Book Review: Pipe of Wings by Sarah K.L. Wilson

The book’s cover image was taken from its Amazon buy page for review purposes.

Spoiler Free Summary:  Pipe of Wings by Sarah K.L. Wilson  is the fifteenth book in the Dragon School series.  Amel gets tricked into obeying her new prince. This new leader has her reaching out to old friends for aide. The mysterious pipe she’d found holds a secret that my prove to be a move valuable weapon than she imagined.

Character:  Right up front I need to state that this is Book 15 in a series that’s designed (based on my reading) to be read in order. On one hand, it’s unfair to judge on book in the middle of a series. On the other hand, most authors of a saga should realize that people are going to jump into their series in the middle, and those readers will need some help catching up. I’m not going to be too hard on Wilson, but it’s a challenge to get into a story when you came in on the 15th part. Why did I do this? Well, this book was a Book Cover of the Month winner back when I ran those brackets.  

That said: Amel is a sympathetic character. I’m fascinated by her disability (something about her leg, though I’m unclear what it is). As sympathetic as she is, she didn’t strike me as very proactive or competent. Now, this is YA fantasy, so there was bound to be a lot of decisions an older person like myself doesn’t necessarily feel were the best. Amel was interesting enough that if I had the time, I’d probably go back to book one and check things out, but she wasn’t so cool that I feel compelled to go back. For me, that’s telling. Heck, I didn’t even really know Amel’s name until the last third of the book. (I listened to the audio version, and she didn’t leave a lot of tags for readers to track who was who or even who was saying what.)

Exposition: Honestly, this might be the first book where I feel I didn’t get enough exposition. I was clueless through pretty much the whole book. Sure, I came in late, but readers who come in late don’t have a chance at gaining enough context to enjoy what might be an amazing story for those who started in book one. I think it’s a shame because every book should be an opportunity to invite readers to your other books.

Image of Sarah Wilson was taken from her Amazon author page for review purposes.

Worldbuilding:  The pipe was an interesting element as is the relationship between the dragons and their riders. I don’t understand it too well, but it was interested. I’ll assume the world, politics, and societal issues I was lost on in this book are a result in my ignorance.

Dialogue: This felt pretty rough. This doesn’t have anything at all to do with context or what book I was in. The conversations felt a bit formulaic. There were points of conflict that I felt deserved to be dealt with that were instead glazed over or even just ignored, which made the scene hard to believe.

Description:  This was very good. While I didn’t know who was who, I still saw and sensed a lot. I like picturing dragons of different colors flying around. This was easily the strongest area of the book for Wilson. One reason I’m not such a fan is probably because its best attribute is my least-favorite story element. That said, the worldbuilding and description in Dune were also amazing, and I didn’t very much care for that book either. Dune is mandatory reading for SCIFI fans and Wilson is a best seller. I wouldn’t let my singular opinion stop you from checking this series out, but I would strongly urge you that, to give it a fair shot, you start on book one.

Overall: While this is obviously part of a series, this book doesn’t provide any context or background to help readers starting in the middle. If you’re going to give this series a try, start at the first book. That may seem obvious, but some books do a fantastic job of helping the reader (or listener) catch up. The story is fast paced. The characters are hard to connect with, but the premise is very interesting. This series as a whole has a very interesting premise with a lead character with the opportunity to be inspirational.

Thanks for reading

Matt

The 2018 M.L.S. Weech Book Cover of the Year Bracket Starts Now!

Hello all!

I’ve been building to this for quite some time, and I’m so excited to kick things off. This is it! Twelve Book Covers of the Month join four Wild Card Book Covers to comprise a sixteen-book tournament to determine which one will rule them all!

If you like, you can take a look at each book cover’s winning announcement: December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and November.

365 book covers. 53,047 votes. All leading to this tournament! The covers were ranked 1-16 by the number of total votes each received. That means the cover that received the most votes (Until Nothing Remains) is going up against the Wild Card that received the fewest votes. (Age of War), and so on and so forth.

You can vote all the way through the tournament, supporting the covers you like best through each round. I like to make sure people get the credit they deserve, so please show your support. Please vote and share as much as possible to get people a chance to pick their favorite.

As always, I’d appreciate it if you tag the authors and artists if you know them. I try to tag or friend every author I can, but sometimes it’s hard to track someone down. Max participation is a huge deal to me. The more people who vote, the more recognition these authors and artists receive, and I want this to be as legitimate as possible.

Image taken from Pixabay.

If you are the author, let’s remember to be good sports! 1) Please feel free to message or contact me at any time. 2) Please feel free to like, share, text, ask for support, and call everyone you know. I absolutely want max participation. However, if you’re going to offer giveaways or prizes, please offer them for voting, not just voting for you.

Also, while your summoning your army of voting soldiers, please make sure you ask them to vote in every match. Part of the idea of this is to get exposure to as many artists and authors as possible. By all means, if you can get 1,000 people to vote for your book, do it. Just please also send some eyeballs to the other matches.

A final note to authors and artists: I currently have links to the books’ Amazon pages. If you’d prefer I switch that link to sign up for your newsletter or like your social media page or whatever, just send me the link and let me know. I want this to help you. I want this to be as helpful as possible, so whatever you need me to do to facilitate that, just let me know.

It’s been fun! I’d like to end this tournament on a high note. I’m trying to get 10,000 total votes. Please, tell everyone. Get people to vote. I want this trophy to mean something, and it’ll frankly mean more as more people vote.

I hope you keep having fun. Please, vote, share, and discuss as much as possible.

All you have to do now is head over here to vote!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Announcing the August Book Cover of the Month!

Hello everyone,

We’ve just wrapped up another month. It was great to see a new cover bracket happen!

We had 2,433 votes this month. It’s below average, but at least it’s not the new record holder for fewest votes ever.

In this slow of a month, it’s common for one cover to sort of surge and then defend the leader spot, and that’s what happened this month.

The August Book Cover of the Month is…

 

Pipe of Wings by Sarah K. L. Wilson! If you’re curious about how I felt about the book, check out the Facebook post that I posted when this book first landed on the bracket, here.

Let’s look at the stats!

Wilson received 160 total votes.

September only has 30 days, so that means Born to the Blade by Michael Underwood, Marie Brennan, and Cassandra Khaw, and White Mind by Emma Stallings (this month’s runners up) get a second chance to claim the title in September’s bracket.

But for now, let’s look at this month’s winner!

Amazon:

(START BLURB)

A new story from USA TODAY bestselling author, Sarah K. L. Wilson.
Tricked and forced to do the will of the new Prince of Baojang, Amel returns to the Dominion. But things have changed in her homeland. Will she be able to turn old friends into new allies as she continues to fight against the Dusk Covenant and the Ifrit scourge?

Fans of Anne McCaffrey’s DRAGON RIDERS OF PERN and Christopher Paolini’s ERAGON will love DRAGON SCHOOL.

Pipe of Wings is episode fifteen of Dragon School – expect a new episode every eighteen days!

(END BLURB)

I’ve added Pipe of Wings to my TBR. (For those who are new to the deal, I buy the Book Cover of the Month to read and review in the future. I buy all the winning covers. I’ve already bought July, June, May, April, March, February, January, and December’s book.

Here’s Wilson’s Facebook page. Give it a like if you’re curious about her and her work.

The September Book Cover of the Month is coming along, and that contest will launch Oct. 1.

I will continue to identify and select covers for each day from Amazon’s New Release section for fantasy and science fiction. If you follow and like my Facebook page, you can see what covers will make the bracket.

Thanks for reading

Matt

An August Book Cover of the Month Update

Greetings all,

With just seven days left in this month’s bracket, it’s time to update you all on how things have been progressing.

As I type this, we have 1,903 votes so far. I admittedly have to acknowledge that the bulk of my disappointment stems from how much support the bracket had last month. The truth is, we’re on pace for what’s normally a solid month in the bracket, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to see these authors and artists get more support. I’d appreciate anyone spreading the word.

A Pipe of Wings by Sarah K. L. Wilson is in the lead at the moment.

Most Voted on so far: Wings has the most total votes so far with 134. She’s had 15 voters send her all the way through to the winner’s circle, which gives her a lead.

Least Voted for:  Bellweather by Susanna Kearsley and Bitter by V. Moody. These cover have 16 votes each. I’m honestly shocked Bellweather is that low and has so few votes.  Bitter is a solid cover, and I don’t think it deserves that little love either.

Wings looks pretty comfortable with 15 finals votes.  Born to the Blade by Michael R. Underwood (and a few others) is currently in second place (only 9 voters away). But things get interesting when one looks at the whole bracket.

Wings has a less secure lead in the Sweet 16. Wings is only five votes ahead of The Last Great Reaper by Billi Bell.  Fallout by Jacqueline Druga is actually only eight votes away from spoiling the whole thing (if you’re rooting for Wings). If Druga can get eight or so voters to push her all the way to the top, she’d take the title.

One benefit of a smaller turnout is how close things are.  It’s not unreasonable to think one of these authors can call up about ten fans. So I’m excited to see if the tables turn at any point during the last week of the bracket.

A quick reminder of how the tournament works. The easiest way to win is to have the most people vote for you in every round. The trick is you have to have the most people vote you through in each round, all the way to the final.  As an example, 100 people could vote someone through to the finals, but that doesn’t do a cover any good if he doesn’t win the first round. It’s not total votes. It’s not simple championship votes. The winning cover has to have the most votes in each round of the competition.

This will be the only update for this type of bracket. I hope the record does get broken and that I see voters lining up to support their authors by voting, liking, and sharing the bracket with as many people as possible.  You can vote at this address!

I’ll announce the winner is just seven days!

Thanks for reading,

Matt