STARLIGHTER Review

Dragons are enslaving humankind, and a black egg signals the end of the world. Jason Masters must journey to another realm and join forces with a slave girl named Koren to rescue the captives and save two worlds from destruction. What if the Legends Are True? Jason Masters doubted the myths: people taken through a portal to another realm and enslaved by dragons. But when his brother is taken, he must uncover the truth and find the portal before it's too late. Once he's through the portal, he meets Koren, a slave in the dragons’ realm, who struggles to destroy a black egg prophesied to doom all mankind. Jason and Koren must work together to save their two worlds before the dragons learn that their secrets have been discovered.
From daviscrossing.com

This new book by Bryan Davis focuses around two central characters with different plot lines that eventually intersect. The first of these characters is Jason Masters who has grown up on myths about Dracon, the Dragon planet, and that humans were taken long ago to the planet in order to serve the Dragons. These humans are known by Jason as the Lost Ones, humans that need to be recovered and brought back to Major Four, their home planet. A series of events draws him closer and proves to him that these myths are true, and that a Dragon planet does exist, but perhaps not in the way he believes.

The second of the characters is Koren, a lively slave girl known for her story-telling. She has served the Dragons for her entire life, and knows nothing for truth about the existence of an outside planet. These, to her, are only myths, and she too gets carried in a whirlwind of events which draws her to believe that a human planet does exist.

The book opens straight away with a sword fight, drawing the reader in to the scene and the characters without doing the ever-so-common boring first chapter in which all the characters are introduced and nothing is left for the reader to discern. If we are reading your books, we are obviously not brain dead and can put two and two together without getting the wrong answer. Davis understands that and leaves room in his writing for the reader to think about the plot and the character. A fine example of the rule we hear as children when writing for school, show, don't tell, this book takes the reader on an ride that leaves them wanting more.

Despite the instant start, the story slowed down at the beginning and I found myself contemplating dropping the book. But, since I had bought it, I pushed myself on and found that it was worth the wait. Though the beginning told like a fairy tale told to young children, the story quickly became far more than that as the characters grew more and more interesting. I found myself wanting to know more, and since the story is written with two overlapping plots, I was frustrated when Davis pulled me in to a single character only to switch and tell more of the story about another, though this was a good frustration. Because of this, I was not bored while reading.

Overall, Davis' characters surprised me, but in a good manner. From Elyssa, the once imprisoned Diviner to Tibber, the once imprisoned liar, the characters seemed real and tangible. My only complaint in Davis' direction is in regards to the contrasting character of Koren. At one moment, she was strong willed and fighting off everyone who got in her way, and the next, she was on her knees in tears. I understand that the situations she got in to where hard on her, but Koren was the only character to full out cry in the novel, and she did so in a manner that left me rolling my eyes, mentally asking This again? as she pitied herself and the trouble she had gotten others in to. Though she had her flaws, they were minor, and Mary Sues, in literature, do nothing to impress me. I want substance. I want the character to have something I can relate to, not just someone who I can look up to.

Regardless, the story was well written. Davis created a world that became familiar to me as I read, and I could picture every aspect of the realm. Completely imaginative and nothing like other books I have I read, Starlighter shows great promise for a series. The ending concluded in such a way that some things ended, yet others were left wide open, leaving me wondering what would happen next. A true work of fiction, this book has left me wondering where the characters will go and what will happen to them in the next book. Overall, it was an exciting read that left me wanting more. Well done, Bryan Davis.

Rating: B+

You can view the trailer for Starlighter by Bryan Davis below, though it isn't the best. It gets to the gist of the book, though in a far too dramatic way. Don't judge a book by its trailer, though.