Nice Dragons Finish Last
by Rachel Aaron
DETAILS: Series: The Heartstrikers, #1 Publication Date: July 13, 2014 Format: Kindle Edition Length: 287 pages Read Date: January 13 - 17, 2022
What’s Nice Dragons Finish Last About?
Julius is one of the youngest—and definitely smallest—members of the Heartstrikers, one of the most powerful dragon clans in the world. Like the best of dragons, the Heartstrikers are conniving, dangerous, cruel, and avaricious. Julius is everything they’re not, he has all the usual dragon abilities (true, he hasn’t developed them as he should, but he has them), but his personality and morality are the opposite. The word best used to describe him—and the one used most often in the book—is nice.
Now, his mother is giving him one last chance to become the dragon she wants him to be—she’s trapped him in human form, removing most of his abilities, and he has to make something of himself with these limitations in less than a month. Oh, she landed him in the one city in the world where dragons are banned, too.
Julius teams up with a human mage (who turns out to be on the run from organized crime) to rise to the challenge, and…well, that’s about it. That’s the setup.
Bob
Julius’ older brother, Bob (technically, Brohomir), is one of the three Great Seers in the world. Most of his family seems to regard him as a loon not worthy of paying too much attention to. But Julius seems to understand and respect his ability—especially since he saw the curse happening 4 months before it did, and made some provisions to help his little brother after it.
Why, of all the characters in the book, am I focusing on him? Bob’s a hoot. He seems to have cultivated that insane reputation he has and enjoys playing to type. He’s almost like the draconian answer to Julius Lebowski—off in his own little world, and having a hard time relating to his siblings (again, purposefully)
He has his own agenda for Julius, and it doesn’t necessarily line up with Julius’ plans and hopes. But—unlike most of his family—Bob wants his little brother to be alive. Which makes him a little easier to like.
But it’s not that hard in the first place—Bob steals every scene he’s in. He seems to be the world’s second-nicest dragon, he’s scheming and manipulative to be sure, but he’s eccentric enough that it’s easy to discount it.
Here’s the Thing I Don’t Get
So we learn that Julius was never aggressive enough for the training his siblings went through, at a certain age, he’s simply run from them (which, at least, had the advantage of helping him become fast. Eventually, he’d just hide out in his room and avoid the exercises. Instead of learning to fight like a good dragon, he played video games with humans online. This led to him having some empathy for humans—even liking them, he’s able to see them as something more than tools to be used and exploited.
What we never learn is how Julius becomes nice. Are we to believe that despite the family and culture he’s born into, he’s just hard-wired to be nice? If so, where’d that come from? He’s apparently the one dragon in existence (possibly ever) who’s nice—is it some sort of genetic mutation? Or is it that he picks it up during his interactions with humans. But…since when does online gaming bring out the considerate, respectful, friendly, and helpful side in anyone? Just how does he turn out to be a kind, considerate, respectful, nice person when that’s counter to everything he’s taught and surrounded by?
Maybe in a subsequent book, Aaron will explain this. In the meantime, I’m going to keep asking that question. Is it enough of an issue to detract from my enjoyment of the book? Nah, it’s a fun and sweet story either way. But it’s gnawing away at the back of my mind.
So, what did I think about Nice Dragons Finish Last?
This has been on my Goodreads Want to Read list since 2014 (and on my Kindle since 2015). I cannot tell you why I put it off this long, but I am more than a little annoyed with myself over not getting to it until now. I should be thinking about re-reading the series about now, not starting it.
I had plenty of fun with this—I wasn’t sure what to make of it at the start, but after a chapter or so I settled in and was able to enjoy the ride from there out.
Aaron did a good job of bringing the reader into the world, getting us invested in the characters—even some characters you wouldn’t normally get invested in. A book like this calls for double duty—you’ve got to tell a solid story and you have to set up a world and series. Aaron handles that well, because not only did I enjoy this, I was eager to see what happened next in the series (hopefully, it doesn’t take me eight years to get to it).
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