The premise of "The First Dragoneer" is a good one. Bren and March are two good friends going on their last hunt before one of them leaves the village. They run into some unanticipated adventures in the process.M.R. Mathias starts off with a really good idea. However, I found myself distracted by homonym problems (e.g., arrows are properly referred to as "nocked," not "knocked" and one lights a fire using a "tinder box," not a "tender box."). There were several other similar issues that gave away Mathias' using his spellchecker instead of a human proofreader to look at his manuscript. This kind of stuff leaps out at me, as I was a newspaper copy editor for a long while and still do editing on a freelance basis. The editorial problems caused me to take a star off of the rating because they were so pervasive.This novella also includes a two-chapter preview of "The Royal Dragoneers," for which "The First Dragoneer" is a prequel. I think that Mathias has a great idea for a series, and am hopeful that some judicious editing will lead to success for him.
