Dragonstar (Hardcover)

~ Barbara Hambly (Author) "The tale of John Aversin and Jenny Waynest, and their involvement with dragons and with the Realm of Belmarie, begins in the book Dragonsbane, when..." (more)
Key Phrases: talisman jewels, mirror chamber, palace foundation, Demon Queen, Miss Mab, Master of Halnath (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

An errant dragon-slayer is condemned to death, but miracles do happen.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

The novels of New York Times bestselling author Barbara Hambly have broken new ground in the realm of fantasy. With a sweeping cast of characters whose powers are both awesome and heartachingly limited, the Dragon series is built around the touching relationship between a husband and wife separated by a flood of violence and chaos.

Condemned to die for consorting with demons, dragonslayer Lord John Aversin sits in a dank prison cell and calculates the odds of escape, while smelling the smoke of the executioners’ pyres. In Winterlands, Jenny Waynest pays a heavy price for choosing to be human, mourning the loss of her husband, Lord John, and the dangers that engulf her family. But in a season of the Dragon Star, strange miracles are about to transpire.

As a pitched battle between the Hellspawn and the human rages, Jenny and John will be reunited in a city under siege. And there, they will have one last chance to understand all that has happened to them and why, who their true enemies and true allies are, and most of all, for what magical purpose each has been chosen.

A vast adventure and a powerful mystery teeming with demons and witches, gnomes and dragons, Dragonstar explores profound issues of faith, fate, and technology–while obscuring long held boundaries between good and evil, love and hate, what is human and what is fantastic. With this glorious finale to a breathtaking series, Barbara Hambly establishes herself as one of the most visionary and inventive storytellers in the field of fantasy fiction today.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; 1st edition (May 28, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345441214
• ISBN-13: 978-0345441218
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,344,222 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Oh, what a relief, November 19, 2002

By	Merryl Gross (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I love Hambly's works. I love Dragonsbane, the first book in this series. However, this last trilogy is a gruelling read, and the ending of Knight of the Demon Queen is just brutal.

As this book begins, our characters are quicky rescued from the horrible situations they were in at the end of the previous book. They go on to make all things right, to my great relief.

But should you buy/read this book? I think that depends on what you want from it.

This series (Dragonshadow, Knight of the Demon Queen, and Dragonstar) is not like most of Hambly's other work. If you're looking for a book to transport you to another world and relieve you of the cares of your day, this isn't it.

If you're looking for a story that probes what happens when people are stressed to the breaking point, or how families can find their way back to each other afterwards, this is something you want to read. Fantasy is often described as escapist literature... but whoever does so hasn't read THIS. There's no escape here. There's going through all the hard parts.

You can tell from the mixed reviews here that this isn't for everyone. If you're going to read these, I recommend that you have Dragonstar on hand before finishing Knight of the Demon Queen. These are heavy books. They may save your sanity, or bore you silly. Take a chance on them.

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Comet comet, burning bright, September 1, 2002

By	David Roy (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Dragonstar, by Barbara Hambly, is the conclusion to a series that never should have been. This series is a sequel to Dragonsbane, one of the best books I have ever read. It stood completely on its own and was wrapped up perfectly. Instead of leaving it, years later she started this series. Dragonstar, while much better than the first two books, still limps along unnecessarily, never earning the right to have been created in the first place.

I have read that Barbara Hambly was going through a very tough personal time when she wrote the first two books in this series (Dragonshadow and Knight of the Demon Queen). You could tell this because they were very depressing books. Characters that I had grown to love in Dragonsbane were being put through a wringer that seemed more than just the normal "putting characters through conflicts to see how they come out." Massive doses of mistrust were placed between John and Jenny, wrenching their relationship apart. Meanwhile, the story that she was trying to tell wasn't very interesting and seemed almost cliched at times. There really isn't a new spin placed on the "demons trying to take over the world" concept.

Dragonstar almost seems to have been written as an apology to fans for the gloom of the first two books. Jenny and John are rescued quite quickly in the book, both immediately thinking about what they should have said to each other the last time they saw each other. Both characters apologized to each other profusely in their minds, and then did so again when they finally met. Once they are together, there are numerous references to the pain they have caused each other, and how now that they're together, they will make things back to normal between them. When you take this book by itself, there is nothing wrong with all of that. It's the earlier behaviour that's a bit out of character for them. However, when you read the whole series, the change is extremely jarring.

The only other semi-interesting character is Morkeleb. He's a dragonshadow now, a dragon who has renounced magic. The relationship between him and Jenny, the love that they share (though Morkeleb knows that it can never replace her love for John) is very sweet. Morkeleb has a very un-dragonlike sense of humour as well. In this book, he leads the other dragons in an attempt to help Jenny and John defeat the demons. He does this for Jenny, but you get a sense that he does this for the good of the world as well, which is something a dragon would never do. It's interesting to see the culmination of his transformation from dragon to what lies beyond.

However, the same can't be said of any of the other characters. Especially sad is Gareth, the regent and the man who came to John & Jenny so many years ago (in Dragonsbane) for help in defeating a dragon. In this series, and especially this book, he's a shadow of his former self. Some of this can be attributed to the fact that his "dead" wife has come back to life inhabited by a demon, but even that doesn't excuse how uninteresting he has become. Events happen to him, but nothing seems to really affect him that much. Then, there are the three demon characters; Folcalor, Amayon, and the Demon Queen herself. None of them move much past the moustache-twisting villain. They're evil for evil's sake (not surprising, for demons, but that doesn't make them intriguing enough to read about). When your protagonists have nobody interesting to interact with, it makes for really laboured reading.

The final problem with this book, and this may surprise people who have read my reviews of Hambly's Benjamin January series, is the extremely slow pace of the novel, mainly caused by her excessive description. Usually, I love that trait in Hambly's writing. However, I think what she's writing about has to be of interest in order to make it bearable. In this case, it isn't, and thus the pace grinds to a halt as she's describing things. The action scenes plod because of this, and the lengthy scenes where the plot is "developed" are almost unbearable. The only thing that kept me reading was my loyalty to Hambly (probably my favourite author) and my loyalty to these characters.

The plot is resolved, but an opening is left for a subsequent series of books. I sincerely hope that, if Hambly does decide to give in to the temptation, she really thinks about it first. This series almost destroyed my love for the original. I don't think it could take much more of a beating.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hambly At Her Best!, June 4, 2002

By	Ralph Isovitsch (St. Thomas, VI USA) - See all my reviews

All of the things that make Barbara Hambly a classic are present in "Dragonstar": intricate characters that you root for, detailed background settings that suck you in, and an actual plot with enough twists and turns to keep you turning pages well into the night.

This book is not the usual fantasy novel with so-so sword play and hum-drum magic.

Read "Dragonstar" and discover what a truly fine author Barbara Hambly is.