In The Dragon Has Some Complaints, Our Protagonist is an outcast three headed dragon (formerly four headed) named Garrodigh. He has anger issues, and despises humans because they are at war, a war that had collateral damage. (He has huge gaps in his memory, but he’s pretty sure he lost his fourth head, “Lefty” because of the war. Our Protagonist has been rendered extremely disabled–he’s been lamed in one foreleg and his wings are broken and healed badly). At least that’s Centerhead’s position. Upper head is under the delusion he is a human. A human having a strangely vivid dream or delusion of being a dragon. Lowerhead however does not have much interest in anything except fun, food, and fighting.
Garrodigh gets the chance to wreak havoc on one side of the war–Kardoša (Also known as The Winged City–after being injured by a cannon ball for a second time. He decides to impersonate one of Kardoša’s “tame” dragons, rest up, and then begin a reign of terror on the unsuspecting humans of the Winged City. Unfortunately he is unable to terrorize due to being (in the eyes of the humans who “rescue”) view him as poor brave sweetheart who needs to be coddled and his injuries tended to.
Centerhead slowly changes his mind about humans (or at least one specific human) when he meets Riana, his “new” rider. She is the hippiest, dippiest aura-detecting physical therapist to have ever escaped from a fascist, totalitarian regime. And while at first he kind of wants to eat her for the crime of dubbing him “Mister Slithers,” she also helps to restore his wings, so it sort of evens out. (But only sort of–he is extremely uneasy about the way the “tame” dragons are strangely mute.)
This is a cozy fantasy with a bit more *spice and action. It also has some aspects of a thriller, though not very much. (More of a, “if you’re paranoid about horrific ‘twists’ you will be bothered for the entire book until that thread reaches its end, but it will still not be whatever you expected.”) There’s also a romantic subplot with a Romantic Traditional Communication Misunderstanding that is resolved when the prospective pairing Finally Talk to Each Other Like Adults. (It was actually a pretty good misunderstanding to have, given the couple’s backgrounds, and it wasn’t overplayed for the drama of it.)
Overall, I enjoyed reading The Dragon Has Some Complaints. It’s combo of adventure and humor in a low magic, more or less steam punk setting is extremely engaging. The characters were also pretty funny, though I had some second hand embarrassment moments with several characters. (They were funny moments, mind you, but they were still embarrassing.)
This review is based off of a galley from NetGalley!
*I do not necessarily mean “spice as in sexy” I mean “spice as in some themes will hit harder than others, depending.”
Leave a comment