Dragon Strike
E.E. Knight
Roc, Dec 2008, $14.00
ISBN: 0451462351
After being separated by dwarf slave traders who killed their mother and sister, the three dragon siblings (AuRon, Wistala, and Copper) suffer differing experiences on their way to adulthood. AuRon mated and has a family on the Isle of Ice, which is devoid of humanoids (see DRAGON CHAMPION). His sister Wistala has become a scholar librarian in the Hypatia Empire and believes in intermingling of the species (see DRAGON AVENGER)S. Finally Copper has become the Tyn of the Lavadome who places the needs of dragons before his own (see DRAGON OUTCAST).
While Wisteria works in her library, a demon captures her; after days of torture, the Fire Maidens rescue her and take her to Lavadome where she listens to the Tyn while realizing he is her brother just before AuRon arrives as the emissary of the Red Queen of Ghioz who seeks to conquer Hypatia. The Red Queen offers an alliance with the Lavadome that would make the dragons available to her warriors. Tyn decides for dragonkind to survive, they must live above ground instead of in the mouths of volcanoes hiding and praying they will not be found. He sends his sister to her home and his brother to his family as each prepares for the Red Queen. They all know if allied to her she would betray them.
Book four of the Age of Fire brings this glorious fantasy to a rousing finish with the three sibling stars of the previous novels finally coming together. Throughout the saga, dragons are the protagonists while the hominids (man, dwarf, elf and blighters) are their natural enemies constantly encroaching and killing. In DRAGON STRIKE, the dragons conclude that to survive they must fight even if that means going down in flames; pacifism means death for sure. E.E. Knight makes his world of dragons soar as the audience roots for them to succeed.
Harriet Klausner
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