Description/Book Blurb:
“A ray of light, a stain of shadow, shall endure to breathe life and death into the future”
The war between the Guardians and the Shadow Riders ended in total devastation. The final battle killed all the dragons and left nothing but fields of ash. A small clutch of dragon eggs was all that remained to provide hope for the future.
Five hundred years later, the ability to use magic is a death sentence and dragons are remembered as a curse. But the unhatched dragons sing for their riders…and six lives will be changed forever.
The elements of magic are drawn together as the dragons’ call leads them on a journey where they learn everything they’ve been taught to believe about magic and dragons is wrong.
With the last of the dragons and the world at stake, they will risk everything to heed the call.
But an evil from the past rises again. Shadow Dragons ride the dawn once more…
Review 4 of 5 Stars
I have to apologize to the author on this one. I had it scheduled, told her the date it would post and went out of town and took a short break. This would have been more successful had I pushed the publish button instead of leaving it as a draft. Oops!
I own every book Anne McCaffrey published, have read them each multiple times (until the covers and bindings both have given way on more than one copy), am a big enough geek to go hang out to play games with the other Dragonriders of Pern fans at DragonCon and have an undying love for a good dragon book. This story fit the bill very nicely for the most part, although the Guardian dragons were very Pernese with telekinetic communication, bonding with their riders, the ability to teleport (or Sliding as it is referred to in this story), the tone and behavior, and even the fighting straps and the organization of the Dragon Hold’s quarters were a little too familiar for me though there were some differences.
I mention this because the rest of the story doesn’t have any resemblance to Dragonriders of Pern and it was weird for me to pretty much find those dragons in this book. However, the similarities end there and the reader is drawn into a fantasy world that was all but destroyed 500 years before by a war between the Guardian dragons, riders, and mages, and their evil counterparts, the Shadow Riders and their dragons and mages. Magic is not only illegal, but fear of its use so ingrained in the populace that most who find they have it either turn themselves in knowing it means their death or run away.
This was a good story. Its characters, the back story and the world they presently live in were well-developed and entertaining. The author did give our new dragons some additional or improved abilities and I was happy to see that as well. I was also interested in how the shadow dragons came to be.
We enter the story at a time when it is believed that dragons are no more after the horrible war long ago. As with any good story, circumstances have to change and our ensemble of characters are gathered from far and wide to travel to the city of Galdrilene where they will not only learn about the past, but be trained to protect the future. This is definitely an ensemble piece with regard to characters. In this first book of the series they are pretty much coming together, getting their bearings and training for what is to come. There is some pretty decent adventure and action toward the end of the book and I found the journey to it to be entertaining.
Author TJ Hapney 