Bookworm Speaks!- Swords of the Six

Bookworm Speaks!

Swords of the Six 

by Scott Appleton

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Acquired: Amazon.com

Series: The Sword of the Dragon Book 1

Paperback: 320 Pages

Publisher: Living Ink Books; first edition (March 1, 2011)

Language: English

Subject: Fiction

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The Story: In ancient times a band of warriors escorted a young prince homeward. Only one warrior remained true. He watched helplessly as the others slew their young charge. Death seemed to claim him as well. But he awoke one thousand years later, brought back by the prophets of God to serve them once again as an invisible guardian. One of the prophets, an albino dragon, hatched human daughters out of eggs by giving them the life in his blood. The daughters sought out the traitor to bring him to repentance. Out of remorse for his sins, the traitor slew himself on a sword. Upon the daughters’ return their dragon father sent them to live in a far off forest. The youngest daughter fell in love and wed. But upon giving birth to a beautiful baby girl she gave up the life in her blood and died; making the ultimate sacrifice to bring a child of promise into the world.

The Review: 

The character of the white dragon Albino is something off a mixed bag. In fact…mixed bag applies almost to the entire book. For starters…it is a rarely encountered portrayal of a single father in fiction. Albino is the father to the human daughters, although it is never truly explained how he was able to do that. Bookworm’s best guess is that it was some kind of immaculate conception device, playing off the religious theme of the text. He is a loving, supportive father and not afraid to be stern, a rather heartwarming and refreshing take on such a matter. His girls can also be partly put into the pro column in several parts of the text. As the story progresses, the daughters manage to remain strong, female protagonists without losing their femininity and not falling to macho stereotypes. For some readers, this is very important.  

When the book starts out, the daughters actually act like realistic children. That is a very tricky thing to do in the world of fiction. Oftentimes, children in fiction just act like miniature adults. Teenagers in fiction are even worse offenders. The author also gives the book time to let the children be children. The stories that are told in the opening chapters are very innocent and childlike. Unfortunately, perhaps the author does it a little too well because Bookworm found the first chapters to be rather slow. It took a while for the plot to get going. When the story finally does get going, the ‘realistic’ children fall away and are replaced with tried and true fantasy protagonists. At the same time, we are introduced to the tried and true fantasy setting. Swords and Sorcery, Castles and Peasants and everything else readers have seen a million times before. 

This may sound like nitpicking but having a white dragon named Albino is just really lazy. It would be the same as calling a black dragon Ebony. If a character’s name is going to symbolize something, put some creativity into it. Another guilty strike, is the Grim Reaper character, who is an exact replica of the popular culture image of it. 

The previous paragraph really sums up the main issue with the entirety of this novel. Bookworm would not say that this book is poorly written but rather simplistically written. At first glance, this seems like a book for adults. It’s sequel was found in that part of the bookstore after all. Upon reading it, the story felt more like it was aimed toward children. Complete with simplistic ideals. 

This book seems to borrow a lot from the famous, Chronicles of Narnia series. The author is described as a devout Christian and its publisher, Living Ink Books is a Christian publishing arm. The allegory of said religion are clear throughout this book. Albino the dragon is meant to serve as some sort Aslan parabolic for Jesus or the Holy Spirit and at times, other symbols appear and they can get in the reader’s face. The shepherd character that appears later on in the story is a blatant culprit. Overall, the books seems to present an idealized Christian ideal that can get rather preachy at times. 

There is a male lead, other than the dragon, later on, and he does not do much better. He fits the ‘chosen one’ cliche almost to a t. There has been a lot of backlash to that trope lately and it is easy to see why. It doesn’t help that he is a total Gary Stu, who does not seem to suffer much aside from his origin story. 

The biggest culprit though is one part in particular. It is where the male lead encounters one of the Dragon’s daughters for the expected romance. The scene is one of the most saccharine, cliched, Disney movie-esque, white breaded scene Bookworm has ever read. While Bookworm will not give too much away, it is complete with white birds, songbirds, and love at first sight. If this scene was in a movie, it would most likely have the beam of light and the angelic choir chorus. It is so cornball that Bookworm rolled his eyes after reading it. 

Melodrama is constant throughout this book. 

Finally, there is ending. No spoilers but it as rather bittersweet ending. Bookworm has no real objections to such endings but in this case, it does not feel consistent with the tone of the rest of the book. Considering the circumstances that led up to it, it really came out of nowhere. It would appear that the author tacked in on in order add some requisite drama to the book. 

Final Verdict: This book has been described as ‘good clean fiction’ by other reviewers. To Bookworm though…’good’ and ‘clean’ translates into cliched and boring. 

Two White Dragons out of Five

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