As you may have noticed, Upstream has a submissions section. In popped Living in Times of Dragons by John Pretorius.
After trying three other books that wasted my time and spent over a third of their time running on a hamster wheel, doing absolutely nothing with characters, world-building, or plot, I felt particularly bloody-minded. Especially since we don’t write negative reviews. At times like these, I feel like making an exception, but it feels too much like bait-and-switch.
This book just sat in the TBR pile, some 500 page doorstop that I felt ready to tear into, write off, and move on.
It didn’t go according to plan.
The Story
Roger Rommel is an American ex-patriot and a widower who has been in witness protection for two years. He’s finally returned to South Africa to put away a local mafia boss and topple his empire.
Then a dragon smashes through the courthouse wall and chases Roger through the streets of Pretoria.
What follows is a complex maze of dragon politics, thousand year old secrets, ancient conspiracies, unicorn exfiltrations, alternate worlds, with some redemption arcs and thriller action pieces thrown in for fun.
Because Roger Rommel is a reluctant chosen one … except he’s been chosen by the enemy in order to destroy the world. But this is one chosen one who isn’t going to play nice, and he’s going to go down swinging if he has to.
I admit, I did not see Living in Times of Dragons coming. It starts off like an action thriller, playing tag with a ten ton lizard that breathes fire, sends our hero down a rabbit hole of secret history fantasy brought into the open, and literally finds Roger needing to 1v1 several dragons, repeatedly. There are enough pauses to allow the reader to catch one’s breath.
The pacing is solid. Even when the high speed chases stop, the threat is constant. We have threats from enemy dragons, threats from technically allied dragons, threats from human allies who are jerks, threats from villains from another dimension … literally. By my count, this is at least a six-sided chess game, with shifting allegiances, surprising allies, more surprising threats, some of them from within.
And one has to give props to Pretorius for his writing chops. He has plot moments leading to character moments, but even the character moments turn out to be major plot points. There is no navel gazing that leads nowhere. There are no speeches that drag on for hours.1 There is no irrelevant hamster wheel chapter where we all frantically run around getting nowhere.2 Everything fits together into this grand tapestry of a plot. Every character is important or relevant. Almost every character has a full biography, with the exception of some late additions to the novel near the end.
Despite all of these dire circumstances, we do have characters with a sense of humor that will get a laugh. When the first dragon attack happens, Roger wonders about the police response: “What did the radio operators say to them? Terrorist attack, or giant lizard attack? Did the police have a Godzilla contingency?” I found it funny. Also, make certain to read the “about the author” section.
For the record, my copy had some minor editing issues scattered throughout. But my edition is so old, it has a different cover. Take that how you want.
Here’s the bad news. This does end on a little bit of a cliffhanger. The main threat has been addressed and is contained to this novel, but the solution leads to other obvious plot threads, so I didn’t feel like throwing the Kindle across the room. Good news: there is a book two out already.
The Characters
Living in Times of Dragons is from the first person perspective of Roger Rommel, so we spend most of the entire book in his head. And I must say, Roger Rommel is one of the best developed characters I’ve seen in a few months—and it used to be years between reading characters this well developed. From what I could tell, Roger has at least five different novels worth of backstory here: one for his life growing up as an orphan, a second for his live as an NYPD officer, a romance novel for meeting his wife and winning her hand, a fourth for working with a PMC, and a final one for his friend the serial killer.
Yes, our hero has enough skeletons in a closet to fill a morgue. And … let’s just say that even his enemies tell him, “You’re too hard on yourself.” We should put this man in the same room with Brendan Murphy from Fallen, by Patrick Abbott, Sci-Fi Author, they can compare notes.
Again, along the way, almost every character gets a full biography—even some characters we don’t even get to meet in the book. Every character has motivations. Most of them are understandable. Some of the motives are very Dilbert bureaucracy. Some of them are very … Final Fantasy villain, but that seems to be going the rounds. Some have the “greater good” in mind, and others are acting purely on personal loyalty.
Dear George RR Martin, take notes. You can have multiple factions of multiple characters of a variety of motivating factors, without needing your book to be nihilistic sludge, you fat f**k.
The World
Living in Times of Dragons doesn’t have world building. Pretorius built at least three worlds— the secret history of dragons in our world, the history of dragons in their original world, and a third world on top of that.
And there’s enough local color for South Africa that you get a good sense of the landscape there. Perhaps Pretorius and Nicholas Woode-Smith should get together sometime.3
Along the way, we have Dragon-eye notes about their history and their world. There may be enough for year another novel just on backstory. I am not trying to give John Pretorius more work, but if he wanted to, he could.
The best part about the world building is that none of it is superfluent. It’s all relevant to the plot, delivered as needed, to fill in the missing puzzle pieces.
Politics
While there is politicking between dragon parties, if you can find modern politics in this book, seek medical help. There is a hint of eco-terrorist nonsense, but even that turns out to be a smokescreen for a real threat.
Content Warning
There may be enough harsh language for a hard PG-13 rating, but if so, it’s probably in another language.
Who is it for?
For any fans of classical epic fantasy—dragons, actions, some faith thrown in for good measure. Think of it as Flight of Dragons expanded out to a Terry Goodkind or a Robert Jordan, only with better editing. And if you don’t mind a touch of religious reflection on par with Graham Greene or Walker Percy, this should be right up your alley.
Why buy it
Dragons smashing up South Africa, going toe to toe with dragons in single combat, great world building—epic fantasy at its finest.
Love you, Terry Goodkind, RIP, but your editor slept on the job during at least three books.
Robert Jordan, RIP.
Now watch, they’re really at opposite ends of South Africa from each other.
Thank you for the great review...