The Sleeping Dragon - Jonny Nexus

   2018; 321 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Humorous Fantasy; Hero Noir.  Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

    What do a priest, a wizard, a thief, a rock star, and a jock have in common?

    They’d like to know the answer to that as well.  Apparently, someone’s thrown them all together, via one very potent magic spell and for who-knows-what purpose.

    All of them come with “baggage”.  The jock uses “performance enhancing potions”, the rock star’s about to be fired by his bandmates due to “herbal abuse”, the priest and wizard have both been ostracized by their respective societies, the thief has people issues. 

    Hey, maybe they’re meant to save the world.  From what menace is anyone’s guess, since whoever conjured up the come-together spell didn’t include any explanation for casting it on this motley crew.  But one thing’s for certain.

    If the fate of the world depends on these five misfits, everyone's in deep doo-doo.

What’s To Like...

    Amazon touts The Sleeping Dragon as a humorous fantasy, and it is, but for me it felt a lot more like the start of a adventure series featuring a bunch of flawed heroes.  The first part of the book seems to focus mostly on our five protagonists meeting each other, discovering what asset each one brings to the team, and learning to function and get along with each other.  Despite the mention of a number of fantasy creatures – dwarves, halflings, orcs, elves, and the titular dragons, most of these are relegated to minor roles, or MIA altogether.

    It was nice to watch the characters come together as a team.  The interaction between the priest and the wizard was particularly intriguing because in this make-believe world, the two spiritual realms apparently coexist quite comfortably.  The team also picks up a couple more members as the story goes along – both bipeds and quadrupeds.  And I definitely want to go for a ride in one of those plush flying carpets.

    There’s a fair amount of wit, and the pacing steps lively, even if it does take its sweet time getting around to solving the thematic prophecy: “The sleeping dragon will awake beneath Craagon’s Reach.”  The Amazon blurb describes the book as “Tolkien-inspired” and “Pratchett-esque”, but you’ll enjoy the book more if you key on the quote given on the front cover: “In a world so changed that heroism itself appears obsolete, will there still be heroes?”

    The overall tone of the book is somewhat dark, and I liked that.  All of the protagonists have inner weaknesses.  They set these aside at times, for the sake of team spirit, but the "baggage" each one carries is still there at the end of the book.

    Jonny Nexus hails from Manchester, England, so unsurprisingly, the book is written in English, not American.  You might come across ageing artefacts and sodding gits, or need a torch to see inside your vehicle’s bonnet.  There’s a couple maps and a handy glossary at the front of the book, but the author's storytelling is clear enough to where I had no trouble remembering what things like a "whisper" were.  The Table of Contents needs work – it doesn't divide up the chapters, so you can't access a particular one via it.  But the page numbers work quite well, and that's a plus.

    Everything builds to an action-packed ending, with a couple of twists included that I didn’t see coming.  This is a standalone story, and all the plot threads get tied up.  It has a “feel” of being the first book in a series, although I don’t see anything in the Amazon blurb to confirm that.

Kewlest New Word  ...

    Sporran (n.) : a small pouch worn around the waist so as to hang in front of the kilt as part of men’s Scottish Highland dress.  (Whooda guessed there was a word for this?)

Others : Serried (adj.); Cafetière (n.); Conurbation (n.).

Excerpts...

    “Pardon me for asking, but why exactly has an AdventureSport player got a fully equipped magical laboratory?”

    Blade gave her an embarrassed smile.  “I had this girlfriend a few years ago who fancied herself as some kind of progressive witch.  Got all this installed for her.”

    “And did this erstwhile girlfriend of yours ever use it?” asked Presto, who’d apparently been listening in despite appearing to be fully engaged in checking out the oracle’s main control program.

    “No.  Said the equipment interfered with her creativity.”  (loc. 553)

   “But wild mana…” Presto shook his head.  “It’s constantly active, reactive, transforming.”

    Laliana shivered.  “It’s just horrible to think that it’s out there.  You can’t smell it.  You can’t taste it.  You can’t sense it.  But it’s out there.”

    Presto tapped the small device attached to his belt.  “Just keep an eye on your dosemeters.  As long as they still show green you’re okay.”

    “And what do we do if they turn amber?” asked Darick.

    Presto shrugged.  “Don’t know.  Re-calibrate your personal definition of okay, I guess.”  (loc. 4414)

Kindle Details...

    The Sleeping Dragon presently sells for $0.99 at Amazon, which is quite a bargain.  Jonny Nexus has one other recent release, When Pigs Fly, which is on my Kindle, waiting to be read, plus three earlier e-books.  All of these appear to be in the Fantasy genre, and all are priced at $0.99.

 “So three thousand golds later we’ve got a dog with a speech impediment?”  (loc. 4032)

    There are a few nits to pick, some minor, one more significant.  As usual in any adventure story, chemical plants are cast in a bad light.  I spent my career working for a chemical manufacturing company, so this is just a personal pet peeve.

    I chuckled when one of the characters used the term “luddite”.  I don’t think anyone in a fantasy realm would ever utter that word.  The writing style is up to the task, but for some reason I didn’t find it compelling.  Maybe I just need to read a couple more books by Jonny Nexus.

    The biggest issue concerns the prolific use of cussing.  If The Sleeping Dragon was meant to be Tolkien-inspired and Pratchett-esque, why is there so much foul language?  If you were to edit the story by deleting all the cussing, would any of the tone and content would be lost?  OTOH, by keeping it in, a sizable portion of the potential target audience is forfeited.  Parents aren’t going to allow Little Suzie and Timmy to read a book that contains repeated penis references.

    6½ Stars.  I enjoyed The Sleeping Dragon, but would’ve been happier if there were more fantasy creatures and less cussing.  Overall, the book's strengths outshine its weaknesses, so here's hoping Jonny Nexus develops this into a series.  He's put together a fascinating and diverse cast of characters, and it would be a shame if they didn't have any further adventures while saving the universe.