Starlighter (Dragons of Starlight)

Title: Starlighter

Series: Dragons of Starlight (Book #1)

Year: 2010

Author: Bryan Davis

Summary: For years, tales of dragons from another world kidnapping and enslaving humans have been circulating in Jason Masters’ world, while for a slave girl named Koren, the stories of a human world seem pure myth. Together, these two teens will need to bridge two planets in order to overthrow the draconic threat and bring the lost slaves home.

What if the Legends Are True?

Jason Masters doubted the myths that told of people taken through a portal to another realm and enslaved by dragons. But when he receives a cryptic message from his missing brother, he must uncover the truth and find the portal before it’s too late. At the same time, Koren, a slave in the dragons’ realm, discovers she has a gift that could either save or help doom her people. As Jason and Koren work to rescue the enslaved humans, a mystic prophecy surrounding a black egg may make all their efforts futile.

Review: I want to say that reading this book recently was the first time I'd ever read it, but it tasted familiar. I'm not positive I read it years ago, and forgot about it, or if I've read another book that was very similar. Blame it on my mom brain. Or maybe this book was just a bit too predictable.

Dragon stories can be super tricky. As a dragon fanatic, I want dragon stories that don't do all the usual things with the exact same dragons. I want something different, and I don't want you to portray the dragons as absolute, thoughtless monsters who deserve to be eliminated completely. That's just awful. Bryan Davis, however, knows how to do dragons. I've read his Dragons in Our Midst series (and two succeeding series) and really enjoyed it. The other books of his that I've read, I'm really not a fan of, but I like how he does dragons, so I thought I should give this series a shot. I also recently picked up book 1 and 3 of this series at two separate second hand stores in the last few months, so I thought fate was telling me it was time.

Jason is a likeable hero who wants to do what's right. He struggles with believing the tales of another world -- a DRAGON world -- that his family believes in. Not only are the tales of dragons kidnapping and enslaving humans seem farfetched, it's illegal to believe in them. But after both of his beloved brothers leave home (and consequently disappear without any answers) to find the dragons and rescue the slaves, Jason finds himself catapulted into an adventure that cannot be stopped.

Koren is a slave of the dragons. Sure, she's probably got the best of the dragon masters over her, but life can still be rough. She wants to help the people she loves around her, but it's difficult to sneak behind their backs. Storytelling is one thing she enjoys, and everyone around her loves to listen to her tales. She just doesn't realize the danger her stories will get her into.

This story has a lot of elements from the biblical account of Moses; in a way, it almost feels like a dragon parody of the Moses story. Which I thought was really cool. It can often be really difficult to use a biblical account to weave a new story together without it seeming super cheesy and awful preachy. Bryan Davis doesn't do that; instead, this story resonates with deep themes, fun characters, adventure, and suspense. I ended up enjoying the book a lot more than I thought I would. And I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. First things first, however... I have to get myself a copy of book #2.

I think my one complaint was the amount of info-dumping in the first couple chapters of the book. There is a whole solar system to set up, with two specific planets to tell the reader about, and you get all the stuff right at the beginning. The information there is good because then you know immediately what's going on and what all the rules are, but I got bored in all the telling. I think some of those details could have been better shown, possibly through some later chapters in the book.

If you're looking for a fun and not too lengthy dragon adventure that gets you hooked pretty fast, then this is your kind of story.

Advisory: Fantasy violence. The dragons do not always treat their slaves humanely, since they do not believe them to be creatures of extreme intelligence or feeling (i.e. the humans are basically dogs to them). There is a lot of fighting and fire, but nothing is terribly graphic. And with dragons involved, of course, there are also some deaths -- which is to be expected.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars