Steel Dragon Saga

[SkieFireYokana]

Wondering if anybody else has read this one; it's not a BOOK, per se, but it's hardly undeserving of the title. I honestly think that the author, M. H. Glenn, would be hard-put not to make money if he published it. But, anyway, rather than do all the talking, I suppose for those who haven't read it I'll just stick a link here straight to the only place it exists on the internet.

http://pws.prserv.net/hasai/

I read it a while back (a few years) and then found it again just a few weeks ago. Read it through once more, and I absolutely loved it. Seeing as how it strikes me as the kind of story people here would like, I'm back (for however long I decide to be), and glad to be. Anyway, I greatly recommend it.
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[Ragnarok]

I remember reading and loving that series a long time ago. I definitely second the recommendation.
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To win against an opponent stronger than yourself, you must not be weaker than that opponent. - Takamachi Nanoha

[Hyraxylos]

Extreme spoilers.

I just recently read the Steel Dragon saga, and despite seeming somewhat slow and cheesy in several areas, it was fairly easy to get into. I felt a big urge to write out a review due to some rather strong feelings the ending left me with.

One particular thing I noticed was... well actually this is rather difficult to put into words. But the author was somehow able to "slide around" responsibility for some of the more confusing and downright nonsensical parts of the theme or setting by shoving the blame onto incompetent characters. For example, the dragons have an eyebrow-raising number of ordinances and rules about "honor" and whatnot. There's an "honorable" way to challenge someone to combat, an "honorable" way to walk in and out of a cave, and an "honorable" way to nibble one's own tail. And yet apparently it's NOT dishonorable to abduct someone else's offspring. In most works of literature, this would be seen as a scathing blow against the story's premises, but Hasai manages to shove that onto the dragons as yet another example of how self-crippling and incompetent their societies are. This's probably the most admirable and intriguing element in the whole work.

Some highly satisfying moments included the involvement of the main character's human friends in the whole affair, some of the more amusing workplace incidents (such as the unstable network hardware), and my favorite of all, Hasai's hilarious "How Human Of You" lecture. Other areas could have used some improvement, such as Hasai gaining more chances for weather manipulation, a bit more closure regarding that extra sphere he found at that sunken temple, at least one mention of his human name during the climax just for effect, at least one application of his lightning powers during the challenge, and a lot less "my Lord" gibberish.

Overall, the story was really good up to a point. I suspect most readers would've been pissed off about the whole "1 vs. 60" climax or whatever, applying some overused label like "Mary Sue" or somesuch, but I didn't really care about that. Unfortunately, the final chapter IS where the whole story truly falls apart, because the events in there are too clumsily constructed and filled with holes (despite the chapter being ridiculously long), and the ending completely reverses everything good that happened in the rest of the story, tacking on a few extra bad things to top it all off.

Let's look things over. Hasai goes through a ton of political foolishness in order to rescue his family and set the framework for a plan that can get dragons accepted alongside humans in the world, and in the course of doing so, ACCIDENTALLY becomes... what was it again? Supreme emperor of all dragons on Earth or something? Great. What does he do with all that?
1. He tosses his own progeny into the garbage for no good reason at all, not quite realizing the obvious point that they'd be FAR safer among dragons than in a human orphanage (if Ahnkar could track down and identify Anna as a dragon and abduct her, then why not Ashahd and Dahiric?). And after they're gotten rid of, they're not mentioned in the epilogue either.
2. He turns his back on his own previously-sought ideals, telling himself "PFFF who am I kidding? Dragons are definitely dead meat no matter what but I'm going to let all my friends delude themselves into thinking otherwise."
3. He effectively stabs his political allies and all his own friends, dragon and human, in the back by losing faith in their cause, despite his OWN heavy contributions to it.
4. He hypocritically commits the same crime against Pasqual by abducting her offspring and setting things in motion so that she'll likely never get to see them again, despite getting upset at the villains for exactly the same thing.

Despite all the enjoyable parts in the story, those instantly become empty to look back upon except out of context. Due to how the sheer bitterness and facepalm of the ending MORE than outsteps all the enjoyability of the rest of the story, I'd grade this as a flat 0%. It wouldn't be so bad if there were more of it beyond the 9th chapter (which is why I did a search for a possibility of more material from Hasai which actually led me to discovering this topic on SDB), but there isn't any more. There's no more closure about the young dragons discovering anything about themselves and making decisions about their own lives later on. Nor is there any closure about the hero-turned-antihero suddenly realizing that he's being stupid. The enjoyability of the whole thing all just plummets to rock bottom, spews its guts out all over the ground at the bottom of the pit of smoldering fail, and dies a lonely and miserable death down there.

Thanks for reading.
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[Blue]

I read this a long time ago and it was only half finished at the time so I never did get to finish reading the story.

[Ragnarok]

It's been completed for years now, so I do recommend going back and finishing it.
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To win against an opponent stronger than yourself, you must not be weaker than that opponent. - Takamachi Nanoha

[Blue]

well after reading Hyraxylos post I kind of know how its going to end now

[starvixdraxon]

I am still reading this...book. Was it a book? Did he write this on the internet or was this actually a book? Anyway, I love it. And I would side with dragons and say, to heck with Humanity! I will destroy you all! Dragon Apocolypse in the Year of the dragon! hahahaa!!!!! Sorry. I have my moments every now and then. I thought it was so cute when that female dragon was loving on him. Ooh!! So cute! Loved it! I thought that was the best chapter in the entire series. Of course I haven't finished reading it so...yeah. And this guy is no wannabe fanfiction author. This guy astounded me with his incredible diction! I was like, holy Hathor this guy is awesome!! I loved it. So why isn't this an actual book?! This should totally be a book!!!