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World of dragons is light, diverting
By Mark Lardas
Correspondent
Published October 25, 2009
“Dragon’s Ring,” by David Freer, Baen Books, 335 pages, $24.
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Tasmarin is a world for dragons by dragons. Isolated from everywhere else, it was created by dragons as a dragon paradise.
It is a place where dragons can be dragons and humans can be lunch. It is also the setting of David Freer’s new fantasy novel, “Dragon’s Ring.”
This dragons’ paradise is an artificial world that is unstable. Created from bits and pieces of other worlds, it is beginning to come apart.
One of the towers holding it together collapsed, and others also are threatening to go.
Repairing the damage requires great magic. Magic that requires magicians from all of the various sentient species that inhabit Tasmarin, including a human magician.
The only problem is human magic users can control dragons. As a result, the dragons had long since eliminated all humans capable of using magic.
Except for one. The event that destroyed the guardian tower accidentally brought a human magician into Tasmarin. An infant at that time, even then she was powerful enough to keep from drowning in the sea where she arrived.
When the novel starts, she is a teenage girl, raised as a foundling in a small fishing village and completely unaware of her talents or origins.
The dragons can sense her power. Most of the dragons want her — at least until they finish restabilizing Tasmarin.
They raided her village in an effort to get her. Instead, the girl, called Meb, escapes and flees, unaware of why the village was raided or that she is being sought.
Disguised as a boy, she falls in with a traveling entertainer, Finn, and becomes his apprentice.
Finn, is Fionn, a shape-shifting black dragon. Older than the rest of Tasmarin’s dragons, Fionn’s purpose is restoring balance to the universe.
Artificial Tasmarin disrupts this balance, so Fionn is trying to destroy the world. To further his goal, he shelters Meb from the other dragons.
“Dragon’s Ring” follows the ensuing game of hide and seek. As typical with Freer’s fiction, the book is populated with engaging characters, amusing plot twists and a rigorous internal logic that holds together a fantastic plot. He carries the reader through a fast-paced tale that leads to a satisfying, yet bittersweet conclusion.
“Dragon’s Ring” offers light and diverting entertainment for readers seeking an amusing tale.
Fantasy fans will like it, as will Freer’s longtime readers.
“Dragon’s Ring” is a great introduction for those unacquainted with Freer’s writing.
Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, amateur historian and model-maker, lives in League City.
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