RISE OF THE DRAGONS

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.