The Dragon Lords: Fool's Gold

*Spoilers below*

(Keep in mind that this review is just my opinion. I am not flaming anyone who enjoyed this book)

I was recommended this book by Amazon after purchasing and reading "Kings of the Wyld". I read a preview of the first chapter and found it entertaining so i figured I would give it a shot.

The author set the tone of this world very simply, evil dragons showed up and began ruling these people. They demanded a healthy tax from all of its citizens and the farmers and peasants were oppressed.

The first chapter setup the story quite nicely. Good guy farmer Will is scrimping and saving to raise money for his families farm, evil tax collectors from the Dragons come to take his money/farm. Guy fights back and escapes. Turns out he escapes into a cave filled with goblins.

So far so good. I am liking the pace of the story and was curious how this farmer gets back on his feet. Suddenly two mercenaries enter the cave and start hacking goblins to pieces. Will sees a Lizardman (Balur) and a woman (Lette) very effectively killing the goblins. Turns out they were looking for a purse filled with gold that the goblins stole.

This is where the story immediately starts going downhill. Rather than have Will travel with these two new companions and meet up with the rest of their "team" later on, they all somehow end up in this cave.

First there is Firkin, the town drunk who just so happened to have been caught by the goblins in he same cave, and then not too long after Quirk the mage "shows up" right at the cave and they all together take shelter in the rain.

From here they come up the brilliant idea to rob one of these dragons that is oppressing the land. Will turns from innocent farmer who just lost his farm to a foul mouth guy who begins swearing up and down at these strangers and dropping way too many F-bombs.

I'm sorry but hearing common modern day swears dropped so frequently really doesn't feel right, and every other paragraph someone is threatening someone in some disturbing way that usually involves cutting someone's testicles off and mixing in as many F-bombs as possible. It just felt really rushed how these people literally just met and are now going to rob a dragon using some really unlikely plan that Will just happened to make when he was a child.

Even though I wasn't enjoying the book anymore I decided to finish the book anyway to satiate my curiosity (and because I had spent ten bucks on it). Unfortunately for me the book ends up getting worse with more of the same.

The plans to rob/fight the dragons get more and more ridiculous, and the characters (especially Quirk) seem to start swearing just for the sake of it. I wasn't a fan of how all these people start following them blindly after they "slay" the first dragon or how Will acts like a helpless fool.

I won't go into detail about the rest of the story but I will say this, the author did a very good job describing the dragons and their attitudes to each other, however in battle the dragons seem far too stupid and helpless and mages, (again especially Quirk) seem far too overpowered in this world. The dragons are portrayed as lazy snobs and the battle at the end is so rediculous that I found myself rooting for the dragons. I was especially mad about Balur the lizardman and his 1v1 with the giant red dragon. It was all so stupid. He was using a clock hand. Basically a piece of iron that was not tempered in any way to be an effective weapon and the dragon had no way possible to fight back.

Sorry to sound like such a nitpicker but I really dislike stories where the heroes just have to win. It makes it seem so darn impossible and these characters are very hard to like. They are all vulgar antiheroes.

All in all I think this story could have been told better and with a lot less pages. The premise was amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed the dragons, I just didn't like what our main characters turned into by the stories end.

I just finished reading Dragon Lords: Fool's Gold and I laughed so hard that I snorted. It is very funny and light hearted. There is a pig scene with Bessie at the very beginning of the book that was hilarious. 3 men try to catch a pig in a muddy pig sty, pig wins.

How clever is this author? I know, I'll write a book about a group of con en who want to rob a dragon's hoard? And I'll give it all kinds of witty dialogue and hilarious moments?

It reminded me a little bit of the Locke Lamora series, similar with the con men idea and they all have their specific strengths, and somehow Locke's plans always manage to work out (most of the time)

The book moved along quickly and I felt that all the characters were well drawn. I'm eager to learn more about everyone.

I took off 1 star because I found the character of Firkin, the old and insane drunk really annoying. The author spends some time telling us how gross Firkin is (he likes to poop in front of people and scratch himself with a pine cone afterwards) so that was disgusting and not what I want to read in a book. Also any love scenes were closed door and very short and lacking details and I felt like a lot of chances for laughs were missed because of that.

Overall, this was a great read and I will likely read it again sometime when I need a laugh. There is an excerpt for book 2 in the series and it looks good too. (No cliffhanger ending, book 1 has a great ending)

Full of fantasy fun, loads of laughs, suspense, detailed character development, witty dialogue. Couldn't put book down, finished it in record time. Would love to see it made into a movie! Eagerly awaiting other books from this author.

This was such a fun, action-packed and at times laugh-out-loud funny heist adventure. I gobbled in down in basically one sitting and I'm now impatiently awaiting the sequel!!

Really enjoyed this one. Fun to see some fantasy tropes/cliches used in different ways with the characters being so self-aware. Well executed plot; simple but satisfying. And great humor, which should be expected if you're familiar with the author (also published as Jonathan Wood). Highly recommended.

I love fantasy novels and particularly enjoy fantasy humor (such as Robert Asprin's Myth Series). Now, the Dragon Lords - Fool's Gold by Jon Hollins is a juvenile imitation of more intelligent fantasy humor. Hollins writes like a sexually frustrated and vocabulary-challenged late teenager to early adult. Girls are for looking at and thinking about having sex with. Boys (and immature male adults) are for making crude remarks, sounds and language. That may be funny (to some people) for about 50 pages but it gets old.
This book reads like a short story that was expanded into a 500 page novel. I could barely get through the first book and have no plans to read the second. If you like people stealing from dragons and the "little guy saves the world" type of writing just read The Hobbit or something like that. There are people that write intelligent humor (not this book) and people that write F-bomb and gross-out humor (this book). You know what you like. If you prefer the latter then get this book.

I enjoyed this book and will continue to watch the author with interest.(love to know who the writer really is, so I can check the other books.) I do not get American humor and it was clearly meant to be humorous. I'm sure other people will love it. I was drawn to it by the Look inside,and the opening chapter. I should have realized that the failure to capture the pig set the tone of 'humor' - it was not the brutal soldiery who enter the scene next. I liked the 2 males/2 female split between the protagonists. It covered some new territory, though I would have preferred less 'sexualized' cursing. The battle scenes were well done, actually very exciting; the characters were engaging and the sacrifice of the cow was moving. The trickery was superb, and I enjoyed measuring it up against the standard epic fantasy tropes. I am a Grimdark fan - Abercrombie and Abraham are the writers for me.

Ok, I know it takes some effort to write a book, but I still have to give this book 1 star. I read fantasy, not only for the magical storytelling, but also to escape the real world. When every other word out of a character's mouth is F*** or something to do with balls or bodily waste products, it gets old. IMHO, excessive use of profanity demonstrates a lack of command of the English vocabulary. I plowed relentlessly forward (the story is not the greatest either but I always have hope it will improve), but by about page 100, the f-word deluge became too much. I have NEVER in over 50 years of reading, EVER, stopped a book. This one was it. Avoid. I have to listen to it, but I don't have to read it.

good book. lots of bloddy battle

An interesting story written skilfully. Book is very readable and plot easy to follow. However writer is using swearwords in excess so much so that it annoys the reader. Book would be a lot more enjoyable if using words like ”balls” and ”tits”would have been redused a lot.