Details of the apprentices' lives—rigorous curriculum and teaching methods, food, clothing, and societal relationships—give verisimilitude to [Dragonsinger,] a superbly crafted fantasy in the heroic tradition. Yet these details, essential to the evocation of the setting, are so thoroughly integrated into the story that they complement and extend the action rather than serve merely as a framework. Poetic introductions to each chapter appropriately suggest ancient ballads and sagas, thus supporting the motif of song as the cement of a people and the idea that crafters of song are historians and effectors of change…. Unlike many sequels, this maintains the dramatic tensions of its predecessor….