The mission to republish my backlist just took an exciting step towards completion, with the publication of this brand new edition of Dragonstorm, the second novel in The Ultimate Dragon Saga trilogy. First published by HarperCollins in 1996, this fantasy adventure is now available from Amazon worldwide in paperback and for Kindle.
Dragonstorm continues the adventures of Fortune, Cumber and the rest of the dragons introduced in my first novel, Dragoncharm. Here’s the blurb:
Before man, there was magic. And where there was magic, there were dragons.
Charm has departed, leaving nature to resculpt the world. As strange new creatures emerge from the soil, a cataclysmic storm hurls Fortune, Cumber and their dragon companions on a desperate quest to rescue not only the lost survivors of Aether’s Cross, but also the most vulnerable of their number – Fortune’s newly hatched daughter, Aria.
Along the way they meet Archan, the most powerful and ambitious dragon they have ever encountered, whose motivations may not be as pure as they seem. Meanwhile the six immortal basilisks are gathering for a ritual that will trigger the last great outburst of charm this world will ever see.
The deathless are gathering …
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The text for this new edition is pretty much identical to the original HarperCollins paperback, with just a few minor tweaks for clarity and continuity. I’ve written a new afterword, outlining some of the background to writing the novel, and reflecting on the result with the benefit of nearly 30 years’ hindsight. Here’s an extract:
While writing my first novel, Dragoncharm, I never once contemplated writing a sequel, much less expanding it into a trilogy. However, when the opportunity arose, I jumped at the chance. But where to take the story next? At the end of Dragoncharm, the dragons are left reeling from the effects of the ‘turning of the world,’ the cataclysmic event marking the moment when the magic goes away. With charm gone, was there anything meaningful left for them to do?
I quickly realised the answer lay in something the old dragon Mantle says to Fortune near the end of Dragoncharm:
“Charm lingers … a sliver here, a spell there … Imagine a shore strewn with rock-pools left by a retreating tide: many will evaporate but just as many will remain deep, deep enough to survive until the tide returns … Beware the abandoned magic, Fortune; it would yet see all dragons destroyed.”
That got me wondering how dragons would treat these left-over pools of abandoned charm. Many would heed Mantle’s warning and give them a wide berth. Others would regard them as a precious commodity. Some might believe they promise a way to recapture the power they once held – although the promise would be a false one. Factions would rise, with the inevitable conflict playing out against the background of a newborn natural world.
A newborn world? How would the birth pains of an entire planet manifest themselves? The answer was obvious: a storm. The dramatic possibilities of natural disaster are too good to pass up (and, yes, echoes here of the Biblical flood are deliberate), but I also saw an opportunity to introduce moments of beauty, as natural animals we might recognise are spawned from the chaos.
While publishing this new edition of Dragonstorm, I took the opportunity to reformat the Dragoncharm ebook, to bring the two in line in terms of design. If you own a copy of the latter, you’ll notice a slight change to the way the text looks. However, the content remains unchanged. Now, all that remains is for me to complete work on the final book of the trilogy, Dragonflame. I’m aiming to finish that by the end of 2023, at which point I’ll have all six of my early novels back in print.
Graham Edwards 
It’s wonderful to have one of my all time favourite books on my kindle. Can’t wait for the final instalment!
Thanks, Louise! Look out for Dragonflame coming later in the year.
This is so wonderful. Can’t wait for Dragonflame again.