The Word

When fellow student John Foremile turns up at his flat on a rain-sodden winter’s night, former Merchant Navy Captain Rex Slingsby thinks he’s in for just another boozy night down the pub. John, however, has come laden with a package of ancient-looking manuscripts, and Rex is soon engrossed in reading an outlandish tale of a powerful, benevolent race of Dragons and of the human wizards hell-bent on destroying them.

Incredulous at first, the two friends quickly find themselves embroiled in an epic quest to rescue a fertile dragon’s egg, hidden over a thousand years before in a remote cave by its desperate mother. Pitted against them is a motley crew of 12-foot Trolls, hellish hounds, and power-crazed Mafioso wizards, all of whom, it seems, will stop at nothing to bring Rex and John’s quest to a premature and deadly end.

There Be Dragons, book one of The Word trilogy, introduces a brilliantly imagined and often disconcerting universe, sweeping listeners breathlessly along from cosy bachelor pads to desolate Welsh mountainsides; from state-of-the-art yachts to mind boggling planets thousands of light years away.