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Wytchfire (The Dragonkin Trilogy Book 1) Kindle Edition

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 461 ratings

Kellogg Writers Series Whirling Prize Winner

"Michael Meyerhofer's writing style and storytelling is intriguing, unique, and beautiful..." Like a Bump on a Blog

"If you enjoy your Tolkien-esque adventures, then this is definitely a book for you to check out." Dab of Darkness

In the dragon-haunted land of Ruun, Rowen Locke has been many things: orphan, gravedigger, mercenary. All he ever wanted was to become a Knight of Crane and wield a kingsteel sword against horrors he's known since childhood.

But that dream crumbled—replaced by a new nightmare. War is overrunning the realms, and in a world where no one is blameless, the time has come for one disgraced man to decide which side he’s on.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Michael Meyerhofer excels at complicated and layered characters that are a mix of good and bad, flawed and desperate. Each stands apart from the other, giving readers a range of characters to root for as well asdespise." Readers Favorite

"Meyerhofer is a great writer, and I look forward to the rest of the trilogy..."
Adventures in Storyland

"... the dialogue shines in this book."
Footnotes

"Michael Meyerhofer's writing style and storytelling is intriguing, unique, and beautiful..."
Like a Bump on a Blog

"If you enjoy your Tolkien-esque adventures, then this is definitely a book for you to check out."
Dab of Darkness

"The characters are well-developed and very real. I felt as if I could glance up and see them standing in front of me."
I'm a Voracious Reader

"... with the feel of the tomes of the late 80s and 90s, the humor and the darkness likened to R.A. Salvatore's style and the wondrous symbolic nature found in many of Tad Williams' works..."
Cabin Goddess

"... a rich history, reluctant heroes and a few surprises along the way."
Big Al's Books & Pals

"... a fantastic start to an epic fantasy series. "
Laurie's Thoughts & Reviews

About the Author

Michael Meyerhofer grew up in Iowa where he learned to cope with the unbridled excitement of the Midwest by reading books and not getting his hopes up, Probably due to his father's influence, he developed a fondness for Star Trek, weight lifting, and collecting medieval weapons. He is also addicted to caffeine and the History Channel. Michael Meyerhofer's third poetry book, Damnatio Memoriae, won the Brick Road Poetry Book Contest. His previous books of poetry are Blue Collar Eulogies (Steel Toe Books, finalist for the Grub Street Book Prize) and Leaving Iowa (winner of the Liam Rector First Book Award). He has also published five chapbooks: Pure Elysium (winner of the Palettes and Quills Chapbook Contest), The Clay-Shaper's Husband (winner of the Codhill Press Chapbook Award), Real Courage (winner of the Terminus Magazine and Jeanne Duval Editions Poetry Chapbook Prize), The Right Madness of Beggars (winner of the Uccelli Press 3rd Annual Chapbook Competition), and Cardboard Urn (winner of the Copperdome Chapbook Contest). Individual poems won the Marjorie J. Wilson Best Poem Contest, the Laureate Prize for Poetry, the James Wright Poetry Award, and the Annie Finch Prize for Poetry. He is the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. His work has appeared in a number of journals including Ploughshares, Hayden's Ferry Review, North American Review, River Styx, and Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Visit Michael's Blog: Trouble with Hammers

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00K2DPJ60
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Red Adept Publishing, LLC (April 30, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 30, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1742 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 362 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 461 ratings

About the author

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Michael Meyerhofer
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My first fantasy novel, Wytchfire (Book I in the Dragonkin Trilogy) was published by Red Adept Publishing. The book went on to win the Whirling Prize from the Kellogg Writers Series, and was nominated for a 2015 Readers' Choice Award in fantasy by the premier book review website, Big Al's Books & Pals, and was also an Honorable Mention for the Readers' Favorite Award. The sequels, Knightswrath and Kingsteel, are out now and the entire trilogy is also available in audio format and omnibus. There's also a second series, the Godsfall Trilogy, set in the same world. The third volume, The Undergod, is available now!

Meanwhile, I've been writing and publishing poetry for many years. My fifth poetry book, Ragged Eden, was published by Glass Lyre Press. My fourth, What To Do If You're Buried Alive, was published by Split Lip Press. My third, Damnatio Memoriae (lit. "damned memory"), won the Brick Road Poetry Book Contest. I'm also the author of two other poetry books: Leaving Iowa (winner of the Liam Rector First Book Award) and Blue Collar Eulogies (Steel Toe Books, finalist for the Grub Street Book Prize).

In addition to my full-length poetry books, I've also published five poetry chapbooks: Pure Elysium (winner of the Palettes and Quills Chapbook Contest), The Clay-Shaper's Husband (winner of the Codhill Press Chapbook Award), Real Courage (winner of the Terminus Magazine and Jeanne Duval Editions Poetry Chapbook Prize), The Right Madness of Beggars (winner of the Uccelli Press 3rd Annual Chapbook Competition), and Cardboard Urn (winner of the Copperdome Chapbook Contest).

I've also won the Marjorie J. Wilson Best Poem Contest, the Laureate Prize for Poetry, the James Wright Poetry Award, and the Annie Finch Prize for Poetry. My work has appeared in Ploughshares, North American Review, Arts & Letters, River Styx, Quick Fiction, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and other journals.

Thanks for reading!

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
461 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book engaging and enjoyable. They appreciate the surprising plot twists and satisfying resolutions. The characters are well-developed and relatable, with a strong female character. The pacing is seamless, with vivid descriptions and a complex world build.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

10 customers mention "Readability"10 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book. They find it engrossing and enjoyable, with well-developed characters. The story is described as an epic fantasy that makes readers want to play the game.

"...Oops sorry I lost my way there for a moment. But I am making a point, it was fun, at times light and not to off the cuff deep and brooding like many..." Read more

"...I bought the second book before I finished the first - the promise is that good." Read more

"This is a pretty good book, with the normal lack of logic -- heroes and villains are all-powerful one minute and not the next, without a reasonable..." Read more

"...The story had mystery, action, humor, dragons, more action, and a lot of great, well-developed characters...." Read more

10 customers mention "Story quality"10 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the story. They find the plot surprising with satisfying twists. The characters are interesting and the book is a fun read with adventure and melodrama.

"...our own—while engaging readers with interesting characters and page-turning plot." Read more

"...If your looking for a interesting and thoughtful story, give this book a try." Read more

"This is a great start to a great story. The author builds his world as the story progresses which is as it should be...." Read more

"...The story had mystery, action, humor, dragons, more action, and a lot of great, well-developed characters...." Read more

6 customers mention "Character development"6 positive0 negative

Customers like the well-developed characters. They mention Silwren is a strong female character and can't wait to see her tear things up.

"...world he has built that is so like our own—while engaging readers with interesting characters and page-turning plot." Read more

"...All of the characters are believable, which for me was a major bonus for fantasy...." Read more

"...Silwren is a strong female character, and I can't wait to see her tear things up in book 2." Read more

"...The characters and their interactions are believable, as is the landscape the author leads us through...." Read more

5 customers mention "Pacing"5 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's pacing and relatable characters. They appreciate the well-written descriptions and seamless prose that creates a vivid, original world. The world is complex yet realistic, with memorable words.

"What I liked about this book, is the realism. You got magic and battles and plots within plots. And through it all, you still find it realistic...." Read more

"...It is fast paced, completely horrifying with a complex world build but not so much as you had to keep a chart next to the bed but complex enough to..." Read more

"...Meyerhofer's words are so memorable and so masterfully crafted that there's very little need to refresh my memory every time I open the book on my..." Read more

"...The author has created a vivid and original world that mirrors our own in ways that give the story a surprising depth...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2014
    Wytchfire, by poet and author Michael Meyerhofer, is the first book in his Dragonkin Trilogy. In it he has built a fantasy world akin to the Forgotten Realms and DragonLance books of TSR, Inc. of the United Kingdom, and reminiscent of Dungeons and Dragons. Fantasy fans will recognize his Sylvosi with tapered ears living in their beautiful forest as elves, his short muscular Dwar as dwarfs, his tall and muscular gray-skinned Ogres as—well—ogres, and his Shel’ai (sorcerers born to the Sylvosi) as mages. But all similarity ends there. Meyerhofer departs from the usual depiction of these fantasy races and characters in a number of ways.

    His Shel’ai, unlike most fantasy mages, are not respected but feared as dangerous mutant deviants and are outcasts from the people and land of their birth.

    In another twist, Meyerhofer gives his Ogres personality and intellect. One particular Ogre is Fadarah, a half-Ogre and half Sylv-Shel’ai, who is both “the head bad guy” of a group of outcast Shel’ai and of a mercenary army, and is also a character of some depth and complication with whom we sympathize. He clearly holds honorable values as he stops the rape of a woman by one of his mercenary leaders. We enter the story with Fadarah who is feared and hated by all because he is an Ogre and a Shel’ai, and so he has created a family, or “people,” by rescuing other outcast Shel’ai. Reminiscent of the diaspora Jews prior to the creation of the State of Israel who often suffered pogroms, Fadarah is a kind of Theodor Herzl who wants to create a “promised land” for his people to “return” to. Like many who have suffered racism, Fadarah is self-hating of the very uniqueness that is also his strength. His hurt and anger fuel his struggle, but threatens to destroy the very thing he seeks to create.

    Dragons, which like the dinosaurs of earth’s past have become extinct, are accepted as once having been real because their skeletons are often found. A fanatical religious group that profits from the sale of dragon relics and the visits of pilgrims, and that can be prone to zealous violence, worships them as gods.

    The human Rowan Locke, is an orphan who grew up amid squalor and violence (including the regular raping of women and children by roving gangs of men) that became a mercenary soldier who dreamed of joining the honorable Isle Knights. When he finally does succeed in joining their initiates, he finds himself “washed out” after four hard years of training. Still believing in the honor code of the Knights he struggles to overcome his shame while trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. He happens upon a merchant who hires him to be his guard and their travel leads Rowan into the plot of the story where he meets two dangerous Shel’ai, the enigmatic El’rash’lin and the exotically beautiful Silwren, and a magical sword called Knightswrath. Despite Rowan’s first hand experience of the more vile realities of life, his desperate drive to belong to something higher and more noble creates a naivety that blinds him to the truth and may even get him killed.

    Even the Dwar Jalist, a relatively minor character, escapes the common contrivances for dwarves as he is compassionate and homosexual as well as strong and warrior like.

    Fantasy lovers will find plenty to love about Wytchfire, and those new to the genre will love the depth of Meyerhofer’s characters and the complexity of the world he has built, where nothing is as it first seems. Like real life, the bad guys can be good, the good guys can be bad, and even the honorable—like the brave and capable female warrior Knight Aeko—must sometimes make compromises. In Wytchfire, Meyerhofer explores themes of racism, male violence, poverty, sexism, classicism, sexual abuse, and religion. But he does so unobtrusively—as just another reality in the world he has built that is so like our own—while engaging readers with interesting characters and page-turning plot.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2016
    What I liked about this book, is the realism. You got magic and battles and plots within plots. And through it all, you still find it realistic. Everything is in balance. Definitely the kind of book that a good read should have. If your looking for a interesting and thoughtful story, give this book a try.
  • Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2014
    It has been quite sometime since I sat down and invested in epic fantasy. I love epic fantasy, but like everyone else I want my entertainment spoon fed and I want to be able to read more than one book for three weeks. Well, Wytchfyre is an epic fantasy, with the feel of the tomes of the late 80′s and 90′s, the humor and the darkness likened to R.A. Salvatore‘s style and the wondrous symbolic nature found in many of Tad Williams‘ works (told you, late 80′s early 90′s!) . I found myself fondling my bag of die and wanting to role play as I worked my way through this… in two days.

    You read that right, I seriously tore through this a couple weeks ago in two days, about 7 hours of reading… EPIC, baby! It grabbed me right off and whisked me away. I fell in love with Rowen and the trouble he got in from the get go! It is fast paced, completely horrifying with a complex world build but not so much as you had to keep a chart next to the bed but complex enough to not make you feel it was dumbed down to the masses.

    All of the characters are believable, which for me was a major bonus for fantasy. Sure you suspend belief but you still want to feel the guy casting Magic Missile with a reasonable saving throw (fingers crossed you did your skill points right)… but you still want to feel like this is a guy who you could have a cup of coffee with if he was going to show up in say Erica Lucke Dean’s Suddenly Sorceress with his shirt ofg and asking for his beverage to be a half-caf with 2 shots of vanilla. The thing is, a human is a human, and when he is not, well… ?

    ....................A halfling rogue, a half-orc cleric, a human ranger and an elven ninja walk into (a bar.. lol.. no sorry) an orcish castle. The halfling, in an attempt to prevent the group from being ambushed by guards, makes a Spot check and rolls a nat-20.
    I say “Oh hey, natural 20″. “What do I get?” he asks, and I reply with “X-ray vision”. He then asks what he sees, and I tell him with a perfectly straight face “Naked orcs.”...........................

    Oops sorry I lost my way there for a moment. But I am making a point, it was fun, at times light and not to off the cuff deep and brooding like many dark fantasies. At the right moments it’s so dark and horrifying (let’s just say I would not want to deal with the “NIGHTMARE” in any of my RPG campaigns) I felt my heart race a bit! I do not have a decent saving throw at all to get me out of that one, and my chance to crit-hit with my measly collection of spells? … crap where was I (putting the dice away). Oh ya, Wytchfire and Michael (so much for my short and sweet.. dang it all!)

    The book is wonderful! It even has stuff for the Japanese Fuedal era enthusiasts! I asked Geoff (my resident expert) after I read on a few scenes how spot-on and his commentary was quite complimentary, “considering it is a fantasy book, not bad!” which is pretty damn good from him.

    This is one for your summer reading list with your teens too. It is not to long, certainly not overwhelmingly complex, yet complex enough but not so much as I need to create a Powerpoint chart or drag out my white board to keep track of everything. I could enjoy and also be impressed enough to recommend it to the “kid” (my 25-year-old fantasy fan) who is re-reading Sword of Truth series right now knowing he would love it too. I easily give this book a 9 out of 10 strips of perfectly crispy Cabin Goddess bacon and anxiously wait for the next in the Dragonkin Trilogy.

    Hey you, stop laughing! I think I did a pretty good job! Review was under 700 words, 670 on the dot! *pokes you with her sword*
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2015
    This is a great start to a great story. The author builds his world as the story progresses which is as it should be. There are a lot of two dimensional characters but they may be fleshed out as we move thru the series or they are secondary to the plot. I bought the second book before I finished the first - the promise is that good.
  • Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2014
    Meyerhofer won a fan in me back when I stumbled upon the author's handful of poetry collections. Needless to say, when I got word he had released a fantasy novel, the first of a trilogy at that, I was quite surprised. I've given fantasy / sci-fi / magical novels a chance here and there in the past, but I never really took to any of them until reading Pure by Julianna Baggott, another favorite poet who dived into fantasy fiction. Like Baggott, Meyerhofer knows how to tell a story with seamless prose, language that performs with an utmost grade of lucidity. I'm still reading the book in small portions at a time (I'm a grad student with a heavy workload), but every time I pick up where I had left off, it's as if I never put the book down. Meyerhofer's words are so memorable and so masterfully crafted that there's very little need to refresh my memory every time I open the book on my Kindle. I'm still in the reading process but just had to write a quick blurb here on Amazon to let Meyerhofer fans know that he's penned another winner.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2013
    My son read this book and said it was okay for the price but he would not have gone to a book store and made the purchase.

Top reviews from other countries

  • Alison H
    5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!!!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 24, 2016
    Just finished this and am so glad I took the time to download the next in the series. This book has held my attention totally even at 2:00 am. I just couldn't put it down. The story is amazing and while at first I thought it was going to be a bit strange it wasn't at all. The author has created characters we can all grow to love or hate as the case may be but few if them are forgettable that's for sure. All in all a great book.
  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent,
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2017
    Full of action from the word go,plot twists and turns but does not lose interest. Characters are well developed, although some don't stay long. I found it difficult to put down and had late nights. It is definitely one of those that you know you ate going to read the series.
  • Richard
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 1, 2016
    I've been struggling, lately, to find new Authors to read. I bought this book, as a gamble, for 99p and I have really enjoyed reading it.
  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant Read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 28, 2016
    This storyline has so much potential a great read. I can see that this story will gave many twists and turns
  • janine goddard
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 2, 2016
    Great book!!

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