Wrath of the Dragon King

This needs to be merged with book 1.

Writing this after reading the rest of the series, I can confidently say that this and book 1 are complete filler. If they were in one book, it would be excusable, but being 2 is a waste of real estate in an otherwise excellent sequel series. Is there any reason why book 1 needs to be spent re-treading character development on Seth and finding the magical macguffin staff that is never brought up again? No. This book sets up the fetch-quest that's actually relevant to the story, along with the primary players. Book 1 gave us the rock dragon that exists as a replacement for Agad. This finishes the setup for the rest of the series by isolating the grandparents and getting the author out of the inconvenience that is tying his main characters to a magical preserve. He also uses Knox and Tess about the same amount as he did last book - that is, hardly at all.

This book isn't bad. Neither is book 1. But neither are they good. They are necessary tools to get to the actual meat of this series. If they were put into one, the concepts in the later books could actually get explored.

Edit: I forgot that this book spends the second act derping around with talking animals and a stingbulb version of Patton. This is truly a waste of time, and one of the key reasons this and book 1 need to be one book. Just for that, this gets -1 star from what I originally gave it.