Dragon Heart

The Dragonlords of Dumnonia #1

by Linda A. Malcor

THE WIZARDS . . .

Life on Centuria used to make sense. Beings with special powers went to the School of Corin to learn how to control them. The more they learned, the more powerful they became. And the greatest Wizard of them all was the White Wolf.

THE WAR . . .

During their quests for knowledge, the Wizards accidentally opened a door to another dimension, where the Mirari lived. Beings of Light, the Mirari banished one of their rebels to Centuria where he became known as the Dark One. The Dark One took his anger out on the unprotected world, and the Wizards did not have the power to stop him. So the Mirari sent two of their own, the Winged Warrior Criton and the Elven King Farador to help. Their magic did not work properly on Centuria, though, and all they could do was keep the Dark One’s forces at bay.

THE DRAGONS . . .

An experiment begun by the Wizard Corin, the Bronze Dragons and the Dumnonians who care for them control a land rich in sand and so poor in everything else that not even the Dark One wants it. Caravans trade for supplies in the wealthy land of the Dragonslayers, Daethia, which supply the Dragons and Dumnonians with barely enough provisions to keep them alive.

THE PROPHET . . .

A caravaneer, Shashtah wants to Bond with one of the Bronzes and help the Dragonriders of Dumnonia carry “Eternal Death to the Dark One!” When demons capture and torture Shashtah, his powers awaken at the wrong time and out of control. The Dragons suddenly find themselves with a very dangerous, untrained Prophet rather than what they had really bred for: a Dragonheart.

Genres: Fantasy

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 16, 2015

About the author

Born Linda A. Peterson, Dr. Malcor is a free-lance writer and teacher. She holds a Ph.D. from UCLA in Folklore and Mythology with an emphasis in Medieval Studies and Indo-European Comparative Mythology. Her most famous book, From Scythia to Camelot, co-authored with C. Scott Littleton of Occidental College, mentioned the connection between Lucius Artorius Castus and the Sarmatians of Britannia. Originally published in 1994, the text has gone into a Second Edition (2000) with an appendix devoted to Castus and has been translated into Russian, Hungarian, and Japanese, with an Italian translation in progress. In 1999 she was declared an Overseas Associate Member of Britain’s Late Antiquities Research Group. The 2004 Jerry Bruckheimer film King Arthur was inspired by her work, and she served as a researcher for the film. A founder of the electronic journal The Heroic Age, she has written numerous academic papers on the topic of Lucius Artorius Castus and the lore of the Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans, many presented at academic meetings in the USA as well as worldwide and published in peer-reviewed journals. Several academic conferences have been held in Italy and Croatia based on her studies of Castus, and her work has inspired the Scythia-Artorius Exhibit, a museum exhibition, which is being assembled in Milan, Italy on Castus and the peoples of Scythia with plans to eventually travel internationally. Her work on Castus continues, with additional conferences being planned for Russia as well as Croatia and Italy.

She lives in Orange County, California. She enjoys cooking, singing, war games, science fiction and fantasy.

Reviews

[Jeffrey A. Dewey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting

Interesting read and storyline with a lot of different things going on as dragons, riders, gods, evil and magic are intertwined.

[Kyle Carnegie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book overall was challenging for me to get into. While it starts with a lot of action and keeps events moving, overall I found the inconsistency and high reliance on magic with poorly defined rules to be distracting to the story and overall introducing more of a sense of "mary sue" with the protagonist Shashta who develops deus ex machina abilities as necessary. While I enjoyed the illustrations, maps would have been more helpful to understand the regions and better grasp the power dynamics between the various tribes.

[Linda Malcor]

I created the world of Centuria when I was in high school. Back then I told the story of the ongoing war with the Dark One from the point of view of the Wizards of Corin who lived in the tiny, medieval-esque country of Daethia, home to the Dragonslayers. Decades later I picked up the tales again, this time from the point of view of the Dragonriders of Dumnonia. The story is told through the eyes of Shashtah, a third person limited, completely unreliable narrator. He's a Prophet whose powers are wildly out of control, who loves his country and can't stand his Arab-esque culture. Half-Dumnonian, half-Dragon, he dreams of making his world as tolerant of others as he is. The problem is that he's not the one in charge. At least not yet.

[Linda Malcor]

I don't rate my own books, so please rate them for me.

As I've told others, my books are a quick read. I'm glad to have read this one again since I didn't remember some of the details I planted, and I want to make sure they pay off in my fifth book.

Happy reading!