Althea M. (althea) reviewed on 9/16/2008 + 774 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

This is the first of four dragon-themed novels, one for each of the 'elements': earth, air fire and water.
It's an entertaining but unexceptional fantasy novel. Young Erde, heiress of a barony, is also heir to mystic dragon magic, but her powerful aunt died before she could pass on her knowledge. Erde is now prey for her insane and potentially abusive father, who is being frighteningly influenced by an Inquisitorial priest who is preaching against both witches and dragons, and is incidentally also behind a rebellion against the king.
Necessity demands that she run away - which she does, and she nearly immediately encounters a dragon, who bonds himself to her (in an Anne-McCaffrey-influenced manner). Unfortunately, the dragon, named Earth, although he knows there's a reason for him to be around, doesn't know much else. He seems to be lacking memory, and is very immature. Erde and Earth will just have to muddle along and figure things out. Luckily, they run into a royalist baron who is a big fan of dragons, who's willing to help them.
The novel's pro-feminist, pro-pagan stance is not something I disagree with, but it became a little predictable at times. Also, although the author went out of her way to very specifically set the story in Germany, giving everyone German names and specifying the city of Erfurt, nothing about the characters, their behavior, or the setting feels German it all - it's just a generic fantasy-medieval setting.

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