Those seeking sword-wielding heroics with a small dash of political intrigue would do fine by Riders of Darith; nevertheless, the prose is beset with a nest of minor problems that bog down what would otherwise be a snappy narrative.

The story concerns Tal, a dragon in the guise of a human struggling to find his place in a world—to this end, he’s grouped himself with a small group of would-be-adventurers on a mission to deliver a princess to her noble father. This mission is interrupted by an unexpected summons by his mother, the Dragon Queen—it’s this act that kick-starts the plot.

First off, the problems—characters never ‘say’ things in this narrative. Instead, people ‘squeal’, ‘whine’, ‘growl’, and ‘snarl’ their lines—it’s distracting enough to put me off the prose. Also, in the first ten chapters I read, there were enough cliches—both grammatical and plot-wise—to inspire at least one brief eye-roll (it was the line ‘This changes everything’ that did it for me). The side-story with Rebecca is about as interesting as a museum dedicated to the toenail clippings of famous people; I’m sure that her storyline will hit Tal’s, but the fact that I hardly care one whit for her makes me rather ambivalent to this. In addition, there’s occasional problems with POV—the story will suddenly flip to another character’s perspective (complete with inner narration) with no warning or explanation, which is a jarring enough to throw me out of the narrative.

Now, onto the good: It’s classic sword-and-sorcery, which already scores some brownie points from me (as I am a fan of the genre). To that end, it accomplishes the basics, and a bit more—it’s got a coherent storyline, characters with agendas who are interested in fulfilling them, and an intriguing plot. It’s already got a head up on the Dragonlance series—if you enjoyed that, you probably will enjoy this.

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