The Dragon Lords: Fool’s Gold by Jon Hollins Review

In a world where talking dragons rule over everyone, take all the gold they can find then spend their days sitting on it feeling smug, it’d take a special kind of idiot to try and take them on and steal the gold back. In Fool’s Gold, the first in the new series of fantasy books from the fully-pseudonymed-up Jon Hollins, that’s exactly what we find a small group of adventurers doing. As is often the case there’s a mix of characters in the group: a farmer, an oversized lizard-type thing and an academic magician amongst the rest, but unlike other books which contain a rag-tag gaggle of wacky adventure types, this book is actually good. And I mean, really really good.

The characters, for one, are genuinely likeable and serve well to push the story along. The setting is fantastic too, with clear visions of rolling farms, huge dominant mountains and smoking volcanos, and the story changes pace several times without ever feeling rushed or sluggish. The character of the author’s writing shines through here (it’s the same guy who wrote the also-awesome No Hero series) and there’s a lot of genuinely funny, but not over-bearing humour which generally manifests itself through the dialogue between characters and makes for some very enjoyable reading.

The final few chapters are brilliant too – but you’ll see that for yourself when you buy it. Which you should. Definitely. Now.