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The Taziem Chronicles #1
Daughter of Dragons
Taziem is a magnificent sexy, powerful, intelligent. Like other dragons, she hoards diamonds, but unlike other dragons, she covets knowledge as well. So when the local villagers offer her one of their younglings as a sacrifice, she decides to take it home with her and study it so she might learn all there is to know about humans. If the youngling satisfies her curiosity, she’ll set it free eventually. If it disappoints, she’ll feed it to her soon-to-be-born dragonets. As it so happens, the youngling is fearless, clever, and dragon-smart. She quickly exceeds Taziem’s wildest expectations and winds up bonding with the newborns. Lathwi, The Soft One, they call her, and accept her as a tanglemate. As they live and grow and play together, Lathwi forgets that she was ever human. After a time though, Taqziem must banish Lathwi from her territory for her own safety. Forced into the human world again, Lathwi begins a journey of re-discovery, stumbling onto a plot to revive dragonkind’s ancient nemesis. She withstands sorcerous attacks and an onslaught of demons, but without her mother’s help, she knows she cannot defeat the evil that threatens to consume the world. The question is, can she return to Taziem’s mountain in time to prevent an apocalypse?
338 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 16, 2011
This was another free amazon book and another surprise.
I find it hard to think of fantasy being adult but this was appropriately so. First off let me tell you that there are no pretty princesses and lovely soppy moments. This can be raw and at times comical. There are descriptions of scenes that make me wonder how the hell I thought a teenager could read it.
Lathwi - one of the main characters is my favourite surprise. I know that she is a human living along dragons but I expected her to be described as beautiful, flowing long hair etc... instead she is a big women, with tough lean muscle who cuts all her hair off just to fit it under a hood. She's cool.
I said that some moments are comical - there is one scene where Jamus is trying to take advantage of Lathwi's naivety amongst humans and teach her to give him oral sex. Funny in itself, but then she bites him and I could not stop laughing. I did not see that coming!
Nelson - keeps me guessing. Characters I did not expect to die, die. Characters are unpredictable, the plot is really rather good if a little bogged down with magic at times. But, it does have a raw feel. It's not one for the squeamish put it that way!
The ending had me close to tears. It was unexpected! It was rather sad as well because Lathwi finally understands friendship, her concern transcends from being dragon like to human like, but the question is whether it is that little bit to late?
I started this book thinking it was okay. But, I finished it thinking it was more than okay. Not brilliant but it does have a touch of something about it. I think I will be reading it again.
I find it hard to think of fantasy being adult but this was appropriately so. First off let me tell you that there are no pretty princesses and lovely soppy moments. This can be raw and at times comical. There are descriptions of scenes that make me wonder how the hell I thought a teenager could read it.
Lathwi - one of the main characters is my favourite surprise. I know that she is a human living along dragons but I expected her to be described as beautiful, flowing long hair etc... instead she is a big women, with tough lean muscle who cuts all her hair off just to fit it under a hood. She's cool.
I said that some moments are comical - there is one scene where Jamus is trying to take advantage of Lathwi's naivety amongst humans and teach her to give him oral sex. Funny in itself, but then she bites him and I could not stop laughing. I did not see that coming!
Nelson - keeps me guessing. Characters I did not expect to die, die. Characters are unpredictable, the plot is really rather good if a little bogged down with magic at times. But, it does have a raw feel. It's not one for the squeamish put it that way!
The ending had me close to tears. It was unexpected! It was rather sad as well because Lathwi finally understands friendship, her concern transcends from being dragon like to human like, but the question is whether it is that little bit to late?
I started this book thinking it was okay. But, I finished it thinking it was more than okay. Not brilliant but it does have a touch of something about it. I think I will be reading it again.
June 27, 2012
I really like the premise of this one - a human child is left as a sacrifice for a dragon who decides instead to raise her with her own brood. When eventually the dragon-girl is forced to return to the human world, the resulting collision of cultures is very funny. The author has clearly thought through all the ramifications of the situation - Lathmi eats raw meat, for instance, and is ultra-strong and scarred from growing up around creatures not only much bigger than her, but equipped with vicious claws and teeth. And she really thinks she IS a dragon!
The background world is the usual generic template - there are peasants grubbing around in the dirt, boorish and ignorant, and a sprinkling of cities, where the rich and powerful live in luxury, while the lower ranks live in abject poverty with a fairly easy-going attitude towards sanitation and the laws of property. So nothing very original there. It also leads to some fairly lazy plot devices - attacks by ruffians of one sort or another to create dramatic tension and push the story along. I've never understood quite why these fantasy worlds have to be so lawless - in reality, any world with so much corruption and violence would be unable to operate at all, or would devise means to deal with it. And outlaws would never fight to the death, as they so often do in books - they steal from those unable to fight back, and then retreat as soon as there's any real opposition.
Apart from all the outlaws, rogues and thieves, there is also a Big Bad, called the Dark One (now there's an original name), with a minion and a number of summoned demons as runarounds. I don't really see the attraction in world domination, myself, but it seems to be a popular ambition in fantasy. Fortunately there are some nice additional touches here - the demons are not just generic evil thingies, but actually have independent personalities and act on their own agendas.
The magic of this world isn't particularly original either. It's not clear to me whether magical ability has to be inborn, or can be acquired by anyone willing to learn, but there are various kinds of spells - the kind that involves drawing hexagrams on the floor, the kind that can be done just by mind-power and the kind that involves knowing the true name of things. There's a price to pay, too, so that spell-makers can use a great deal of energy, both mental and physical, and while using magic they are vulnerable to other sorcerers. This is fine. The problem with all this is that there seem to be few limits to what can be done, and sometimes it's all just too convenient. The plot requires the good guys to find out something about the bad guys? Let's have a dream-spell and go in disembodied form to his hide-out. Even though this was actually a lovely dramatic sequence, nicely done, it still felt like a bit of a cheat. And later on, when our heroes get into a bit of bother, they conveniently have a reason why they can't just whip up a spell or two and escape. This is always a problem with magic, though, but here I don't feel the author quite makes the constraints convincing enough.
Behind all this rather unoriginal surface, however, is an interesting story of two species, both intelligent and resourceful, with their own cultures, beliefs and lifestyles. The dragons in this book are not cute or anthropomorphic, they are fearsome creatures with a different way of looking at the world. The humans are not exactly civilised, and both sides have their share of aggression and intolerance. Lathmi is caught between the two worlds, neither one thing nor the other, and although she eats raw meat with her bare hands, she has her own measure of wisdom and is not the barbarian the humans mistake her for. This dichotomy raises all the difficult questions: how much of so-called civilisation really matters anyway? what's the good of table manners when it's not safe to walk the streets? and the ultimate question, what does it really mean to be human?
The author isn't afraid to address those questions head on, and she also has the courage to follow her characters and their difficulties to their logical conclusions. So sometimes they fail, they get hurt, they get angry and frustrated, they make stupid decisions or mistakes and sometimes, when faced with insuperable odds, they may die. So far, so good. Apart from Lathwi herself, the other main characters - Pieter the trapper, Liselle the sorcerer, Jamus the lady's man, and Pawl the swordsman - are all nicely drawn and sympathetic. And of course the dragons are terrific characters in their own right. The minor characters are less interesting, and the bad guys - well, I've never been a big fan of irredeemable evil. I also wasn't much fussed about the idea that all the ruffians, mercenaries and so on were 'Southerners', but it seemed logical that the uneducated peasants were a superstitious bunch, willing to sacrifice the odd virgin for good fortune.
There are quite a few minor typos and grammar issues, but nothing overwhelmingly awful, and on the whole the writing is fine. The final chapters were a bit of a muddle of dragons, demons, mercenaries and magic, so that it was hard sometimes to work out quite what was going on, but happily the author wasn't afraid to take difficult decisions and managed to avoid the sugar-sweet ending. Of course, the magic was a bit convenient, but I very much liked that the final confrontation was largely a question of female strength and spirit. The character of Lathmi was very well conceived and executed from beginning to end, and the dragons are wonderful, both endearing and also entirely alien. A very readable, entertaining story with plenty of action, let down only by an uninspired set of villains and a rather too unlimited version of magic. Three stars.
The background world is the usual generic template - there are peasants grubbing around in the dirt, boorish and ignorant, and a sprinkling of cities, where the rich and powerful live in luxury, while the lower ranks live in abject poverty with a fairly easy-going attitude towards sanitation and the laws of property. So nothing very original there. It also leads to some fairly lazy plot devices - attacks by ruffians of one sort or another to create dramatic tension and push the story along. I've never understood quite why these fantasy worlds have to be so lawless - in reality, any world with so much corruption and violence would be unable to operate at all, or would devise means to deal with it. And outlaws would never fight to the death, as they so often do in books - they steal from those unable to fight back, and then retreat as soon as there's any real opposition.
Apart from all the outlaws, rogues and thieves, there is also a Big Bad, called the Dark One (now there's an original name), with a minion and a number of summoned demons as runarounds. I don't really see the attraction in world domination, myself, but it seems to be a popular ambition in fantasy. Fortunately there are some nice additional touches here - the demons are not just generic evil thingies, but actually have independent personalities and act on their own agendas.
The magic of this world isn't particularly original either. It's not clear to me whether magical ability has to be inborn, or can be acquired by anyone willing to learn, but there are various kinds of spells - the kind that involves drawing hexagrams on the floor, the kind that can be done just by mind-power and the kind that involves knowing the true name of things. There's a price to pay, too, so that spell-makers can use a great deal of energy, both mental and physical, and while using magic they are vulnerable to other sorcerers. This is fine. The problem with all this is that there seem to be few limits to what can be done, and sometimes it's all just too convenient. The plot requires the good guys to find out something about the bad guys? Let's have a dream-spell and go in disembodied form to his hide-out. Even though this was actually a lovely dramatic sequence, nicely done, it still felt like a bit of a cheat. And later on, when our heroes get into a bit of bother, they conveniently have a reason why they can't just whip up a spell or two and escape. This is always a problem with magic, though, but here I don't feel the author quite makes the constraints convincing enough.
Behind all this rather unoriginal surface, however, is an interesting story of two species, both intelligent and resourceful, with their own cultures, beliefs and lifestyles. The dragons in this book are not cute or anthropomorphic, they are fearsome creatures with a different way of looking at the world. The humans are not exactly civilised, and both sides have their share of aggression and intolerance. Lathmi is caught between the two worlds, neither one thing nor the other, and although she eats raw meat with her bare hands, she has her own measure of wisdom and is not the barbarian the humans mistake her for. This dichotomy raises all the difficult questions: how much of so-called civilisation really matters anyway? what's the good of table manners when it's not safe to walk the streets? and the ultimate question, what does it really mean to be human?
The author isn't afraid to address those questions head on, and she also has the courage to follow her characters and their difficulties to their logical conclusions. So sometimes they fail, they get hurt, they get angry and frustrated, they make stupid decisions or mistakes and sometimes, when faced with insuperable odds, they may die. So far, so good. Apart from Lathwi herself, the other main characters - Pieter the trapper, Liselle the sorcerer, Jamus the lady's man, and Pawl the swordsman - are all nicely drawn and sympathetic. And of course the dragons are terrific characters in their own right. The minor characters are less interesting, and the bad guys - well, I've never been a big fan of irredeemable evil. I also wasn't much fussed about the idea that all the ruffians, mercenaries and so on were 'Southerners', but it seemed logical that the uneducated peasants were a superstitious bunch, willing to sacrifice the odd virgin for good fortune.
There are quite a few minor typos and grammar issues, but nothing overwhelmingly awful, and on the whole the writing is fine. The final chapters were a bit of a muddle of dragons, demons, mercenaries and magic, so that it was hard sometimes to work out quite what was going on, but happily the author wasn't afraid to take difficult decisions and managed to avoid the sugar-sweet ending. Of course, the magic was a bit convenient, but I very much liked that the final confrontation was largely a question of female strength and spirit. The character of Lathmi was very well conceived and executed from beginning to end, and the dragons are wonderful, both endearing and also entirely alien. A very readable, entertaining story with plenty of action, let down only by an uninspired set of villains and a rather too unlimited version of magic. Three stars.
January 16, 2018
I almost gave this two stars because of the ending
All the characters that I liked were killed.
I am sorry but the main character is not a bit likable. She has almost no compassion and cares nothing for anyone. I am surprised she was sad when her brother dragon passed away, since she didn’t care when her mentors nephew died.
I tried and while the story is well written not liking the main character is huge turn off. I liked the heroines mother dragon more at least her motives were understandable.
The main character made no effort to understand her companions in fact her companions had to bend over backwards for her.
Also the her mentor deserved a much more deserving ending as she was the true hero of the story, while all the main character did was stab someone in the end.
All the characters that I liked were killed.
I am sorry but the main character is not a bit likable. She has almost no compassion and cares nothing for anyone. I am surprised she was sad when her brother dragon passed away, since she didn’t care when her mentors nephew died.
I tried and while the story is well written not liking the main character is huge turn off. I liked the heroines mother dragon more at least her motives were understandable.
The main character made no effort to understand her companions in fact her companions had to bend over backwards for her.
Also the her mentor deserved a much more deserving ending as she was the true hero of the story, while all the main character did was stab someone in the end.
January 16, 2018
Pure awesomeness
The story was captivating, the characters truly precious and most of all Lathwi character's growth was phenomenal. I'm definitely buying the second book!
The story was captivating, the characters truly precious and most of all Lathwi character's growth was phenomenal. I'm definitely buying the second book!
October 14, 2018
3 stars
April 22, 2015
The perspective is unique and I found it quite intriguing. While "human child raised by non-human" is as old as Romulus and Remus, the idea of a child raised by a dragon still felt fresh to me. I became engaged by the protagonist early on, and her struggle to find her place in the world was brilliantly outlined by the author. For those who want military campaigns and intricately woven intrigue, this book will probably miss the mark. But, for those who just love a great story, I encourage you to give it a try. And, just a bit of enticement....the sequel doesn't disappoint.
Want to Read
January 30, 2011My 17-yr-old daughter is reading this and said it is fantastic. I just wanted to let ya'll know, for anyone who likes dragon/human stories!
October 11, 2011
Don't judge this book by its cover, much better than it looks.
June 28, 2013
Loved this book, brilliant heroine who's defiantly non-girly, she eats raw meat and can fight dragons barehanded. Great plot, evil incarnate vs beautiful and unapologetically catlike dragons.
December 30, 2011
This book was surprisingly good, very unusual theme and very well executed. Very enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews