader world and vision was fun enough (and there was some nice representation with gay monks that progression fantasy often lacks) that I’d maybe try another series by this author once they have matured, but for now I won’t be continuing.
It took me awhile to get into this book and I have no idea when I found myself transported and enjoying the world building but I do believe I will continue with the series to see what new shenanigans the gods and our unsuspecting hero shall get up too!
This is not the normal progression story where the main character spends all their time training and gaining power, then beats everyone up with their new skills. Instead we see a character that is living a different life than they were born into, forced into a career that teaches them to be crafty. The magic of relics and the mystery of dragons make this story more of an epic, where we see magic return to the world, and where dragons return but are limited in their abilities and power. The author obviously has a lot of ideas and plans for the plot, so I’m curious to see how the story progresses. Lots of cool characters are presented, but not exposed fully so I hope they will be fleshed out later when the depth of the world is fully explored. Overall I like the book and hope that the next one shows up soon!
Boring and terribly written. I dropped it before even finishing the blurb on Amazon.
To some it might seem unfair to review a book after only reading such a small portion of it. I believe otherwise: when the beginning is so bad that I don't even want to keep going it doesn't matter if there is a good story waiting for me, as I will never get to experience it.
What I found in the first few chapters: extremely long and badly structured sentences tons of infodump about random stuff (that you can already feel it won't even matter) commodification of magic in a boring and uninspired way the premises of a magical system as random as they come the main character has a stupid name
The final straw was in chapter 7, the last one of the blurb, where the author explains the currency system, with another infodump of course. The MC doesn't like to bring money around because it's too encumbering and easily stolen. The lowest denomination is a coin made of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver with just traces of copper. It is so worthless that you need 500 of them, for a total weight of almost 4 pounds, to match a single silver coin in value. And 50 silver coins for a gold coin.
So 4 pounds of an alloy of gold and silver is just a silver coin? And using the same ratio you would need 200 pounds for a gold coin? How did the author not realize how stupid this looks when he wrote it down?
This is so blatant that you can abandon any hope of internal consistency or attention to details in this story.
I also found 5 star reviews that look a lot like exchanges between authors, I recognized the name Samuel Hinton that is also an author in the same sub-genre.
I was drawn to this book by the compelling description, good cover and the recommendation from an author I like. This authors work seems to cover a lot of things some of which I avoid (harems mainly) but I am glad I gave this book a chance. The main character is likeable and intelligent and this book has a feeling of adventure that I really found myself enjoying. We travel all over the world (or at-least the part the MC knows of) but each place felt well realised with an assortment of interesting characters and it was easy to follow when some books that involve travelling around like this can become muddied by the places not feeling distinct. Some people have described this as like Indiana Jones with dragons and yeah that’s pretty accurate. We have hunting for magical artefacts that require maps to find and lie behind puzzles, journeying between different ancient cities to find these artefacts and places to grow his power. This feels like a swashbuckling adventure and I found I really enjoyed it.
I did consider giving four stars because I will say the beginning was a little slow; after a compelling prologue we get a fair amount of exposition that started to drag a little. I also initially did not enjoy the perspective shift to the past though I will say that becomes interesting and gives important context and backstory for the plot. Overall I’d totally recommend this and though some of this authors works definitely not for me I’m gonna check a couple other out.
A brand new, exciting series from Mr Cooper. Yeah! Where do I start?
Firstly, you can't fail to be intrigued by the cover. Voted as the winner by the author's fans, this beautiful creation would certainly stand out from all the others on a bookshelf. Secondly, anything involving a dragon and you've got my full attention!
Our main character is Twillo, a relic hunter who also sells relics and mapstones to others. As he lies dying, the victim of a horrific attack whilst attempting to gain access to a relic, a strange voice proposes an unusual way of cheating death. "Do you agree to bind souls?" And with that, Twillo agrees to soulbind with Adventus the white dragon. So begins their (joint) adventures. Twillo learns to cultivate illegal dragonessence and receives knowledge from across all four Kingdoms of the Sagaland. Luck is actually on his side. I love the fact that our Twillo gets a tattoo after each relic conquest as a reminder.
The world building in this book is absolutely incredible. There is SO much detail between these pages. The places feel real, the characters are fully realised and completely convincing. The writing and story flow so easily that you won't believe there are 554 pages in this book. This is fantastic reading, and you won't be able to put it down.
I'm honestly SO impressed with this. If you want THE best cultivation work of this year - it's here! I can't wait for the rest of this series.
I really enjoyed reading this book! It was fast paced and the plot was very engaging, I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes. One of the things I really liked was seeing 'behind the scenes' where gods were influencing things.
That being said, a couple things brought down the star rating for me. The writing felt more middle-grade to me, with lots of 'telling' instead of 'showing'. For example, there's a couple flashback chapters where Twillo tells the story of how he got a relic, after the first the dragon Adventus comments that Twillo must like telling stories/was good at it. Reading it for myself, I never would have come to that conclusion. It was simply what Twillo did, and what happened. While they were interesting, there was no narrative flair that I would have expected from a storyteller. The other thing that brought it down was Adventus, our second main character, seemed to exist to only give Twillo information and save his life. I couldn't tell you anything about his personality. Granted, most of the book he's a voice in Twillo's head, but I hope his character gets to shine more in the next books.
All things considered, I am going to continue with the series. While its not on the higher quality end of what I tend to read, I still enjoyed the experience, even stayed up late to finish it!
The World According to Dragons by Harmon Cooper is hard for me to rate.
I was entertained, and finished it rather quickly, however I also found it had quite some bumps along the way.
I really enjoyed the main character, who is rather humble and even though he's very good at his job, he is not arrogant. This was a nice change from many overpowered ones. He seems to care a lot about his friends, but when something horrible happens he almost just shrugs it off. This didn't feel in line with how his character was set up before. His soul bounded dragon seems to miss any sort of personality, and is rather more like a vehicle / weapon you can summon in a video game.
I liked the way this progression fantasy didn't get bogged down by pages of stats, but on the other hand, besides some cultivation it didn't really feel like progression? More like a standard D&D adventure, collecting things, but without the stats and dice throws.
The action scenes were quick and fun, and I really liked the tone and voice of the book, so overall I enjoyed it, but didn't think I'd have missed out if I read something else instead.
OMG!!! This book is freaking good. I surprised that no one has did reviews for this book on Booktuber.
It reminded me of what if Legend of Zelda meet Indina Jones and the Temple of Doom with Japanese folklore that thrown into the mix. I has noticed there's DnD references there.
It's about an elf treasure hunter goes on explotion,but he almost got killed and he accidentically summoned a very ancient dragon that had chosen to be his rider. It has revealed that he caught up a wars with gods and dragons.
The action scenes was incredible. Tuillo is very enjoyable to read like you are in head. I really love his personality's very easygoing and kind-hearted character. I even love his relationship with Adenus and his kitsune friend. It's really cute. XD
I highly recommend that people could read this series if they are the fans of Cradles and mangas. It is the best book that I had read in 2023 so far!!! XD
This epic fantasy was quite a good read. The main character Twillo binds himself to a dragon to save his life, which starts a quest for more energy for himself and the dragon while trying to stay ahead of the evil god's followers.
There are a couple different POV's included and while it usually annoys me to have the focus taken off of what I'm invested in, it wasn't overly much and only emphasized the storyline. It also helps that the main character isn't a teenager or even in his 20's. He has the experience to back up his actions to where it doesn't seem like a reach.
It's too bad the next book isn't out for a little while, but if you can read slowly you can draw this book out and make it last longer.
This book was a super slow starter... In fact I began wondering if it was ever gonna start 🤔 going as far as debating whether or not I should finish it. But I didn't have anything better to do and Wayne Mitchell narration was good. So, with that I girded my loins and picked up the book again. Surprisingly I really found myself liking it a lot at around chapter 20 about a third of the way into it. And I found another reason why the author won the Audies prize for Sacred Cat Island. But Ohhhh gods there's so much tedious world and character building elements to begin with.
First, Wayne needs a better pop filter on his microphone for the audio book. I shouldn't have to be forced to listen to all the lip smacking.
Second, pretty big plot holes. For example what are the other dragons and riders going to do when you use up all the dragon essence? Going to temple to temple and ziggurats gathering essence just to summon Aventis over and over and using up all the essence and repeating the same process again and again. . NOW if that is not the case, the author has failed to SHOW the reader what is going on.
I enjoyed this book for the progression and the unique character. However I wish he was a bit more fleshed out and that the progression didn’t feel as gifted to him on a silver platter. Nevertheless, I liked the book enough to read the next in the series and hopefully my minor criticisms will no longer apply.
Did he win the luck lottery or was this a bozo prize. Cool I got a Dragon um well maybe it's going to work out. A very interesting book that really left me wondering about the curse of may you get exactly what you wish for.
I crave magic, adventure, and dragons without smut. It is adult, but nothing to worry abt as far as bedroom scenes. Magic items, amazing power and dragons. Can't wait for the next one!
I loved this book! I can't wait for Book 2. I've also read the Warrior Priest, Cowboy Necromancer and, my favorite, Pilgrim series and loved those as well. Harmon Cooper can do book wrong in my book. Get it? 😁
I had my doubts about the story when I begin reading it but little by little it became very clear that the author put in many hours to bring this story to life cannot wait to start the next book
I'm amazed that this author can write so many fantastic novels, I hope that he never stops writing. His books are some of the best Entertainment I have read and worth the time to read them. Thank you for a very fun entertaining read.
I started by reading the book arcane cultivator and hit the end of the next book isn't going to be out until next year but realize these books were in the same universe so I had to crack the cover and I'm so glad I did.
Take a fantasy world with a looming catastrophe, fill it with Norse and Japanese mythology, and then let Indiana Jones lose inside it with a dragon companion, and you get this story. Was a great read and keen for book two!
I like reading about Twillo's past, and his actions that led to where he is now! His character and resolve are strong, and I ike how he treats all he encounters!
The premise and beginning were awesome. However, the writing got a little wooden towards the end. Haven't determined if I will continue reading the series.