Steal the Dragon (Sianim, No. 2)

I got this book from the library and I'm so glad I found it!
Rialla -being a runaway slave from Darran- is asked to spy on one of Darrans lords and prevent his assassination. She would be disguised as a slave traveling with his mercenary brother, who is also her dearest friend.
Being a slave again will awaken her dormant powers & thrust her into unseen dangers of evil mages, night creatures & strange healers.
Nothing happens as planned and no one is as they seem.

There aren't any dragons in this story, Steal a dragon is a game they play that is similar to chess...A game of strategy & cunning.
A very good fantasy read, strong heroine, full of action, mystery & love.
Read it if you can get your hands on it.

Those who have come to Patricia Briggs having read "Moon Called" will find that this book is very different in style from that werewolf/vampire story. "Steal The Dragon" is a fantasy like "Dragon Bones" and "Dragon Blood" as well as her "Raven's" duology. Despite the use of the word "Dragon" in the title of this book it isn't related to the other two dragon books - the only occurrence of "Steal the Dragon" in this book is as a game rather like Chess.

Rialla is an ex-slave working as a horse trainer in Sianim. She comes to the attention of the Spymaster as she is an empathy as well as an ex-slave. Machinations are afoot in a neighbour land, the place where Rialla was formerly a slave, and the Spymaster wishes her to travel, along with Laeth, a mercenary, to that land to see if they can prevent the assassination of Laeth's brother who is working for peace and the end of slavery in his land.

Of course things don't go as planned and Laeth ends up arrested for the murder of his brother. Rialla is severely injured but is nursed back to health by Tris, the local healer. She soon works out that there's more to Tris than meets the eye as his healing abilities seem almost magical - in a world where magic is feared. Tris and Rialla plot to rescue Laeth from his death sentence for killing his brother but this opens a whole new can of worms.

There are many interesting aspects to this book. Rialla's former life as a slave makes very good background, the way in which slaves have to damp down their emotions, the way in which they become dehumanised after a long period in slavery and the dangers in which Rialla places herself in returning voluntarily to slavery as a disguise. The book has a lot of magic in it which sometimes I felt was a little annoying - if there's a problem then someone has the magical ability to deal with it - but the story is very interesting and it's not always clear what's going to happen. The baddies and goodies also have more depth to them than one might expect.

As in "Dragon Blood", Patricia Briggs isn't afraid of giving her characters an awful time and Rialla has to cope with a lot that heroines normally manage to escape by the skin of their teeth. Perhaps that's part of the appeal of this heroine - she is a strong lady who is able to make rational judgements about very difficult issues. Her slow-burn romance with Tris is nicely written.

Overall I enjoyed this book more than "Dragon Bones" and "Dragon Blood" as the story was easier to follow (less politics and less places to try to keep track of). It was an easy read and being a single volume pretty much tied up all the loose ends, bar a few. An enjoyable book for a quiet day.

I think this is a wonderful book. I have read it over and over so many times I practically got it memorize. I would recommend this book to any fantasy lover.
This book is about a slave girl trained as a dancer. The book takes place after Rialla escaped from her master. She is now a horse trainer at Sianim. She was asked to be a spy and protect a lord of Reth. The lord wanted to abolish slavery in Reth so it was a request she couldn't deny.
When she got there, she recovered her magic talent of empathy which helped her a lot especially when it turns out the assassin was a magician. A nonhuman healer helps her out when his friend had a vision of her bringing an end to his non-bonded state.
It's got action and magic and intrigue(not so much as to be boring) and the other good stuff that makes a book wonderful.
You're bound to like it.

Update 1/13/16: Just wanted to say that I still enjoy this book after all these years. Recently reread it and it's still good albeit light reading compared to all the epic fantasy I like to read.

It is never hard to tell when you are reading a five star novel. You know about thirty pages in that you have just embarked on one of those literary journeys that will stay with you forever. You know when you are reading a five star book, because in thirty pages you are hopelessly hooked and for all the right reasons...

But with Steal the Dragon, I knew in 2 pages. In 2 pages, I knew I was about to read one of the best books I have ever read in my life, and I was not wrong. I was very, very right.

My first Patricia Briggs novel was Raven's Shadow--yet another five-star book. My second was Raven's Strike, recently released. It was also an excellent book. If there was one of her novels, though, that sealed me in as one of her fans, it was Steal the Dragon.

Steal the Dragon has so much to it. It is fairly short, but it does not read too fast, and nor does it read to slow. The characters are brilliant and not cliched messes.

We have a strong heroine, yes--but she's not that cold super-chick we see so often in fantasy now. No, she seems very human, and her motivations are realistic. The other characters are equally as entertaining and unique.

While Steal the Dragon was not Briggs' best written novel, I am willing to cut that slack. After all, this was published several years before Raven's Shadow and Raven's Strike. I would expect the later two to be better written. It is only natural, after all, for them to be better.

The story of Steal the Dragon, though, is in many ways more entrancing than both of the Raven books. It is one of those books that you cannot help thinking about, wondering what is going to happen next and when it will happen.

The only problem I have with this novel is the ending. I thought it a little rushed, and I've noticed that trend with Briggs. Her endings are normally a bit rushed...

I do not give five stars lightly to any book, but for Steal the Dragon there is no excuse not to. Where it might take me 30 pages to know that I'm reading something great, in two pages--maybe less- I knew that this was going to be more than great. I knew that it was going to be fantastic. Maybe I was wrong, though.

It wasn't only fantastic, it was purely amazing.

I cannot help but think that all of the five star reviews on this book are out of loyalty to Patricia Briggs, who has written some very good books in the fantasy genre. And I honestly remember liking this book a lot better when it first came out-- in fact, I have held onto my first copy all these years. But a thoughtful rereading had me cringing a bit at my early enthusiasm for this particular story.

The first part is quite weak. There is way too much "tell" and not enough "show" as Briggs introduces former slave dancer, current horse trainer Rialla; Ren-the spymaster of Sianim; and Laeth a sometime nobleman, current mercenary. The characters are remarkably flat. Rialla for instance has more than a touch of Mary Sue in her with her red hair, green eyes, empathic ability and the ability to be the best dancer and horse trainer evah! Laeth is the wild younger son who ran away to become a mercenary to help deal with his dispair at losing the love of his life to his brother-- of course it was his own darn fault; and Ren is this enigmatic character who "knows all".

Other problems I had with the book was the failure of Briggs to set rules for her magic and abide by them. Rialla and Tris, a character met a little later in the book, both come up with new skills when they are needed. For instance Rialla remembers just at the last minute that she had the power to distract someone from an object she is carrying. Tris suddenly has the ability to disguise himself as a potted plant or a wobbly legged bench. He can also cause a wooden door to disintegrate into sawdust (leaving the hardware hanging in mid air) then reconstitute it.

The coincidences and plot holes are amazing. When Tris needs to be human it just so happens that he has carpentry skills, the old carpenter had died a year ago and the old carpenter's apprentice had gone to the city, leaving behind the old carpenter's tools. At one time we are told that he has made a promise in return for help in a bad situation to stay in the village as their healer. Then when he wants to leave he mentions that he only promised to stay for a year and now it's been two, besides there is a pretty good healer in the village now.

Then at some point it seems like nearly every character has some sort of magic power. There are also characters who are just introduced without any back ground or character to be killed or injured and help move the plot along-- Star Trek fans would recognize Red Shirts*. And the plot holes, oh, the plot holes. I cannot detail them or I'll spoil the story but you could drive an armored troop of mercenaries through some of them.

I really can't say that reading this book is totally unpleasurable. Occasionally there is some flash of the talent that Briggs has shown in her works since and she deals with themes that she comes back to later with a more mature writing skill so if someone is interested in the progress of a writer it is worth reading. But if you care about good story telling be prepared to be frustrated at times.

N.B. This review would have been a lot shorter if I had had not read this book on the [[ASIN:B000FI73MA Kindle]] and entered notes on the device everytime something struck me as wrong.

*Red Shirts are crew members on the Enterprise (nearly always wearing a red shirt, hence the name) whose sole reason for existence is to be killed during the fight scenes.

this book is fabulous, I love it!! It's set in the same world as "When Demons Walk" but at a different point in time. I bought it because the cover looked cool and the consept -escaped slave turned horse trainer turned spy- was intreging. The writing is excelent, adventure with a touch of romance. I HIGHLY recomend it to anyone who likes magic and mystery

Was so very disappointed in this book, particularly for one by Patricia Briggs. Lots of loose ends many ideas with potential and practically no followthrough. This is one of those few cases when I felt a book could have been a LOT longer.

Here are just a few examples. The hero and heroine are transported in a dream to waterfall where they meet a dragon. Neither waterfall nor dragon ever appear again. The same two characters discuss the mystery of how a broken arm was fixed and how important discovering that cause is. The cause is never discovered. Several pages of a spell book fall out and are easily and effectively destroyed but a later mage thinks the pages contain great magic and can't be destroyed. The time it will take for a journey varies between two and five days. The heroine claims to need private time and independence yet accepts an imposed permanent mind-reading relationship happily. Unexplained horror creatures appear, wreak havoc and disappear without a chase, concern about possible reappearance or background as to how they were made to appear in that place and time.

This book desperately needs a total rewrite for consistency, clarity and a good deal more amplification. Either the writer or editor seems simply not to have cared very much about this book. Really too bad.

This book was enthralling. I had to stay up late to finish it. The plot is quick, and the main character is very real and the action is nonstop. Fascinating stuff... Now I've got to read the sequel. Too bad Amazon doesn't have the e-book anymore!! (what gives??)

If you like any of Brigg's other books, you will love this one! Obviously, her talent needed no polishing even early in her career.

There are some hints of spoilers for When Demons Walk, but the books are not a true duology like the Raven books are.

Steal the Dragon is a book that might have enthralled me had it not tapered off by the end.

First I'll detail what I liked about the book. The world that Briggs created was one of wonders. While it could not compare with Tolkien's Middle-Earth or Norman's Gor or Bunch's Numantia or Martin's Westeros worlds, I thought the book held its own with the above worlds. I loved the cities that were created and most importantly her imaginative geography kept me entertained. I loved the backstory that the author included about Rialla. Her plight saddened me and allowed me to empathize with her life from childhood to adulthood. There was so much discussed in the novel that I wish Briggs had written a sequel.

I also liked how the subject of slavery was interwoven into the plot. Unlike John Norman's female viewpoint books, Briggs wrote a very realistic and strong character and placed her in more or less realistic situations. Seeing Rialla trek to the enemy city where she'd once been enslaved hooked me. Then seeing Rialla (Through No Fault Of Her Own) become embroiled in a murder-mystery while being forced back into slavery got me that much more interested.

Now I will detail what I did not like. There were too many contrivances. The healer she was with had too many powers. He could teleport through the woods, he could shapeshift, he was a carpenter in addition to being a healer!? That is ridiculous. It made the duo a bit too powerful for any of their enemies; that and the empathy Rialla had and her powers of suggestion made things somewhat far-fetched; and this was exemplified with the relative ease of their escape from Winterfell's castle. The fact that there was no clear cut villain did not help matters for me either. It left you scratching your head as to who you should hate the most.

The climax of the story seemed too bland for my tastes. The protagonist gripping the arm of one of the antagonists and force-feeding him memories? I still don't get it even though it was explained in the text. I also think the story concluded too easily.

But any fan of John Norman and Lin Carter should like this book because it shows a female's perspective instead of that of a male. This can only add to the genre.

A. Nathaniel Wallace, Jr.