Dragonflight

A romance writer doing fantasy/scifi what could possibly go wrong. So here's how the story goes Rukbat was a golden G type star in the Sagitarian sector with blah blah blah. If you know it's a classic. Fun Fact Rukbat is a real star, it's a blue-white about 50 times the size of our sun. No habitable zone unfortunately. The thing about this story is the setting is great it's basically a high fantasy world created atop the ruins of a once great scientific one. One of the thing the Science guys Scienced particularly well in was bioengineering. They literally created freeking dragons because they needed an air force and ran out of oil. Cool right ok here's the thing though. They also kind of invented Time Travel with it because they went a bit crazy with the telepathic genes, And none of the Science stuff actually works. Just treat it all as magic you'll be happier.

It's basically a great high fantasy with a few tastefully done sex scenes. Enjoy it but don't overanalyze you'll drive yourself nuts

The good: it's an interesting world with interesting characters, it's reasonably paced & well written. The audiobook read by Dick Hill is terrific, he's a very good actor.

The neutral: it's kind of an odd idea to justify a high fantasy world with a science fiction premise. (Ursula K. Le Guin also did this with the early Hainish novels, particularly the first one, Rocannon's World.) The SF elements do enter more into the story as the book progresses, leading to a somewhat bizarre, but satisfying conclusion.

The bad: First of all I find it difficult to relate to nobility, which is unfortunate because nearly all the named characters in this story are some variety of noble. The whole plot of the book serves to justify the Dragonmen's rule over the Holds (themselves feudal). It's made obvious that (literal) draconic protection is necessary, but it surely could be achieved without Draconic leadership. But monarchy is, to some degree, in nearly every high fantasy novel, & I can't fault it too much for this.

& second of all, the issue I alluded to in the title of this review—Lessa and F'lar's relationship. They are said to have romantic feelings for each other by the end, but in my view F'lar is coercive & abusive just as much then as he is in the beginning. Lessa is afraid to anger him for fear of being violently shaken & yelled at. It's pretty gross & not a healthy relationship at all (though it is perhaps realistic to how royal partnerships were in real life). It's really a shame that it's like this because otherwise the book is pretty enjoyable. I don't know if I'll read more of these novels—I don't think I can if they continue to be Like This.