Here Be Dragons (A Response to a Reader’s Question)
I recently received a question from a reader, that asked “If you could choose to summon just one demon (from Hunted) – which one would it be – and why?”
My answer was very typically me: A dragon.
As I began to think over my answer a bit more, I realized that the dragons in Hunted play a relatively minor role. They answer to their summoners, they do not have the capability of speech as some of the other demons do, but I added them into the story because I simply love the idea of dragons. They are fascinating to me, and always have been.
The dragons of Hunted are markedly different than the dragons I wrote into my earlier books, and those dragons are much different even than the ones featured in my newer books as well (The Caein Legacy and The Mage War Chronicles).
I think my favorite iteration of the dragon idea is the most recent one. The dragons of The Caein Legacy and The Mage War Chronicles have a distinct society, separate from that of the humans and other races that share their world, yet they find themselves inexplicably interconnected with those others as well. They are an intelligent and powerful race, with some members harboring the ability to use magic, but the dragons of my books cannot breathe fire.
I know that many books feature the fire-breathing variety, but I struggle to explain such a feature biologically; as a scientist, it does not make sense, so my dragons don’t have that attribute. There are a few human magi that make an appearance in the books with the ability to wield fire as a weapon, and I’ve alluded to the possibility that this may also extend to other races. In the lore of that world, it is entirely possible that a dragon-mage could wield fire magic—but it is not tied to the dragon’s biology. None of the dragon-magi that I featured in the books so far have the ability to use fire in such a way, but that doesn’t mean I won’t write one in eventually (but keep in mind, that sort of magic is very rare in my stories; most of the magi featured have more mundane abilities, such as sending letters across vast distances instantly, or enhancing a person’s innate ability to heal for a time. But that’s enough about magi; this post is meant for the dragons!)
I never developed the dragons in The Moon’s Eye trilogy to the extent that I have in The Caein Legacy, but each series is set in an entirely different world. The trilogy is focused more upon the building conflict and has a vast array of characters—in retrospect, there were probably too many. There were only a couple of dragons in the trilogy, and only one that had more than a brief mention—Aziarah. She came into the story to mentor a young wizard that was too powerful for his human counterparts to train adequately (Tavesin), and eventually helped him with a crucial mission in the third book. But she was a relatively minor character in the overall story.
With The Caein Legacy, I focused more on the main character’s story, his internal conflicts, as well as those caused by outside influences. Though there were other characters, it was truly Andrew’s story from beginning to end. Andrew Caein is what is known as a skin-changer; he is half-human and half-dragon, able to switch between forms as the need arises. It sounds like a great ability to have, but in the land of his birth, it was permissible by law to hunt dragons for sport. So naturally, he was forced to hide what he was and pretend he was only human until certain circumstances arose (the excerpt from Exile I posted a while back gives more details about said circumstances). In the time period of The Caein Legacy, the dragons were long gone; Andrew was left behind when the rest of the dragons departed for another world, simply because his father did not know his mother was pregnant. One of the themes that begins in Exile, and continues through the rest of the series, is Andrew’s discovery of his unique strengths and weaknesses as both a dragon and a man. Along the journey, he also learns something of the dragons’ history, as well as the fact that many of the dragons would never have accepted him, if they had still been present in the world. (Like real world humans, the dragons in this series have certain prejudices, and a “half-breed” is seen as a lesser being by several of the dragon clans. Intermingling with other races is not only discouraged, but is considered an unforgivable atrocity by certain factions—but not all dragon clans agree with this line of thinking.)
The Mage War Chronicles, on the other hand, are set approximately one thousand years prior to the events of The Caein Legacy, and there are quite a lot of dragons mentioned in the stories. I’ve been able to write in more about how their society functions and interacts with those of the humans, Merael, and Sevanni. I plan to write a bit about the other races of that particular story-world in a later post. I was working extensively on writing the underwater-based book of this “series” for a time, but have taken a break from that one while I figure out a few more details. I am currently writing the murder-mystery book and am having a lot of fun doing so (one of the major supporting characters is another skin-changer, though the main character is the mage).
Dragons have been a constant theme in all of my fantasy books, so the answer to the reader question I received was a pretty simple one. Out of all the demons mentioned in Hunted, it is the dragon I would choose if I could.
In other news, I have a bit of an updated regarding Hunted. As some of you may know, I won an editorial review a couple months ago from Entrada Publishing, and submitted Hunted for review. It was officially posted last week; if you would like to read the full editorial review, you can do so here. I am happy with what they had to say about my book.
Thank you all for your continuing support!