Dragon's Winter
Elizabeth A. Lynn
Ace, 261 pages
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Dragon's Winter, first in a new series, marks award-winning author Elizabeth Lynn's return to writing
after a hiatus of nearly ten years.
Karadur and Tenjiro Atani are twins, sons of the dragon-king of Ippa. But only one of them, Karadur, has the dragon
blood. Tenjiro, bitterly jealous of Karadur's gift, uses sorcery to bind his brother's power, and steals the talisman
Karadur needs to work his shape-shifting magic. Then he leaves for parts unknown, taking with him Karadur's lover
Azil, whom he has manipulated into betrayal.
Time passes. Rumors come to Ippa of an evil gathering in the north. A huge black fortress has appeared on the ice,
guarded by ghostly warriors and nightmare monsters. The villages of that region have been razed, their people massacred.
Then one day Azil comes back, mute and crippled. When he can speak, he tells Karadur that Tenjiro is lord of the
black fortress, which he rules by means of an ancient and terrible sorcery. Karadur gathers an army and marches
against his brother, determined not only to destroy Tenjiro's dark kingdom, but to regain his stolen talisman and
take dragon form at last.
In other hands, this story might have seemed flat or even trite. There's not much new here, after all: jealous
twins, dark wizardry, shape-shifters, dragons, heroic warriors battling a consuming evil. But Lynn's character-driven
approach breathes fresh life into these high fantasy conventions, and lends her narrative an emotional depth not
often found in the genre. Though they play traditional roles--king, betrayer, warrior, sorcerer--her characters
aren't cookie-cutter fantasy archetypes, but fully-rounded individuals, whose actions are dictated by more than
the requirements of plot, and whose sufferings (and they suffer terribly) are moving and meaningful. Their complex
and ambiguous relationships are as important to the tale as its many magical elements, and generate as much suspense
as the battle against evil itself.
Lynn writes lyrically, yet with great economy and restraint (there's certainly enough material here for a fat epic,
yet Dragon's Winter is only 261 pages long). Worlds of emotion are conveyed in a gesture; entire landscapes
come to life in a single sentence. Especially refreshing is the lack of heroic excess that's so often a part of
high fantasy plots. There are no over-the-top action sequences, no improbable victories over impossible odds, no
just-in-time rescues or escapes. Those who fight are evenly matched; those who are captured suffer the horrible,
and logical, consequences.
Only at the book's end does Lynn falter a little. The final confrontation between Karadur and Tenjiro is well-wrought,
but there's quite a bit more to come, and this narrative, while absorbing, lacks the power of the rest. It's hard
not to see it as a lead-in for a sequel--though unlike most sequel setups, it's difficult to predict where the
next installment will go. I'll be looking forward to finding out.
Copyright © 1999 Victoria Strauss
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