I really enjoyed RA Gregory’s Drynwideon; The Sword of Destiny – Yeah Right. A maelstrom sword-sloshing adventure reminiscent of both George MacDonald Fraser’s ‘The Pyrates’ and Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’. The protagonist, Drin, flees his home village, where neighbours are chosen by lottery to provide a cannibal meal for the others, and sets off looking for that someplace that has to be better than this. The setting is a magical, mystical, medieval land, in which tyrannical soldiers of the Dragon Army impose the will of Ka, the shape-shifting Dragon Princess. As one would expect, Drin has a succession of improbable escapes from disaster after disaster as he journeys through a landscape of strange characters and bewildering magic.

On his journey Drin gains a small band of companions; a dwarf called Tefal who is both claustrophobic and agoraphobic, Rog, a strange fierce creature who is a cross between a dog and a rabbit, and Rioja, a drop-dead gorgeous fairy with a crippled wing.

Drawn inexorably towards a final, bloody showdown, the companions find their way to Monteror, where annually heroes and champions gather to do combat to the death with the Dragon Princess. Naturally, it is not the Dragon Princess who dies in these contests! But, perhaps this year will be different (although it’s hard to see how!).

Enjoyable and fairly non-stop action, as improbable as it should be, with constant witty dialogue and absurd situations, Drynwideon is vastly entertaining reading and hard to put down. And the ending is not really all that predictable!