DragonQuest by Donita K Paul

Kale has been called by Paladin to come and serve as one of His dragon keepers in The Hall. There she tries to begin training as a warrior, but after a summons from Wizard Fenworth, she goes to become an apprentice wizard and to help Fenworth train a meech dragon named Redigor. Bordan, a warrior she does not like, comes along with her, as well as Dar and several other new characters.

The plot eventually turns into a quest to find a meech dragon the evil wizard Risto stole and brainwashed. I'm not sure whether the Dragon Keeper series needed another quest or not.

The longer the book drags on, the more characters Paul invents. By the end of the book, there are so many characters, the reader is confused as to who is who. The cast of characters in DragonSpell was better because Paul could give each character the personal attention they needed to become complex. In DragonQuest, the characters are half-heartedly developed because there are too many to give proper attention to each one. Kale, Dar, and Fenworth aren't near as interesting as they were in DragonSpell.

There is really no point to this book whatsoever. Where the quest of DragonSpell was unique, this one is mediocre. It seems like the same thing happens in every chapter-the characters encounter a new location and fix a problem there. Kale is visited by her so called "mother" nearly everyday during which the two of them carry on nearly the same conversation about how Kale puts too much affection on her "pets". The book is quite repetitive, to say the least.

The best thing about the book is the explanation behind the power of the wizards. Paul makes it so that they are not simply magical people. There is a detailed process by which the wizards use their powers. This elevates the setting of the Dragon Keeper series to an even higher level than it already was because it shows that Donita actually thinks through what she writes. She writes fantasy with purpose. She makes her world of Amara seem as real as our world with her descriptiveness. This aspect of the book keeps it from being rated lower.

I know that the third book is this series follows Bardon instead of Kale, and I'm glad. Having a dragon hatch all the time was getting silly. Plus, Bardon's character has the potential to be interesting.

I see great things in Donita K Paul's future.

3 stars