Dragonkind pitted against each other, good versus evil, and mankind caught in the crossfire.

Melanie Nilles Legend takes us on an adventure filled with swords and sorcery - lots of sorcery, and perhaps that is part of the books problem as there are so few 'ordinary' people that make up the population of this tale.

For the first book in a series, the beginning feels liked a rushed sequence of telling the backstory, that might better have been shown to us throughout the rest of the tale. This telling rather than showing is a problematic feature that crops up more than once during the course of the novel, unfortunately, and sometimes in places where I would have loved to have 'seen' the action rather than to have just been told about it.

The characters are well enough drawn and provide some of the saving graces in the book, and each one has their own thread that carries through the tale, and, I'm certain, into the next of the books - at least one can hope, because Shadow's plot thread seems to have been introduced so late that that the reader is left to wonder just how significant his role will be in later aspects of the series. The one place where the characterisation falls short, however, is with the Elder dragons; those on the side of good, and part of the problem seems to be their speaking in rhyme. It isn't even really the rhyme that's the problem, but the meter, which is lacking, and it makes the poetry feel clumsy so that rather than enhancing the age and mystery of the Elder Dragons, it somewhat belittles them.

The premise of the book is good, however, and fits the genre very well. I simply feel that such an epic idea needed far better treatment in the writing, but a reader that likes sorcery and battles, and an overarcing love story that weaves through the tale's progress will probably greatly enjoy Legend of the White Dragon. ( )