A Dragon at Worlds' End

Bazil Broketail #5

by Christopher Rowley

Picking up where "Battledragon" ends, Bazil and his dragoneer Relkin find themselves lost in a vast and trackless jungle inhabited by the mysterious people called the Ardu. As the Ardu are captured and sold to the sadistic Elven-mage lords of Mirchaz, Relkin is kidnapped trying to help the Ardu--and it's up to Bazil to save the day!

Genres: Fantasy, Dragons, Fiction, Magic, Epic Fantasy

412 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 1, 1997

About the author

Christopher Rowley is a prolific writer of both science fiction and fantasy novels. He was born in 1948 in Lynn, Massachusetts to an American mother and an English father. Educated for the most part at Brentwood School, Essex, England, he became a London-based journalist in the 1970s. In 1977 he moved to New York City and began work on The War For Eternity, his first science fiction novel. He currently lives in upstate New York.

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this fifth installment, Rowley switches gears as this features just Bazil and Relkin. Picking up from the last book, Baz and Relkin, blown off the erupting volcano, managed to swim ashore in the inland sea, but alas, far from the rest of the soldiers of the legions. Looking for food quickly becomes a priority (dragons eat a lot!) and the intrepid Baz and Relkin just try to survive. Everyone in their former party thinks they perished at the volcano.

Well, one day they find a strange but beautiful woman passed out on a canoe. She has been injured and in a coma, and she has a tail! Turns out there are a group of her kinfolk who live as hunter/gatherers south from the inland sea and she just managed to escape from a party of slavers. Baz and Relkin decide to go with her to see if they can free her parents from the slavers, but that means heading south into the depths of the dark continent...

Some pretty creative world building in this one! The interior of the dark continent is like a throw back to the dinosaur age, with massive beasts. Further, they discover that a city of ancient elves became established here many years ago; basically, they were ostracized from the other elves (of which we have already encountered). These elves buy slaves with abandon to fuel their great game, but I will stop on this to avoid spoilers. Neat break from the formula here and it was fun to have just a focus on Baz and Relkin. 4 stars!!

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story! It was fun to see Relkin and Bazil away from the normal setting of the legion. The story kept a good pace, without boring filler or overly slow sections. Some fun character developments for Baz and Relkin as well, that I hope are further explored in the following book(s).

[Kryptomite · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed A Dragons at Worlds End. It does a great job of following up the prior book, and I definitely should have read the two together. There are several new characters of whom you will appreciate, and a significant helping of emotion and inner monologue between the main protagonists that helps to breathe life into the series. I will say, the end of the book has a brief chapter that deviates into a bullet point list of events while relkin travels from one location to another, but it's only a minor flaw and didn't bother me much. Overall an excellent book with a lot of good fight scenes and time for Basil to shine in his own right as a commander of sorts.

[Jb · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the more fun books in this series due to the completely different locale and continent it takes place in.

[VirgoRat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book of the series.