Dragonshadow Book

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 KaveneyRead More