The Griffin or the Agate

At what point does one hungry for vengeance cross over the line from avenger into obsessive? Can one person truly know what justice is? And can his purposes be considered noble if, in his quest, he loses all traces of his humanity? Perhaps most importantly, what does one do when he discovers that his revenge might well bring about the destruction of the world as he knows it? In Dragon Venom author Lawrence Watt-Evans deals with these and other heady questions as he brings the Obsidian Chronicles to a close.
     Lord Obsidian, also known to Arlian, has been a very busy man. As the only survivor of a village destroyed by the sudden and violent reappearance of dragons, he has spent his life waging war against the seemingly unstoppable foe. But Arlian is no weakling and has been seeking out and destroying his enemies in their lairs. At the same time he must watch those around himself to prevent them from trying to take dragon venom - a sip of which grants the imbiber a thousand years of life before being transformed into s dragon themselves. When Arlian discovers that the dragonheart, as they are known, are not changed as much as eaten by the new dragon it only furthers his resolve to destroy both the species and their human allies, the Dragon Society.
     Still, not everything is as cut and dried as Arlian would hope. His culling of the dragons had presented a problem. It seems that the magic of the dragons has been keeping the Wild Magic outside the borders of Arlian's homeland, known as the Lands of Man. But with each dragon's demise the Wild Magic has begun to make forays into lands previously safe. After he is politically outmanuevered by the Dragon Society and forbidden to kill any more dragons he sets out to the border and lands beyond to see if there's some way he can balance the magics and resume war.
     Watt-Evans' Arlian is a conflicted hero, one who carries the taint of his enemies but refuses to have it removed until his task is done, something he loathes to bear within himself. Once he's begun to figure out where the dragons came from and how they might be stopped he's confronted with the most difficult of dilemmas - how far is he willing to go? What is he willing to do and, perhaps even more importantly, whom is he willing to do it to? Will he risk alienating his friends? Would he go so far as to kill them if he had to? Watt-Evans spins a novel that delves into the hard questions and pulls no punches. This is a book with serious theme and not some mindless quest to get the magical doo-dad that when plugged into the other thingamajig produces the way to easily topple the bad guys. Watt-Evans makes his characters think and, more importantly, forces the reader to think as well. We need more books like Dragon Venom.   §

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