2 out of 4 stars
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Becoming the Dragon is a Sci-Fi/Fantasy book that is the first in Alex Sapeign's The Dragon Inside series. It was originally written in Russian and then translated into English by Elizabeth Kulikov. In this book we meet Alex, a teen who survived a lightening strike and now causes computers to go haywire when he is around them. Alex is part of a quirky family that includes his dad, a scientist working on perfecting time travel. On a visit to his dad's lab, Alex is accidentally teleported to a new planet called Ilanta. Here he starts to develop magical powers and his personality begins to evolve. While trying to navigate his new surroundings, he is captured by bandits. He then gets sold as a slave and is transported to a castle where he meets a dragon that is also being held prisoner. He devises a plan to escape and rescues Karegar the dragon. He is badly wounded and before dying he meets Jaga the elf, who lives with Karegar. She knows a spell that can save his life by reincarnating him as a dragon. He agrees to try this and goes through the painful transformation. We get to follow his adventures as a human and a new dragon.
I was excited to read this book in the beginning but after a while, it lost me. I'm not sure if it was because it was originally written in Russian and then translated, but it didn't seem to flow well. The descriptions and names of the new creatures Andy encounters were hard to follow. I actually had to force myself to finish it, which was disappointing. I love fantasy and enjoy a good book about mythical creatures, like dragons, but the exceptionally long descriptions of things like bows and the history of Ilanta made it hard to get fully immersed. These things may end up being relevant later in the series but in this book they seemed out of place.
Parts of the story were exciting but others just couldn't hold my attention. Some of them were extremely boring. He goes in to great detail about some aspects and others he just skims right by. Most of the things he skims by are things that would have improved the book. He describes characters in intricate detail and then we never hear of them again. Some of the characters lack personality and I was never emotionally attached to any of them. The fact that our young hero was great at absolutely everything with no magical training was a bit unbelievable as well.
The book has several crude jokes that would not be acceptable for young teens. There were several references to breasts and a sex scene as well. If not for these scenes, I would imagine it more as a Young Adult book. I think if you really enjoy sci-fi/fantasy and can get past the strange names and descriptions, it will appeal to you. If you are not a die-hard fantasy fan you may become just as lost and disappointed as I was.
I give Becoming The Dragon 2 out of 4 stars. It wasn't terrible but it also wasn't a book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It definitely has potential but it missed the mark with me. If the author had made the book longer, he probably could have made the story more exciting. Being introduced to characters briefly would have made more sense instead of the long introductions to characters that then disappeared. It ended with the promise of exciting things to come, although I am not sure it will be worth my time to finish the series.
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Becoming the Dragon
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