|
The Fire Within
Icefire Fire Star The Fire Eternal Dark Fire Fire World The Fire Ascending Rain and Fire (A Guide to the Last Dragon Chronicles) |
|
| Author | Chris d'Lacey |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Angelo Rinaldi |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fantasy, Children's |
| Published | 2001 - Present |
| Media type | Print (Hardback and Paperback) |
| Followed by | Dragons of Wayward Crescent |
The Last Dragon Chronicles is a series of seven novels by Chris d'Lacey. The books follow a college student, David Rain, as he discovers the existence of living clay dragons in the house he lodges at. This series currently includes the novels:
and coming soon:
In The Fire Within, David Rain is a tenant of Elizabeth (Liz) Pennykettle (a potter who makes clay dragons)and her daughter, Lucy. However, there is something mysterious about Liz, the house and the dragons. As for what it is, David can't figure out. Meanwhile, David is trying to help Lucy (Elizabeth's daughter) find a missing squirrel named Conker. Conker disappeared after the tree he lived in was cut down. While he tries to unravel the dragon mysteries and find the squirrel, David writes a story for Lucy about Snigger (another squirrel), Conker and Lucy's other squirrel friends. However, the story begins to mirror real life. Whatever is going on, it has something to do with his special writing dragon Gadzooks, whom Liz made as a housewarming gift. But when Conker's life is threatened and Gadzooks appears to be in trouble, David is forced to believe the impossible if he is going to save them. Meanwhile, he finds himself drawn to an attractive wildlife rescuer.
In Icefire, fate seems to be dictating an unusual course for David when his university tutor, Dr. Bergstrom, sends him a writing project on the existence - or not - of dragons. The tantalizing prize is a fully funded research trip to the Arctic, which seems just within his grasp. David starts to research the subject and soon discovers a connection between dragons and the Arctic. Then, evidence begins to mount that somewhere in the neighborhood is a polar bear. Beginning to wonder whether it is only a coincidence or could deeper forces be at work, David begins to uncover more about the dragons. He finds himself drawn to a time when dragons really did exist, and their secrets were guarded by the polar bears of the Arctic. David must open his mind to the legend of dragons if he is going to have any chance of winning the research trip. Meanwhile, an evil foe from Lucy and Liz's distant past appears with an evil plot, and the secret of the dragons is revealed. If she is to be defeated, David must discover the link between an ancient legend about the fire tear of the last dragon and the frozen north. And the keys to solving the puzzle are his new girlfriend, Zanna, and Dr. Bergstrom, who proves to have more mysteries than meets the eye.
In Fire Star, Gwilanna, the evil sibyl that first starred in Icefire, returns. She plans to reincarnate the last dragon, Gawain, and use him to open a portal to the dragon dimension Ki:mera. If she succeeds, the concentrated fire of all those dragons will be released onto an unstable Arctic, already threatened by global warming and in no need of any more heat to push it over the brink. The wishing dragon G'reth is whisked to another dimension by mysterious forces and brought back with a entity that calls itself the Fain. Meanwhile, David and Zanna are on the trip they won to the Arctic, and David is writing another book, an epic about dragons, polar bears and a mysterious fire star. But when the book, like the one he wrote in The Fire Within, starts to mirror real life, and when Zanna is kidnapped and presumably killed by polar bears, the expedition is cut short. back at home, he arrives to find Lucy has been kidnapped by Gwilanna for a ritual to raise the dragon Gawain. Zanna is proved to be alive and learning the ways of the Inuit in a small village. Then, Gwillana's plans are revealed by a twist of fate that reunites Liz with her former husband Arthur, who is using a powerful relic of Gawain to affect the flow of time. In the dramatic climax, David, Zanna, Arthur, the Pennykettles and the clay dragons have to side with a polar bear army to stop Gwilanna, as well as a darker evil from the past of Ki:mera and Earth. There is however, a final twist. David is stabbed with a shard of ice and supposedly 'dies.'
In The Fire Eternal it has been five years since David, now a cult author, mysteriously disappeared in the Arctic. Life in Wayward Crescent has settled to relative normality. But as the weather grows wild and the ice caps melt, all eyes turn north, where bears and the souls of the Inuit dead are combining to produce a spectacular solution...a solution with its focus on David and Zanna's child, Alexa.
In Dark Fire David is ordered to seek out and destroy a spark of dark fire, even though doing so will mean sacrificing a beloved dragon. Also, David's first girlfriend died in Africa while David was there. He uses Glade's fire tear to attempt to revive the fallen clay dragons. As David struggles to reach a compromise, dragons all over the world begin to wake, and the Earth enters a new Dragon Age. But just as this is to happen, the dangerous Ix:cluster reverse the Fire Eternal, and Gadzooks ends with the word 'sometimes'.
In Fire World a world between Earth and Ki:mera known as Co:pern:ica, parallels of David, Suzanna, Mr Bacon, Dr Bergstrom, Gwilanna, and many other characters from previous books begin to fall towards the mysteries of the Librarium, an ancient place where the mysterious Fire Birds reside beyond Level 42. But an accident his father, a parallel of Arthur sends everyone involved in David's mysterious transformations into a polar bear (the parallel of Ingavar) eight years into the future, David must stop Aunt Su:perior Gwyneth from overthowing the Higher and restore peace. But with her dying will, the tapestry picturing the cliffhanger of 'Dark Fire' changes.
The entire series will be resolved with a seventh novel named The Fire Ascending.
David Rain main character. - A college student who lives with the Pennykettles. He is an author whose stories magically manage to come true and he gets his inspiration from his writing dragon, Gadzooks (see: Pennykettle dragons). In Fire Star, he made Gollygosh, a natural healing dragon. Another one of his dragons is G'reth, a wishing dragon made by Lucy Pennykettle. David turns out to be a "Fain", although in the start, he doesn't know that himself. He has the ability to transform into a polar bear, and has "illuminated" with the adolescent dragon, Grockle, who is Liz's completely dragon child, who his fiance, Zanna, quickened earlier on in the series. He has a daughter by Zanna, who is named Alexa. Also David has the ability to become dragon when he goes into Grockle.
Elizabeth/Liz Pennykettle - A woman probably in her thirties who makes dragons out of clay and sells them at pottery fairs. She made all of the Pennykettle dragons except Golly and G'reth. According to Gwillana, she happens to have more auma then most other daughters of Guinevere, actually because she has icefire. She is the mother of Lucy Pennykettle, wife of the blinded ex-monk Arthur, and former landlady of David Rain. According to David, the Fain (the alien species) meant for Liz and Arthur to be his biological parents, but when Gwillanna interrupted this plan, David materialized at age 20 at the "necessary" time. Liz is pregnant with a boy at the end of "Dark Fire" by her husband, Arthur. Gwillanna originally says that the child will not have "dragon" in him, but after the boy manages to refrain from being affected by the dark fire Liz absorbed, her interest regarding the boy piques.
Lucy Pennykettle - Liz's eleven-year-old daughter . She is the youngest of Guinevere's (see: other characters) known line and the next "dragon princess". At the beginning of Icefire, she made an extremely effective wishing dragon called G'reth, which is surprising for a girl of her age, as proper wishing dragons are extremely hard to make. When David returns, she is 16. In "The Fire Eternal" she communicates several times with a journalist by the name of Tam, who she admits to being in love with in her journal in "Dark Fire." She is the one to awaken the Dragon Queen Gawaine, the mother of Gawain. She likes Tam and idolizes David.
Gwilanna / Aunty Gwyneth - Lucy's "aunt". She is a very powerful sibyl who was once served by Gretel, the potions dragon. She kidnaps Lucy to help her raise Gawain, the dragon, from his state of paralysis so that she could be "illuminated" with it (become one with it) like she believed her mother, one of the pre:men, should have been able to do before the fain executed her. She is frozen in a block of ice in the shape of a crow, and her powers are stripped from her. Her powers are restored later on. She has been the midwife of all of Guinevere's line, as only a sibyl can do so. Liz Pennykettle has a great amount of respect for her, despite the fact that on numerous occasions the "aunt" has almost killed her, kidnapped her daughter, trapped her tenant under some floorboards, as well as a myriad of other feats of similar creed. This may be because Gwilanna birthed her daughter, and has also saved Liz's life on numerous accounts.
Sophie'- Davids girl friend who dies in Dark Fire.
Suzanna/Zanna Martindale - A character that first appears in Icefire and becomes David's girlfriend. She is a college student like David as well as, in the beginning, a Goth. When Gretel stops serving Gwilanna she becomes Zanna's dragon. Zanna is a sibyl like Gwilanna but she is not as powerful. She is at times very zany and amusing. She is also the mother of David's child, Alexa. She bears the mark of Oomara on her forearm, which grants her many abilities, one of which being the ability to transform into a crow. She lived with the Pennykettle's for five years, but then was given a house by the deceased Henry Bacon (who conveniently resided next door), and both her and her daughter relocated there.
Alexa Martindale - David and Zanna's daughter. It is later revealed that she is to become an 'angel'. She can also draw the future. Because her father is a Fain, and her mother a sibyl, she has quite a lot of power and is extremely intelligent. It is of Arthur's belief, that before her birth into the human world, she acted as a muse to describe to Arthur who she wanted her father to be. When Arthur wrote about the man who was originally destined to be his son, the past "changed" creating David so that Alexa could be born.
Dr. Bergstrom - A geography teacher at Scrubbley College. He is Scandinavian, can turn into a polar bear, and has a dragon called Groyne who can become invisible and shape-shift. He started out as a polar research scientist and met the spirit of Thoran, the first polar bear ever, and people believed he was killed, but he actually became a mixture of man and polar bear.
Henry Bacon- The Pennykettle's neighbor that dies in Dark Fire. In Icefire he shows David the picture of his grandfather on an expedition to the Artic. It shows his grandfather with several other people, one of whom David identifies as Dr. Bergstrom.
Melanie- Lucy's friend who moved away. Melanie has a Pennykettle dragon called Glade.