4.5 out of five stars
If I were to give a simple world-building descriptor of Tvara, the fictional world in which the Dragon Song Saga as well as other Tvara books are set, it would be what if Tolkien grew up in East Asia. Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, and dragons are all present, but rather than interacting with longsword wielding knights, they instead must contend with blackfist assassins and their throwing stars, shurikens, and various poisons and martial techniques.
In just reading the Dragon Song’s Saga, I already know that the characters central to this story appear in other Tvara stories because the core characters reference adventures with other core characters when they meet up. This reminds me a little of Brandon Sanderson’s cosmere novels except everything is occurring in the same world. It gives the stories a more intimate feeling. In cosmere novels, each world seems to be on its own epic fantasy trajectory. There is an overarching trajectory connecting all the stories, but what happens in one book really doesn’t effect the actions of characters on other worlds for the most part. Despite an interconnected universe, because of the size and many characters not knowing about the interconnectivity, the worlds feel too far apart.
In Tvara, there are multiple epic fantasy story lines occurring at the same time and interweaving. I’m reminded a little of how The Prince of Thorns and Prince of Fools trilogies by Mark Lawrence intertwined. It makes sense to me that there would be multiple epic fantasy storylines occurring concurrently in a large enough and richly created world, which Tvara is.
As a fellow author, I see the draw of creating a single world and telling multiple stories within that world. I feel like it’s the literary equivalent of Marvel movies. I don’t know if I’d ever be able to restrict myself to telling stories from a single world-building perspective, but telling multiple storylines in the same world with minor overlap definitely makes the world feel more fleshed out.
One thing that I really wanted to be addressed that wasn’t was whether ghost-tripping thresholds worked. A cultural norm in Cathay, all rooms have a raised threshold to trip and out ghosts, but at least in the Dragon Songs Saga (DSS), no ghosts ever get tricked by this. To my knowledge, there are no ghosts in the DSS. Since this is a fantasy world, I would have loved if I got an answer to if there were ghosts, whether ghost-tripping thresholds worked, and what happens if a ghost trips over the threshold. It seems like a silly question but on a world-building level the thresholds are mentioned too much for there not to be a story inclusion. They are like Chekhov’s gun never being fired.
Aside from that minor desire to see ghost-tripping thresholds in action, the world of Tvara is rich, complex, and engaging. The nations didn’t feel like cookie-cutter stereotpyes and I loved how they each had their own types of magics. The first book did a good job of showing how the magic of Cathay was tied intricately to their art with the protagonist wanting to revive the lost magical art of dragon song. That magic was juxtaposed with the magic of the martial paladins and their innate intuition of danger.
I really enjoyed the DSS books, and so it’s with a heavy heart that I do have to add a trigger warning to his world. The themes in the third and fourth Dragon Song books deal heavily with the threat of sexual exploitation against the female main characters. Although there is an in-world reason the nation of the Bovians have such a brutal society, if you don’t want to read fantasy books that deal with these themes, steer clear of the Dragon Song Saga books.
All this being said, these themes didn’t make me stop reading, but I’m hesitant about picking up another book set in the world of Tvara. I won’t DNF a book because of these darker themes, but I don’t seek them out either. If I could, I’d give these books a 4.5 out of five stars, but that isn’t possible on the sites I reviewed the book.
Since I listened to the audiobook (I picked up the whole seventy hour saga up for one audible credit), I do have to applaud Natalie Naudus’ narration. I’ve really enjoyed her performance in the books I’ve picked up she has narrated.
Very good