Saturday, August 28, 2010

World of Warcraft: Shadow Wing- The Dragons of Outland by Richard A. Knaak and Jae-Hwan Kim

Jorad Mace is a Paladin of the Alliance and Tyrygosa is a good-natured but harsh Blue Dragon. The two met during a mission at the Sunwell, from which Jorad was expelled from his Paladin order for his actions. How, he has been taken back after a lot of butt-kissing, but he's assigned to the worst duties as a means of redemption. But when a woman named Tiri sneaks through the lines, Jorad takes on a mission of being a messenger in order to track her down.

Tiri is actually a Blue Dragon, Tyrygosa, and she has gone through the portal to where the orcs and the demons of the Burning Crusade came from in order to track down rumors of Dragons existing in the lands the orcs once owned.

Tiri is surprised to see Jorad having such a lowly place in the expedition, since he fought valiantly in the battles they were in together. He's rather embarrassed by her praise, but now that his mount is dead, she offers to take its place.

Meanwhile the humans of the expedition meet s new race, the Draenai, and decide to work with them to wipe out the Demons left over after the Burning Crusade. But even as the humans have their encounter with the Draenai, Jorad is having one of his own. He and Yiri have run into a band of people called the Krokul, or "Broken" who help when a group of Dragon Hunters knock her down with magic. As Jorad tries to tell the tribe that Tiri is not a dragon from their lands, she encounters two strange spirit dragons that have no actual bodies.

But as they argue over whether to eat her or play with her, Tiri wonders how such dragons came to be, and learns from the Krokul that the Dragons laired far away, a dangerous journey. Jorad travels with the Chief of the Krokul to where the dragons came from, while Tiri follows on ahead with the Dragons.

But the Dragon-Hunters want Tiri, and she may learn for herself how and why the Spirit-dragons got made. But can Jorad reason with the hunters, and when the old chief dies, will his son turn on Jorad, who he doesn't like to begin with. Can Tiri find out what has happened to the Dragons of this world? Who are the Dragon Hunters, and what have they done with this world's dragons?

I found myself liking and getting interested in this story, which posed questions that aren't fully answered in this volume. What are these spirit dragons, and what do they have to do with the shattered drsgon eggs that Tiri finds in the cave lair of the spirit dragons?

Jorad is also kind of out of luck. Far away from his people, he may not have a way of getting back to them, and what's up with the Draenai? Are they being honest with the humans, or will they turn on them? Keep in mind, I don't play WoW, so I know next to nothing about the various factions. I only know the Alliance and the Horde, and one of my friends plays a High DPS tank, whatever that is.

So this was interesting to me. Even though a lot of talk about the alliance and Paladins passed right over my head, the story was still interesting, and I wanted to know what was going on. If I see the next volume in this series, I will definitely pick it up. Recommended.

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