Two and a half stars. ( )

This was a rather disappointing read. The synopsis on the inner flap of the book suggested a gripping adventure; instead the authors chose to focus on developing the relationships between the characters. I don't mind character-driven books, when the characters are interesting. Unfortunately, out of the four main characters, only Rook really stood out. Thom grew on me a little, by way of his interactions with Rook. They had a really interesting dynamic and lots of electric tension between them; they, along with the Dragon Corps, were my favourite part of the book.

Meanwhile, Royston and Hal had no real chemistry and yet the authors spent so long detailing their nauseatingly sweet, and ultimately tedious, romance. It also didn't help that the character of Royston seemed only to be there to provide exposition. I basically skimmed most of their parts so I could get to Rook and Thom. There were some interesting minor characters that I thought the authors could have dedicated more time to rather than to the boring Royston/Hal scenes, like the other members of the Dragon Corps who had some very funny scenes and proved that at least the authors could write some witty banter.

The plot itself, the bit in the synopsis about four different men coming together to save their country in one final battle, doesn't really come in until the last 80 pages or so. And when it did happen, it didn't have any real sense of urgency. The book takes place in a setting where two great empires are at war, yet there was never a sense of real danger in the book so the climax (the final and only real battle scene) fell a little flat.

Also, some things were just really farfetched, like a university student being sent to teach what is basically manners to a group of elite soldiers or Hal's ridiculously simple and obvious solution to the magicians' crisis. I got the impression that the authors had a lot of ideas for this book (giant metal dragons! young student vs. dangerous soldiers! gay magicians! war and intrigue!) but didn't know how to put them all together in a way that made sense. The result is a very uneven book that has a lot of wasted potential. ( )

Three and a half stars.

I liked this better on reread; I think because I didn't remember it at all and had no preconceptions.

It's a grittier fantasy than I generally like, and one of the four viewpoint characters (and nearly all his associates) is particularly nasty and unpleasant to be around. But it becomes an interesting character study, as parallels emerge between and among the four characters. That's really the point of this book: I wouldn't read it for the plot or for the world.

It's got a fairly sweet gay romance in it too, and includes the occasional bit of witty dialogue - not enough to make it a comedy of manners, though. ( )

DNF at about 20% because:
-nothing seems to be happening,
-I really, really don't like Rook,
-I know that Hal/Royston is a cannon pairing and I don't like the dynamic, it's very naive young man/teen and older, worldly man that in general I just don't particularly like
-I also know the spoiler about Thom and I just don't like how that is playing out and what the authors were up to there
-I really wish I read the tvtropes page before buying the book because I can tell this book was written for the slash fandom and there are tropes that I just don't like there
-I might have enjoyed this book 15 years ago when I was a naive teenager, but not now
-and have I mentioned I'm 20% in and still don't know what the plot is.

The story was pretty fun but very slow. Nothing really important happens until like 200 pages in. For the most part, it read like fanfiction. Royston kept going on and on about his feelings and doubts and nothing was really pushing the story forward. You know, it's a good story but not exactly the best novel.

I do have to ask. Why were there no major female characters? There weren't even kind of important side female characters. :/ It just feels really misogynistic, even if that was unintentional.

I still enjoyed it though and I look forward to reading the next books to see if things improve. There's a lot of potential here. ( )