Book publishers have been very good to me lately! I recently had the opportunity to read Dragonslayer by Duncan M. Hamilton (thank you Bookish First and Tor Books!). I enjoyed this book quite a lot, although it’s different than a lot of books that I review. I wouldn’t consider this book to be YA, but not because of inappropriate content or anything.
Our main character is Gill (or more formally, Lord Guillot del Villerauvais). He is the lord of a demense, but he has been neglecting his duties recently. He thinks that he’s doing his villagers a favor by not taxing them and spending most of his days drinking instead, but they could probably use a little more governance. Back in the day, he used to be the best swordsman in the world, but now, he’s fairly washed up.
Gill doesn’t remain a has-been drunk, however, because circumstances force him to shape up. A dragon has been woken up and is now terrorizing the land, starting with Villerauvais. Guillot may be the only person that can stop this mess, because he’s the last remaining member of the Chevaliers of the Silver Circle, a group of knights who were once famous for dragonslaying, but who fell into debauchery. After all, dragons haven’t been seen in the land for about 1000 years.
To make matters even worse, while Gill is trying to figure out how to solve this dragon problem, he’s also trying to deal with a more conventional enemy. To find out what happens, you’ll have to read the book.
Good Things About this Book
There are a lot of good things I can say about Dragonslayer. I like how this book focuses on a hero who is no longer a hero. There are plenty of stories out there about young men (or sometimes ladies) that save the day, but what happens after they save the world and have to return to normal life? Guillot is a good character with a kind heart (this is demonstrated when he risks his neck to save a damsel in distress), but his purpose seemed to be over when the story begins. I loved how this story explored that question.
What Could be Better?
Dragonslayer is a good book, but it’s not perfect. I’ve read other reviewers complain that there wasn’t enough worldbuilding, and I think that part is actually fine, but the book doesn’t exactly say what happened to his wife and child. This event was pretty much the beginning of the end for Guillot, so it’s surprising that the book doesn’t specify what happened. That being said, this is the first book in a trilogy, so more might be said in the next two books.
Overall
Dragonslayer is a return to the classic “let’s go slay the Dragon!” story. There hasn’t been a lot of great dragon stories recently. It has some really unique aspects, specifically the alcoholism angle and some chapters from the dragon’s POV. I definitely recommend it, say, if you were a big fan of Dragonlance back in the day and wish there were something recent and written for adults. If you’re just looking for a fantasy story and don’t need the dragon, then there might be better choices, but this book was pretty good and I’ll probably read the sequel.