SEA DRAGON HEIR [Paperback]

Two hundred years ago, Cassilin, king of fire and son of the great Magravandian house of Malagash conquered Caradore and its guardian family, the Palindrakes. He took their land and crippled their heritage by demanding an oath of perpetual fealty from Valraven, the young heir to the throne. Valraven's mother bid him accept this humiliation willingly such that their association with the power of the Sea Dragons could be hidden until the time was right for its revival to aid them in reclaiming their land and their freedom.

Many generations have passed. Valraven, the current eldest son of the Caradorean family, accepts posting to the Magravandian military, part of his ancestor's oath, but his twin sister Pharinet struggles with the realization that the time is coming to reawaken the magic of their country's connection to the sea and the Sea Dragons.

What a shame! That Storm Constantine can write is beyond dispute. Her descriptive passages are moving and brilliant. Her dialogue is lucid, realistic and fast-paced. The magic or dream sequences are eerie, fascinating and compelling. But, in spite of all that, this novel is as fundamentally flawed as its characters. One and all, they are driven by emotions and traits that are either dark and ugly or weak and pathetic - greed, lust, ambition, hunger for power, ambivalence, amorality or moral turpitude, egocentricity, sycophancy and selfishness. Pharinet, for example, comes to realize that her incestuous love for her twin, Valraven, cannot be continued but at no time expresses even the slightest apology or twinge of regret. Even when these characters appear to display strength or courage or unity of purpose, it is not noble and seems to arise only out of their dark side.

The plot, such as it is, develops slowly but it is masked by deep, impenetrable, swirling layers of foggy mysticism, magic and fantastical writing that make the story line all but inscrutable. At no time does the story aspire to anything uplifting. Unrelenting darkness with no interludes of pleasure or lightness makes this novel depressingly difficult to continue. If this is Gothic fantasy, then I'll give the genre a pass. I'm certainly not inspired to continue with the trilogy or seek out anything else by the same author. I repeat - what a shame!

Paul Weiss

After reading the trilogy set, I can go back to this first book and safely say that Sea Dragon Heir is my least favorite of the three. I'm tired of being "told" what Valraven is rather being "shown." In fact a great many things are being told and hence the characters are barely flesh and bone and I didn't care about the melodramas going on in their lives. There are too many convenient plot devices that is contrived and tiresome. As for the bed-hopping scenes..... why? They don't seem to serve any other purpose other than to "oh lets be shocking, shocking(!)" and then left at that with no futher insights to the characters themselves. Once again it is the "telling" rather than the "showing" flaw of Constantine's writing that bores me to no end.

I will say that Constantine's writing style is lovely and rather poetic. Too bad she waste it trying to be the next Anne Rice or something.

The reason I didn't give this five stars is because it absolutely cannot be read as a book by itself. In order to understand the significance of all the events and characters, you need to read the trilogy. There is a reason certain characters die, disappear, or are mentioned without really doing anything at the time. Almost everybody and every event is vital to the setup of the third book.

I first read this book over summer break when I was bored out of my mind and decided to go to the library. I saw this on the shelf and immediately became interested. I absolutely couldn't put it down because I wanted to understand the characters and find out what happened. I was very unsatisfied with the ending of the book, but then I found out about the sequel. The ending was not an ending, but a setup for the next novel. It worked for me. I bought the other two books as soon as I found them.

The darkness and sexuality of Sea Dragon Heir is not for everyone and I can see where it would turn people away from this book. I loved the characters and the air of mystery shrouded about them. They were so... human. There isn't a Mary Sue or Marty Stew in sight in this story. I never once regretted buying this book.