City in the Dragon's Eye (Dragon Reich #1), by Jordan Loyal Short
The Book
Synopsis:
Red Dragons. Black Comedy. White-Knuckled Adventure.
Viktor’s magic is turning him into a dragon. And it’s not pretty.To save his friends who've bumbled into a deadly ambush, Viktor draws too deeply on the power of the Dragon Well, and now a magical tumor has begun to change him...one scale at a time.
Viktor sets off on an irreverent quest for a cure that will lead him to a remote sanitarium. Here, he will uncover a mad doctor’s strange experiments, a stubborn dwarf with stinky feet, and rumors of an ancient mirror that may hold the key to Viktor’s very survival.
As a mustache-twiddling secret society of dragon fanatics closes in, Viktor must choose between the power his transformation offers, and the hope of finding a cure.
To the fabled Tyrant’s Tomb, Viktor races the mysterious Thule Society, where deadly traps and cryptic puzzles protect a treasure of unspeakable power. With every heartbeat the tumor’s corruption spreads. Can a court dandy and a disgraced scholar help Viktor find his cure? Or is it too late to save the city from a mad doctor’s dark designs?
My Review
City in the Dragon's Eye is the first book in the fantasy series Dragon Reich, a new proposal by Jordan Loyal Short; and let me tell you this straightly: this book is pure fun, pure enjoyment. A novel following three different POV, very different each one but whose paths end being intertwined by chances of the destiny and against what we could call the baddies, the Thule society (if you know, you know).
The first of our characters, Viktor, started developing a tumorling (a magical tumor), the same day the armistice of the war he was fighting in was declared; since that day, he has been a pariah for the society, as those affected by tumorlings are rejected by society. However, his quest looking for a cure has led him to a remote sanatorium; but let's say luck precisely doesn't favour Viktor. At least after escaping from the mad experiments directed by the lead doctor in the sanatorium, he had discovered rumours about an ancient mirror that might represent a cure for him.
Our man Viktor is the flesh representation of the expression "being in the worst place at the worst time" every single time; but from the reader's perspective, his bad luck is, to our amusement, acting as a driving thread to the plot. He's seriously just looking for a cure, and if that means having to antagonize with mad fascists, he will do it (and yes, at some points, he feels as inspired by Indiana Jones, but without the hate for the snakes)
The second of our characters, Devin, is a noble that has fallen in disgrace from his family. Disowned from the wealth he was born in, soon discovers his education and modals might be too different to what is needed to survive on the streets, a really different world than the one he was raised on. His contacts with some criminal gangs will end with him crossing paths with our hero, Viktor.
And in the third, but no less important, there's Izola, an academic whose unorthodox theories are making her experience a bad time in the rather dominated by men academic world; adding salt to the wound, her ex-husband is sabotaging her. But she's determined to prove that she was right and that all the assholes in her way are just obstacles due to her sex. Being such a expert will put her between the wall and the rock when the Tyrant's Tomb is discovered.
Loyal Short has written a really fun and absorbing story, which is an absolute pleasure to read; you can cheer for Viktor and his desperate quest while laughing because our characters will end in really weird situations, and let's be honest, who doesn't like fascists being punched and defeated? Personally, I love Indiana Jones films, and I can't scratch off my head that the whole Tyrant's Tomb part is a direct homage to The Last Crusade, which only made me enjoy it even more.
It might not be a perfect book, but it's exactly the book you want to read when you want to pass a great time; Dragon Reich, as a series, has a ton of potential, and hopefully, Loyal Short continues developing the world and giving us more fun adventures!
