The Dawn of the Iron Dragon (Saga of the Iron Dragon) Paperback – June 28, 2018

I am not a book reviewer so please be patient with my comments. I am also not normally a fan of the "Science Fiction" genre. I tend to read spy and intrigue novels or mysteries, with some history thrown in for good measure. I follow Robert on twitter and when I saw mention of his first Iron Dragon book, I decided to give it a try. I bought it (kindle version) and loved it. I loved it so much, I have been eagerly awaiting book #2.Without offering up any spoilers, I care about the main characters, I care about their plight, and I care about how they deal with their situation.The historical aspect of the story along with plot twists, betrayals, and a sense of urgency for the main characters that is measured in how fast a man can walk, a horse can run or a viking boat can sail drew me in during book 1 and has kept me thoroughly invested as the story continues. Robert takes the aliens, time travel, and vikings from book 1 and adds more historical context, more intrigue, and more anticipation.Book #2 does not disappoint. In fact, the only disappointment is that Robert can't write as fast as I can read. I eagerly await book #3.

The book takes us through a number of historical events and ties them to our heroes. I found that parts dragged a little, but it did keep moving. The ending is a bit unusual, but I won’t give away anything. It is keeping me going on to the next book.

Second of a series set in medieval Europe with visitors crash landed from the future. Does an excellent job of creating a plausible world where the two mix. The sense of the medieval Norse, Franks, Greeks etc. Is very well done and this makes for an intriguing story.

This second book in the series is great. The melding of history and science fiction is spellbinding. The characters remain true to their historical roots. The Vikings have all the bluster and courage we know about. The petty and not so petty quarrels and maneuvering of the various factions are believable too. I loved the odd mixture of science fiction and historical data. The intrepid sky people are a plucky bunch with an impossible task to try to save their people 1300 years in the future. I can’t wait to see what happens next. And to top it all off I have a new author to follow.

Great original idea, fairly well written, but the protagonists leap from one desperate fire to another cooking pot and back again. Over and over and over. The haplessness the protagonists and the hopeless of their situation can be a bit exhausting. Still, I am waiting to read the third book in this series.

The characters and the history intertwined with a scifi plot and aliens seem entirely plausible. If you realize that history is recorded from just the authors perspective and may be adjusted for a host of reasons including the creation of preferred future outcomes... it all works to create legends, myths or plain old fun.

After reading the first of this series, I looked forward to this book. Unfortunately, the author choose to take a tact in plot that I despise, that is, throwing hurdle after hurdle into the movement of the main plot, construction of the Iron Dragon. The writing itself is good although I felt there were too many characters tossed into the mix who were lacking in development.For me, personally, I found it extremely disappointing that the progress of making ready to build the Iron Dragon was sum total of gathering a few people from enchant cities to assist. Most of the book is concerned with dealing with those "hurdles" thrown up by the author for the protagonist to overcome.Some one who enjoys this type plot progression may greatly enjoy this book. I despise this type of plot progression. If I were to rate this book on how much I enjoyed it I'd give it a 1 star rating. Just horribly disappointing.A message to the author: When developing the plot perhaps you could consider placing challenges to the protagonist in progressing to the ultimate goal, the building of the Iron Dragon, like where to find iron, how to train the people to construct the ship, how to get money, how to develop defenses of the project site, rather than getting the protagonists kidnapped over and over for example.

That was one hell of a ride over half of Europe! At least it felt that way!There's not much I can say for fear of spoilers, but it was a great continuation of the series.I'm looking forward to the craziness that the third volume will most likely be.One thing I can say, though: hats off to the author for an impressive load of research done for this book. I learned more history in this volume and the previous one than I feel I ever learned in school. And I enjoyed every minute of it! :D