New Treasures: Daughter of the Serpentine by E. E. Knight
 |
 |
Novice Dragoneer and Daughter of the Serpentine (Ace Books). Covers by Dan Burgess
Happy Book Birthday to Daughter of the Serpentine, the second volume in E. E. Knight’s hugely popular Dragoneer Academy series!
Eric, of course, needs no introduction to Black Gate readers — his 11-volume Vampire Earth series and his six-volume Age of Fire epic are both perennial favorites in our offices, and Eric’s also a regular blogger for us. And I was very proud to publish his Blue Pilgrim tale “The Terror in the Vale,” one of the very best stories in our Black Gate Online Fiction library.
The opening volume in his new series, Novice Dragoneer, was published last year to wide acclaim. The Bibliosanctum called it “Delightfully entertaining,” and Booklist proclaimed it “An excellent fantasy coming of age story.” Anticipation for the second book has been through the roof, and it looks like the wait was worth it — check out this snippet from the rave review at Library Journal.
Knight (Age of Fire series) continues the story of Ileth, a teen who comes from nothing and strives to fulfill her childhood dream of becoming a dragonrider in the Serpentine academy. Ileth has matured since the first book and takes on new challenges, such as balancing two apprenticeships; one as a dragonrider and the other as a dancer. As she rises in rank, enemies threaten the republic, forcing her to take charge of her future sooner than she anticipated. Knight creates a marvelous character study of a young woman within the walls of a mostly male-dominated world… VERDICT: Highly recommended… Start with the first in the series or just dive right into this perfect adventure tale.
Daughter of the Serpentine was published today by Ace Books. It is 496 pages, priced at $16.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Dan Burgess. Read an excerpt here. See all our coverage of the latest releases by BG Staff here.
Congrats on the launch of a new series, Eric! (Ditto: your critical raves: overwhelmingly positive at present.) I well know how meticulous you are re: world-building, and how those carefully considered details will impact both your characters and plot. (And as ever, I pay you the bemused compliment I proffer to all accomplished practitioners of the ‘long form’: “But . . . but . . . how do you hold all those details in your head?!” Heh!)
Today is it’s publication day, and it’s due to arrive at my door by 5:00. Later today I’m going to start re-reading the first book, then go straight in to this.
You know I was thinking of doing a “E.E. Knight interview E.E. Knight” for the page that would be both a sendup of everything from boring author PR stuff to Playboy interviews, and include some fun tidbits about the book, but every time I got a couple paragraphs in it just seemed so smug and self-satisfied I abandoned it.
Thanks for the mention!
And thanks for your usual kind and well-phrased thoughts CER!