A Wreck of Dragons

Action-Packed and Thought-Provoking

This review was first published on Kurt's Frontier.

Synopsis:

Two hundred years ago, the Climate Wars left Earth uninhabitable. Now, teenage orphans and their giant robots scour the galaxy in search of a new home for humanity. Johari’s team and their robot companions explore their best hope for a new home but discover it belongs to dragons and salamanders. One scout and his bot go down in a hostile environment and the team fragments. Johari must find a way to save them but discovers the dragons and salamanders have complex behavior, showing intelligence. When the Fleet abandons the founding principles that require a world to have no intelligent life, they may abandon their humanity. Johari must find a way to save his friends, the native sentient life on the planet, Tranquility, and not get executed as a traitor.

Review:

A Wreck of Dragons is world-building at its best. Elaine Isaac (also known as E. Chris Ambrose) takes her audience on a wild ride in sentient robot suits. The remains of humanity have been searching for a new home for over 200 years, sending out teams of orphan teenagers in their giant robots to scout planets that might be suitable for human life. One of the founding rules of this quest is that they do not colonize a world with intelligent life on it. The current leaders of the Fleet are prepared to abandon this requirement. When Johari and his team stumble on a world they call Tranquility, they discover flying dragons and sea monsters. When they exhibit complex behavior indicating intelligence, the leaders of the Fleet decide to exterminate them.

Elaine Isaac brings together creative world-building and new ways of looking at what civilization means. The result is an action-packed, thought-provoking story.