Reviewed by Quirky Cat on
This story is about Luvander (AKA Luv) and her adventures (sometimes they’re more like misadventures) she has while out and about on her quest for treasure (for sleeping on, of course). She frequently ends up just as poor as she was at the start of things, but as long as she gets a full belly by the end she’s willing to call it even.
I’m not sure what it first was that drew me to Scales & Scoundrels. Maybe it was the name. Maybe it was the concept. Maybe it was the simpler art style. Or maybe it was all three. Regardless, I’m glad I finally made time to give this series a try. It’s fun and light and oh so quirky, it’s hard not to love.
Luv is an interesting character – she acts like a rogue, and seems to want people to think she’s a scoundrel (hence the name), but she’s actually a big softy. We frequently see her giving up all that she has to make somebody’s life just a bit better. Not to mention the danger she consistently puts herself in for the sake of others during this volume alone.
Still, she tries her best to seem mean. She happily swindles gamblers, and actually she can get pretty fierce if you’re dumb enough to try and steal from her (here’s a hint: wooden buildings and dragon fire do not mix, so don’t go ticking off random strangers that could possibly be dragons).
Along her adventures in this volume Luv comes across three other travelers. Since they have the same goal in mind (more or less) they decide to team up and work together. This seems like it’ll be more in their favor, as having a dragon guardian certainly will make things safer for them (not that they know this).
I’m not sure if the adventurer’s Luv came across will end up being permanent or temporary characters for the series, but I think either way I’m okay with it. You can see the effort put in to give them all complete backstories, which is fantastic, but it also doesn’t require them to stick around (or more accurately, it doesn’t mean Luv will stick with them). I guess I’ll have to keep reading to be sure about that one though.
Girner does a good job of writing short and small stories that really make you care about a person. While we don’t know much about Luv yet (other than that she’s obviously a dragon), we’ve learned quite a bit about the travelers she’s found.
I’m not really sure what is going on with the antagonist yet – if he’s going to be a longer running one I hope that a bit more work is put into him. Right now I don’t understand why he is chasing Luv so persistently, or why we should care. I’m sure that’ll change in the next volume though…he doesn’t feel like a random villain to me.
I can’t wait for the second volume of this to drop, so I’m going to read all of the issues available instead. I don’t usually switch from volume to issues mid series, but I feel like this one warrants it.
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Reading updates
- Started reading
- 3 May, 2018: Finished reading
- 3 May, 2018: Reviewed