Dragonshadow - Softcover

Hambly, Barbara

3.67

1,174 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006483682 ISBN 13: 9780006483687

Publisher: Voyager, 1999

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Dragonshadow is book two in the breath-taking The Winterlands – an epic, classic fantasy quartet full of whirlwind adventure, magic and dragons.

John Aversin is still at large fighting dragons, and also studying their ways. After one such battle he witnesses a truly disturbing scene: a wounded dragon being resurrected by a wizard driving a jewelled glass spike through its skull.

Dismayed by this unnerving sight, John journeys far to seek the advice of Morkeleb, the great Black Dragon. But he finds Morkeleb now living in self-imposed exile, trying to come to terms with his doomed love for Jenny, the powerful mage and mother of John’s son, who has chosen the life of a woman rather than that of a dragon.

Unless they can find a way to stop the wizards, the continued use of this dark magic will disrupt the natural links between Man and dragon, and threaten the balance of the world itself.

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Review:

It is Barbara Hambly's way to leave her imagined worlds aside, and go back when she has something new to say ... Dragonbane was always one of the very best of her books with its middle-aged witch and warrior-scholar, and a dragon taught that love which is not, normally, a thing of dragons. Hambly now revisits these characters a few years on--a new disaster strikes their world in the shape of dragon-riding mages. When John and Jenny's elder son becomes one of those mages, it is clear neither mages nor dragons can any longer call their souls safely their own. The emotional tone of what follows is surprisingly bleak, but punctuated by moments of comedy and charm; seeking an alliance with his former enemy, the dragon Morkeleb, John Aversin goes north among barren islands in an airship he has invented for the purpose. Nor is this the least likely alliance John has to form--this is a novel about exploring the limits in which the rules of the world Hambly created in the earlier book are constantly stretched and transgressed. It is sometimes assumed that this sort of heroic fantasy isalways and intrinsically cosy --Hambly proves otherwise. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

Praise for Dragonsbane:

‘This is literary alchemy of the highest order, and it confirms Hambly’s place as one of the best new fantasists’
Locus

‘An enviable and intricate talent’
Janny Wurts

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