(4.5 / 5)

In an attempt to help Draycos, the dragon-like symbiont that uses him for a host, track down who killed his people, Jack enlists as an indentured soldier for a mercenary group. After meager training, he's placed into a perilous situation, along with other soldier children, and must stay alive while also trying to find the information Draycos needs.

The unlikely duo of the boy trying to overcome his con-artist upbringing and the noble poet-warrior of a morally superior race is one of my favorite things about this series so far. But the plot in this book, though I didn't think I'd care much for the soldier aspect, was also intriguing. When it became evident that there was more going on than met the eye, I speculated about what might be going on. In the end, it might not have been quite as exciting as I expected, but there were a couple of revelations that still made for a great ending and left me with a desire to read more.

I appreciate Zahn's writing style worldbuilding, maybe more so because it's meant for teens, so it's not too dry or serious. The overarching story set up in the first book and continuing in this one definitely makes me want to know what's going on. I look forward to continuing this series! ( )

Dragon and Soldier follows the same pattern as Dragon and Thief, the first volume in the Dragonback series. Jack and Draycos get into sticky situations, and then scrape by on Jack’s thievery, Draycos’ bravery, and sheer pluck. In the first volume, Draycos helped clear Jack’s name of a crime he did not commit, and in return, Jack now feels honor bound to help Draycos find the organization responsible for shooting down the K’da’s ship and killing all of his shipmates.

Since the only lead they have is the make of the fighters that downed Draycos’ ship, and the dragon’s hunch that pirates would have been less professional while a planetary defense force would have had more ships, Jack decides to infiltrate one of the Orion Arm’s many mercenary groups in order to steal their intelligence on their rivals.

With this plan set in motion, we get a chance to see how seedy the Orion Arm really is. Virgil took pains to inculcate a me-first attitude in Jack after his parents died, and here we start to get an idea of why. In the first book, Jack’s prime antagonist was the Braxton Universalis corporation. It isn’t too hard to see huge corporations as wicked, but in the Dragonback universe, even the little corporations are heartless too.

The mechanism that Jack uses to infiltrate the Whinyard’s Edge mercenary organization is their practice of indenturing teenagers as cannon fodder. In theory, Internos, the confederation of the human worlds, opposes this. In practice, the individual worlds do as they like as long as the money is good. The money is apparently very, very good.

Whinyard’s Edge isn’t interested in providing much training to their new recruits, but fortunately for Jack, Draycos is the inheritor of a [very] proud martial tradition, and he can make up for some of the shortcomings in Jack’s accelerated short course in soldiering. Jack also gets a few pointers from a female recruit, Alison Kayna, who is set up to be an ally, an enemy, a love interest, or maybe all three somewhere down the line.

This was a pretty good adventure. Jack and Draycos learn how to work together, and we get a good setup for the continuation of the series, even if neither Jack nor Draycos can catch a break. I look forward to seeing more of their world. ( )

Jack and Draycos continue their search for the ships that destroyed Draycos' scouts. Introduces a female character who is setup so that she will obviously be in later books, investigating Jack and Draycos. I enjoyed this very much. ( )

Book Two is as strong or stronger than the first. Plus I love that I can read these in a few hours. Review to come. ( )

This thrilling adventure is the second book in the Dragonback series. Jack enlists in a mercenary group to try to hack into their computers to figure out which mercenary group was responsible for the attack on Draycos's people. He expects to be in and out in a week at most but things go wrong and he's shipped out to a war zone. Among the other teenage recruits is Alison Kayna who is suspiciously competent for a new recruit. Jack, Alison, and the other recruits end up fighting for their lives after betrayal from their commanding officers. ( )