He woke up at a strange unfamiliar place. Bound.
The Steel Hounds is a clan, filled with the most unique people in the fantasy world of Artar. And Mongoose’s squad is not the only one in it. A real-life mercenary is a leader of it’s most resultative and savage brunch, and now Mongoose’s life is in his hands.
He has to resolve a feud between two old and powerful irreconcilable enemies in his clan with a looming internecine war of NPC's on the background.
Being caught between Scylla and Charybdis, his personal goals are not set aside and he is still mastering his skills as a battle monk. Circumstances have developed fortunately and exactly in the location with their current mission there is the Azure Dragon, the great altar of the elements of the Tree.
My Opinion: 312 pages, $5.99, Not Available on Kindle Unlimited
This one lost me a little. Mostly because of the lackluster RPG progression when it comes to the monk class. There’s still lots of good action and adventure, with IRL storylines taking some interesting twists. But some of the things I’d come to like about the series are just diminished. The group dynamics of the Steel Hounds is weakened and there’s a weird forced suspicion thing happening in the group.
Also, the monk storyline mimics book 2 with the main character (MC) focused on completing quests to get mastery of an element. Only this time there is less training or exploration of the new element, the monk powers, and the limited RPG aspect there. This feels like a big loss since I’ve been reading the series mostly because of how much I like the monk class.
Overall, the story loses me this time. It minimizes the stuff I love about LitRPG, the RPG progression and monk class details. If you’ve like the action and adventure aspects of the series, the novel still might work for you.
Score: 6 out of 10
The Azure Dragon: A Heroic Fantasy Saga (The Artar Chronicles Book 3)