The Fire Within discussion

This contains spoilers, as can be expected in any thread talking about a series.

I read the first four books of this series a few years ago in elementary school. I thought they were fine. When I joined Goodreads and found out that there were more books, I decided to reread the series and finish it. Here's my impressions.

Book 1: Eh, pretty good. Though if there could be less squirrels and more dragons, that'd be great.
Book 2: Ooookay. This got a little weird. I guess I can stomach it, though.
Book 3: Wait, what? Bears? What do bears have to do with anything? I don't want to read about bears, I just want to read about little clay dragons!
Book 4: Um...Not totally sure what's going on here, but it's really strange.

I reread all of those books, but everything afterwards was new to me. I just finished the fifth book, "Dark Fire". Here's my impression of that book: *Sigh...* I don't even...I mean, come on, Gwillan, darklings, possessed ravens, other dragons in stasis, Alexa, Bella, unicorns, really?

Why? This doesn't need to happen. This could have been a cute little series about the the misadventures of clay dragons who come to life. Instead it's about gargoyles, pan-dimensional beings, and "spiritual reawakening". What could have been something to smile innocently at has become an object of horror and confusion.

I think Chris D'Lacey's fault is this: He didn't plan out the series. Instead, he just wrote it as it came. This left the series feeling random and haphazard. Perhaps there's some underlying logic, but for the life of me, I can't figure it out. You might wonder why I think this. Consider this excerpt from the introduction: "Everyone at Orchid Books, both here and overseas, knows how much I value their support for this long, ongoing 'organic' project." "Organic"...You mean unscripted and unplanned? Yeah, that might be it.

I will not say this is the worse series I have ever read. (That honor goes to "The Dragonriders of Pern", which started out with a really good book, but then proceeded to fail at the next 30 or so.) This is, however, one of the few series that I will not finish, even though the next two books are already in my possession.

Alright, I'm done ranting. Your thoughts?

You basically just described by experiences with this series...

I read the first three books when I was quite young (8-9) and loved them. Then I read the other four books when I was around 11 and enjoyed them to a point, but definitely felt that the plot was a little... disjointed.

I honestly think he wrote the first book as a self-contained novel. Then he wrote the next two books when he wanted to explore the world a little. Then the rest he just made up in order to confuse everyone.

I've just looked at the star ratings I gave for these books and I should make it clear that they are retrospective ratings - based on my memories from over 8 years ago. If I re-read them now, after years of reading and studying the fantasy genre, I'm sure most of the books in this series would be VERY lucky to get three stars.

P.S. If you don’t want to read the last two books then that’s your choice, but it seems a shame to read only five books in a seven book series (although I can’t promise the last two make any more sense). Especially since neither are particularly long.

I kept reading this series much like the Eragon series, and I had a similar experience.

It seemed like the story, as the books went on, were building up to some revelation or huge plot explanation that would give the characters a DIRECTION to go into. But each book just seemed like a series of tasks with the plot happening in the middle. These books I found unsatisfying, overburdened with technical details and myth stuff, and too little emphasis on actual dragons.

Everything seemed random and unconnected with little character development and an overall "fate" ish story that wasn't fun and somewhat dark. I'm done reading these books, but I'm still a little curious. It was just too boring, not fun, random, and unsatisfying. An author should make his books interesting and have some sort of sense. This one didn't.

I just finished reading the first book. Judging from the comments above, I get the impression that the rest of the series is as dull as The Fire Within. I'll pass on the rest of the series.