Book review
Written by Stephen Deas
Gollancz Trade paperback
Release date 13 March 2009

The Realms must appoint a new leader – and the choices are slim. While the cunning Prince Jehal juggles his opponents like pawns, Queen Sheriza plots how best to use her daughters in facilitating her rise to power. However, they are so caught up in their rivalry that neither notices the catastrophic chain of events unfolding not far from home...

Dragons are scary. Heart-stoppingly, bone-shatteringly scary. Aren’t they? Well, if much recent fantasy is to go by – not really. Despite a ready stream of dragon literature, few have successfully exploited the most obvious characteristic of these mythical beasts. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance series occasionally conjures a shudder of fear, but it’s essentially lost in the tumult of storylines that indicate its role-playing origins. Anne McCaffrey’s dragons are like giant pets; emotionally synced to their riders, they make for interesting reading but don’t ignite the pure terror that dragons should naturally inspire. It is nice, then, to see an author unashamed of returning to what made these beasts so idolised in the first place: the fact that they are enormous, fire breathing, impenetrable monsters.

The dragons in Deas’s debut don’t start off as objects of terror. When we first come across them, the winged beasts are domesticated creatures used by the aristocracy for hunting, sport and war. Kept docile by a potion fed to them in secret and created by the revered Alchemists, few people know of the threat they pose if deprived of their designated dose. Herein lies the crux of the story. When a big, white, scaly wedding gift goes missing en route to the ceremony things start to heat up (in more ways than one). Snow (the preposterously placating name of said gift) starts to remember the old days, when dragons dominated all other species and needed no rider to tell them how to fly.

It is during this precarious and volatile transition from domestic pet to wild animal that the fear we’ve been craving for in the genre finally returns. Harnessing the destructive power that lay dormant inside her for so long, Snow becomes a formidable force. Deas’s artfully constructed prose cleverly juggles the magnificence of the rogue dragon with the vulnerability of man, subtly commenting on the pitfalls of human arrogance.

The dread escalates once we discover that dragons can communicate with humans (or ‘Little Ones’ as Snow names them) through a transference of thoughts. Initially, Snow has an almost motherly affection for her ‘Scales’ (the carer assigned to each dragon from birth, and in this case ‘Little one Kailin’). But horrifyingly she switches from protective patron to relentless killer, burning her ‘Little Ones’ en mass and revelling in her own brutality.

However, this is all but one thread in a larger story arc that sees various political figureheads vie for power in a merciless fight for dominance. In a society where murder is simply a means to an end, the majority of the main players are well crafted and likeable, despite (and because of) their questionable moralities. Jehal is as addictive as he should be: a cunning, political player seemingly afraid of nothing and with a plan for everyone that breathes. Sheriza and her four daughters work well, but will need fleshing in the forthcoming sequels if they are to continue to be of interest.

Hyram (the current ruler) is one of the most intriguing characters, both pathetic yet resolute; his downfall is painfully pleasurable to witness. The final few chapters round up events neatly so as not to be frustrating but leaving enough questions and possibilities to keep us anticipating the sequel.

The Adamantine Palace tosses the reader between fascination, revulsion, compulsion and trepidation with barely a breath in between. Added to this is the fantastically real threat that your favourite character could be burnt to a crisp at any minute. This is a terrifying appetiser from what will surely be seen as a landmark in dragon-orientated fantasy. Alice Wybrew

VERDICT: 9/10
Snow may not be Smaug, but it’s easy to be swept along on the wings of Deas’s debut. A gripping contemporary fantasy.