The Lost Lands (Rise of the Dragons, Book 2) by Angie Sage, 626, available at Book Depository with free delivery worldwide. Written by bestselling author Angie Sage, Rise of the Dragons is perfect for fans of Cressida Cowell's How to Train Your Dragon series. Read preview.

The unsuspecting world is threatened by deadly dragons and dragon riders from a parallel world in this series opener.Leading off a projected multiauthor series attached to a game with online and table-top versions, Sage phones in an initial episode that reads like Anne McCaffrey fanfic interwoven with a sketchy subplot. Sad and lonely 11-year-old Londoner Sirin Sharma recalls old tales learned from her dying mother of how the peaceable dragons who once flew Earth’s skies turned to evil Raptors and were exiled. Meanwhile, the fire-breathing descendants of said exiles and their telepathically Locked riders, all of whom have been at war for so long that their world is devastated, discover that a silver dragon—the only hue that can travel between universes—has been hatched for the first time in ages. Said hatchling, Lysander, and orphaned shepherd lad Joss Moran, who finds and Locks with him, are captured, discover unexpected allies winged and otherwise, have an extended (and nonfatal) aerial battle, then escape to this world just in time to save Sirin from bullying girls. The human cast, all except possibly Central Asian Sirin evidently white, has no agency in the tale or the entire scenario aside from providing the dragons with easy food (one way or another), and with no evident sign that the larger story has a direction, the author leaves everything, and everyone, up in the air.A pre-fab grab at pre-Pern preteens.(game rules, URL, and detachable trading cards not seen)(Fantasy. Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. Steam rise of venice italy.

To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old schoolexcept that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series.

George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invadersIs this the end? Well, nothe series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.(Fantasy. Full-blown middle-volume-itis leaves this continuation of the tale of a teenage elf who has been genetically modified for so-far undisclosed purposes dead in the water.As the page count burgeons, significant plot developments slow to a trickle. Thirteen-year-old Sophie manifests yet more magical powers while going head-to-head with hostile members of the Lost Cities Council and her own adoptive elvin father, Grady, over whether the clandestine Black Swan cabal, her apparent creators and (in the previous episode) kidnappers, are allies or enemies.

Messenger tries to lighten the tone by dressing Sophie and her classmates at the Hogwarts-ian Foxfire Academy as mastodons for a silly opening ceremony and by having her care for an alicorn—a winged unicorn so magnificent that even its poop sparkles. It’s not enough; two sad memorial services, a trip to a dreary underground prison, a rash of adult characters succumbing to mental breakdowns and a frequently weepy protagonist who is increasingly shunned as “the girl who was taken” give the tale a soggy texture. Also, despite several cryptic clues and a late attack by hooded figures, neither the identity nor the agenda of the Black Swan comes closer to being revealed.However tried and true, the Harry Potter–esque elements and set pieces don’t keep this cumbersome coming-of-age tale afloat, much less under way.(Fantasy 10-12).

With 9 collectible game cards that put YOU inside the dragon battle!

There was a time when our world was full of dragons,and they lived alongside humans in harmony. But after a rogue group called the Raptors tried to gain power and ruleover Earth, all dragons were banished to another realm.
Years passed, and then decades, and then centuries. And most humans forgot about the dragons. It was almost as ifthey had never existed.
But some still new the truth, and the legend stayed alive.
Eleven-year-old Sirin grew up with the stories, but the magic of those tales seemed hard to believe. That is, until Sirin saw a mysterious streak of silver in the night sky and decided to find its source.
But when Sirin becomes the first child to 'lock'with a dragon in centuries - forming a deep bond unlike anything she's ever known - she learns that not all dragons have returned with good intentions. And soon she finds herself at the centre of a terrifying battle..
Written by bestselling author Angie Sage, Rise of the Dragons is perfect for fans of Cressida Cowell's How to Train Your Dragon series.
Genre: Children's Fiction

Hardback Editions

Paperback Editions

Audio Editions

Kindle Editions