The Last Dragon Chronicles
 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (January 2010) |
| The Fire Within Icefire Fire Star The Fire Eternal Dark Fire Fire World The Fire Ascending | |
| 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:
- The Fire Within (2001)
- Icefire (2003)
- Fire Star (2005)
- The Fire Eternal (2007)
- Dark Fire (2009)
and will soon have:
- Fire World (2011)
- The Fire Ascending
- Rain and Fire (2010)- a guide book (written by d'Lacey's wife, Jay) containing an accumulation of knowledge concerning the series, also containing a preface detailing David's trip from Blackburn to Scrubbley before the novel. The book may also contain a sneak-peek for Fire World.
Plot
In The Fire Within, David is a tenant of Elizabeth (Liz) Pennykettle (a potter who makes clay dragons)and her daughter, Lucy. David wants to help Lucy with her friend Conker, who is a squirrel. David writes a story for Lucy about Snigger (another squirrel), Conker, Ringtail, Cherrylea, and Birchwood, with the aid of his special writing dragon Gadzooks whom Liz made as a housewarming gift.
In Icefire, fate seems to be dictating an unusual course for David when his university tutor 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 just as it begins to snow. 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.
In Fire Star, Gwilanna, an evil sibyl that first starred in Icefire, returns. In the hopes of appeasing Gawain, who she hopes to revive, she kidnaps Lucy. Zanna, whilst on her field-trip to the Arctic, is abducted by a group of polar bears. The talent seen in The Fire Within, which enables David to create situations through writing, is seen again in the middle of his new story, entitled White Fire, inspired by the white bears. One of the bears who took Zanna is revealed as one of David's characters, Ingavar. Zanna is later found and reveals her powers as a strong sibyl. Later, David is killed in a fight with the evil Fain as Tootega. This is because he spoke of the fire tear in the presence of the Tooth of Ragnar. It is hinted the events of life in Wayward Crescent are written by Liz's ex-boyfriend, Arthur, who used one of Gawain's claws to change events. In the end, it is discovered that Zanna is pregnant with David's child. Arthur returns to live with Liz, and Snigger is released back to the wild.
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. As David struggles to reach a compromise, dragons all over the world begin to wake, and the Earth enters a new Dragon Age. The plot of Dark Fire ends on a cliffhanger, which will be resolved in a sixth novel, Fire World.[1]
Fire World is the sixth book, and is not yet complete.
The entire series will be resolved with a seventh novel named The Fire Ascending.
Main characters
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 his fiance, Zanna, quickened earlier on in the series. He has a daughter by Zanna, who is named Alexa.
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.
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.
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. Due to the fact that her father is a Fain, and her mother a Sybil, 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 bear.