Sunday, 18 March 2012

Completed: Blood of Requiem (song of dragons, book 1) by Daniel Arenson

Originally published December 18, 2011 on tumblr


wow the titles a mouthful…

ok so we start off with a war. Women and children are even present, it is revealed right away that these people are Vir Requis (aka weredragons) and they are fighting a man who hates them.

Benedictus, the king of the dragons fights against his brother Dies Irae who is older but was denied the dragon throne because he couldn’t change out of his human form.

dragons are dying left and right and Benedictus is defeated, he bites off his brothers arm and retreats.
Fast forward 10 or so years and Vir Requis are all but extinct…. anyone found alive is killed on the spot. despite having a human form they are fairly easy to find because of a plant known as Illbane which burns a virrequis but does nothing to humans.

Kyrie Eleison was a child when the war rages between the two brothers and he was thought to be dead… but a woman found him dying and protected him. as far as he knows he’s the last of his kind and is a bit bitter by it. Dies Irea visits the person who saved Kyrie randomly…. finds the boy, proves he’s a dragon and there is a fight which ends in Kyrie running off and his care taker dead.

soon he bumps into a woodsman whom he eventually realizes is Bendictus, after beinf found again and fighting beside the former king they eventually agree to fight against the tyrannical reign of Dies Irae… but first Benedictus must tell the others.

He meets his Wife, Lacrimosa and they fly to one of his daughters Agnus Die who has refused to ever take human form again and wishes to meet creatures who are dragons with no human forms.
we soon find out that Benedictus had another daughter Gloriae (i’m pretty sure thats a reference to something but i couldn’t find a link other then some singers) who was kidnapped by Dies Irae when she was young. over the years she has been turned into a violent monster.

anyways we go through the group of dragons getting chased, attacked, Lacrimosa eventually gets kidnapped and set up as a trap for bendictus. the group splits up… half looking for real dragons and bendictus walking into the trap.

and hey…. apparently those real dragons (salvanea) which everyone said was a lie really do exist…. but don’t really care about helping… eventually they are convinced and they join the fight…

fast forward to everyone getting to the trap. benedictus and his brother are fighting once again one on one and everyone seems to be watching to a point…. eventually benedictus wins, shows mercy and is betrayed for it… Kyrie attacks Dies Irae and wrestles a pendent that allows him to control griffins which then enemies all ride.

he sends them away, they save bendictus’ dragon form but he may not be able to shift for a while… the pendant is destroyed and they go to rebuild their hometown since Dies Irea is pretty much defeated.

but then gloriae (who during the course of the novel realized she could change into a dragon) released pure evil into the world and the book ends.

i saw some potential with this book…. but it just wasn’t as good as i was hoping… the chapter structure is odd, the name of the chapter tells you whos perspective that chapter is being told from… it was interesting at first but there are a lot of characters and some i didn’t care about or didn’t have enough impact on the story.

using names that mean something can be fun but i found it took me out of the experience too much. i would have liked to see a prequel were Dies Irae is shunned for not being able to change… that was a more interesting story, the younger dragons are annoying most of the time and the only purpose they serve is to get the dragons to come help.

it’s by no means a bad book it’s just not my kind of thing, i probably wont continue with this series but if you like dragons it could be for you…

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