Mages in this series are like Spinal Tap drummers

 And as the twofer concludes, Jak Koke's Beyond the Pale concludes the Dragoneheart Saga, wrapping up the various story lines we've been confused by for two books now. 

Burnout, now Billy, is still possessed by Lethe, and being held captive in Atzlan. Ryan has the Dragon Heart, but needs to find a way to get it to Thayla in the spirit realm. A young blood mage who is entranced by Thayla is trying to break free of her mentor. They get a new Mage, Talon (who stars in his own series), and start meeting some of the bigger names in the setting, like Harlequin, the elf who may or may not predate the 6th Age. 

By the end, everyone is either dead or redeemed, we know what Lethe is, and Ryan finally gets the answers he's been seeking. 

The conclusion here is a hell of a lot better written than the preceding books. I do have to wonder how much of it is canon, though, since it reveals a solution to a fairly major mystery in the setting. 

Really fun read to conclude the trilogy. Worth the slog through the past two books.

Locked up

 Clockwork Asylum by Jak Koke, aka Book 2 of The Dragon Heart Cycle, picks up right after the last book ended, with Burnout swimming in the Snake River, possessed by the spirit Lethe.

This leads to Ryan Mercury and Assets Inc trying to track him and the Dragon Heart artifact down. All while Ryan and his girlfriend have to deal with the investigation into the death of Dunzlekhan, in which both are suspects. 

All of which leads up to an explosive conclusion in the Dragon's arboretum as almost every faction involved in the affair wind up in DC at the same time.

While this is better paced and much clearer than book one was, it still suffers from way too many plots not quite meshing together well most of the time. 

But still, I ended this one wanting to read the finale much more than I wanted to read this one after the first.

Death of a Dragon

 I picked up the Shadowrun DragonHeart Saga a while back, since evidently my favorite Mage in the setting showed up in here somewhere. While he isn't in the first book, what is in here is kind of interesting.

Stranger Souls opens with Ryan Murphy, an agent of Dunzelkhan (Elder Dragon, and newly elected president of the United Canadian and American States) running afoul of some kind of ritual in Atzlan (formerly Mexico.) Not long after Ryan goes down, Dunzelkhan blows up in front of the Watergate Hotel in the DC Fed. 

Then we briefly meet Lethe, a male spirit tasked by Thalya to find the Dragon Heart to keep the chasm between our world and the outsiders open. 

It's a lot to process, and made more complicated by the fact that Ryan, while not dead, is however being prepped to receive possession by a gent who currently lives on as a Matrix simulation. And lest we forget, there's Burnout, the cyberzombie, who, like a certain antagonist from another franchise, is much more man than machine. 

Eventually this all winds up with the Dragon heart fallin into the Snake Rive along with an antagonist possessed by Lethe while Ryan figures out who he is now that he has two different sets of memories. 

It's engaging, but it's messy.