Jon Hollins Books in Order

Jon Hollins writes comic fantasy with a taste for capers, bad plans, and people who are trying to survive worlds built by much more powerful beings. His main sequence is the Dragon Lords trilogy, which begins with Fool's Gold and continues through False Idols and Bad Faith.

The basic setup is gleefully rude to the usual fantasy hierarchy. Dragons have ruled for a very long time, they have amassed enormous wealth, and most ordinary people have little reason to think the arrangement will change. Then a few thieves, mercenaries, and assorted troublemakers see an opening.

Naturally, it gets complicated.

The books follow a growing resistance to dragon rule, but they do not treat rebellion as a clean march toward glory. Hollins makes room for greed, fear, rival agendas, magical disasters, and the very practical question of how a ragtag group is meant to fight creatures with money, armies, and wings. The action is broad and energetic, with heists, escapes, fights, and schemes that can turn sideways fast.

Will is at the heart of the series, though the story expands around a larger cast as the stakes grow. He begins as someone used to getting by rather than leading a revolution. That makes him a useful guide through the early books, because he sees the absurdity of the world even while he is forced to take its dangers seriously.

The jokes are part of the machinery.

Hollins uses familiar fantasy materials, ancient gods, monsters, prophecies, heroic quests, and turns them into opportunities for sharp dialogue and increasingly messy consequences. But the trilogy still has an ongoing arc. Each installment pushes the struggle with the dragons further, adds pressure to the alliances holding the heroes together, and asks what happens after people decide the old rulers have to go.

This is a good series for readers who want fantasy that moves quickly and does not stand on ceremony. Start with Fool's Gold, since it introduces the world, the crew, and the first crack in the dragons' control. Read in order after that, because the victories and betrayals carry forward.

Expect battles and jokes in roughly equal measure, with a real rebellion underneath the chaos.