Critique: Fire Star (Chris D’Lacey)

David is in the Arctic studying. This book is the start of the environmental aspects of the books. It’s not preachy and the information is worked to be appropriate and understandable for the intended audience.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

There are many details necessary to the plot.

The story starts with the polar bear Ingavar who meets an old bear called Thoran.

Dr Bergstrom’s tornaq becomes Groyne (lol), a bird-like dragon.

The three-lined mark is named after Oomara, an Inuit persuaded by a shaman to strike a bear. It’s heavily implied this shaman was Gwilanna.

Lucy can’t do magic because she is of Guinevere’s line with too little of Gwendolen. Zanna is of Gwendolen’s line though as she’s natural born (has a father) Gwilanna’s surprised Zanna has powers.

Zanna speaks dragontongue with an Inuit shaman who knows it as the sacred Inuit language. So when Gwendolen had children with the Inuit, her knowledge of dragontongue was adopted by the shamans.

The transdimensional Fain wanted to use Earth as a hatching ground for the dragons (which they revered). Fain were on Earth at the dawn of Homo sapiens. The link between the Fain’s home and Earth broke, leaving many Fain like Gwilanna stranded. When a Fain enters a being, it is known as ‘commingling’. A group of bad Fain want all dragons to die.

The bad Fain pierce David’s heart with a spear of ice. This means icefire goes straight for David’s heart. This is only relevant in this book because it’s David death but the implications are far-reaching for later in the series.

Arthur had dark hair, blue eyes and was ‘Handsome in a bookish kind of way – like you.’ This is a link to the idea that David should have been Arthur and Liz’s child, as seen later in the series.

 

The humour was brilliant as always.

            Russ wears a cowboy hat. The idea of a cowboy (people who usually live in hot places) in the Arctic tickles me pink.

            David goes bright red because Russ walks in on him snogging Zanna. For a twenty year-old that’s rather sweet.

Henry says God created everything. When David asks, ‘Even me?’ Henry says, ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

Liz asks if the bump is hideous. David response? ‘Compared to a rhino? No.’ Golden.

 

There were a few writing mistakes.

David quotes a line from his story but quotation marks aren’t used.

Early in the book, dragons speak in italics but from page 123 onwards, dragons speak with speech marks. This lacks consistency. It’s particularly obvious in one chapter where Gadzooks switches between italics and speech marks.

About Got, David asks if Henry ‘believes in him.’ Should be ‘Him’.

At the end of one chapter, it says that Liz will tell David the meaning of the name ‘Arthur’. But then she explains in the very next chapter so this was pointless.

Three months pass in the space of three and a bit pages. If it was so important for the start of the story to be when it was and for the end events to be when they are, at least do something in that time span. At least do something with that time span. Otherwise shorten the gap.

There was one hundred and four pages of back-to-back monk perspective. This section of the book was tedious, to be honest. Just knowing it’s there makes me reluctant to open the book. Interspacing it with other perspectives would have broken it up and thus remove the tediousness.

Russ says, ‘Jeez, what’s a bear doing here at this time of year.’ Jeez, what’s a question doing without a question mark?

 

There were a few instances where the plot was underwhelming because it wasn’t thought through well.

About Gwilanna, Zanna ‘now knows she’s related to her.’ How? Just because you have powers doesn’t mean you descend from a historical person who did. Her reasoning behind her assumption is faulty, a fact that doesn’t change whether she’s right or wrong.

David’s ice samples from the Arctic predict a massive rise in ice temperature in the coming weeks. But how can ice samples, which formed in the past, predict the future? The rise is because dragons are coming and there’s no way the ice would know that. Unless it’s the firetear reacting to dragons coming? This all needs serious clarification.

David clicks his fingers at Gwillan (this rudeness made me dislike David). Somehow Gwillan knows to put the lights on? It wasn’t in the conversation or part of the gesture or even implicit in the situation so how Gwillan knows is beyond me.

In the past, Arthur got an engagement ring for Liz. Yet the pair never did more than hold hands. The gap between the two seems like a massive leap.

Fain usually travel by thoughts so being inside a physical being is cumbersome. This is a nice detail. But if the Fain hated it so much, and they’d just change host after travelling anyway, why travel inside a body when you don’t need to?

At the end, the spirit of Ragnar comes when someone speaks about icefire in front of the tooth. Firstly, they’ve spoken about icefire in front of the tooth before so what’s so important about now? Secondly, at this point the tooth had sunk into the ocean so it wouldn’t be anywhere near them.

 

The amount of negative points I’ve noticed is upsetting. It’s unnerving that critiquing one of my favourite childhood series is lowering my opinion on them.

When Ingavar speaks to the shapeshifter, he says, ‘Nurr. Girl. Ingavar, how know?’ Ingavar doesn’t speak like this to anyone ever again. So it’s completely out of place.

When he’s excited, David presses ‘his fingertips together in excitement.’ Unless you’re an evil mastermind in a children’s cartoon, or you’re thinking, this pose is simply ridiculous.

David’s disappointed that there’s no native architecture in the town. Considering there aren’t many rocks or trees in the arctic, what exactly is he expecting ‘native architecture’ to be? Further, the architecture of colonised areas is often the style of the colonisers.

Liz says that Gretel was released. No. Gretel was given the items to escape.

After Lucy’s abducted, Liz tells David, ‘I want her back as much as you do.’ Considering she’s your daughter, I’d hope you’d want her back a lot more than David!

David’s jeans cost a lot more than Henry’s £30 trousers. But David is a poor student who’s always behind on rent!

When he was a child, Bernard stole sweets which is when he ‘turned away from righteousness... his parents.’ Surely that’s a little dramatic.

Lucy, waking up next to a polar bear after three months, notes the ‘stench of animal faeces.’ But bears eat dense material before they hibernate to block up their digestion tract. That is, they’re unable to defecate whilst hibernating. So if Lucy smelt faeces, it could only be her own.

Bonnington transforms into a tiger with sabre teeth. If it has sabre teeth it’s not a tiger.

 

There are two truly clever bits.

When a blizzard comes, ‘The blue sky turned by pieces to white.’

By using icefire (which animates), Bonnington’s cancer (which grows so is full of potential) and Golly (a healer), the dragons manage to bring Grockle out of stasis.

 

The addition of sci-fi elements (the Fain) felt almost out of place. The author did just enough to make it seem plausible but its place wasn’t as solid as it could have been. Still, its place in the world-building was interesting. To mix sci-fi and magic so boldly is rarely done so I have to give the author credit for that. The plot was lacking: once again world-building took precedence over plot rather than world-building driving the plot.