I picked this book because I needed my "dragon" spot filled on the reading bingo. I asked a friend which dragon book I should read and she said this one. You could make a case that Draycos is not really a dragon because he’s an alien. But it’s in the title! And Jack calls him a dragon more than once. Draycos is a symbiotic alien, he can’t live apart from his host for more than a few hours. But he will help and defend that host using all of his skill as a warrior. He can also got through walls using some barely-explained dimensional shifting. Draycos is on a mission to save his people from their enemies, but when the refugees make it to our end of the galaxy, the enemies are waiting for them. Draycos has no choice but to escape with a human kid, Jack. Jack’s a thief, or at least he was a thief. Now he’s trying to be legal, but he was framed for a theft he didn’t do. So he’s avoiding authorities tip this all blows over. Not the best situation for rallying people to save the symbiotic dragons.Anyway, when I started this book I was a little disappointed. The thief kid, Jack, was reformed. No more high stakes scams! The plot didn’t really grab me til about 1/3 of the way through. Draycos is now living on Jack’s skin like an animated tattoo. Jack is using his conman skills to clear his name. Then we get to the main conflict: Jack has to steal a thing from a vault on a space cruise ship, using just his wits and multitool. It’s like the Italian job in space with a dragon and a kid. Now, this is the kind of adventure I signed up for!The plot has appropriate twists and reveals. The concept of symbiotic dragons is cool. While Jack is a great name for a hero, I thought he was a weird mixture of too mature and not grownup at all. I guess that’s what happens when you grow up training to be a conman and then live by yourself for a while. The book is clearly written for a younger audience than me, and it took a while for the story to get going, in my opinion. But the book was short enough that the beginning was slow only in comparison to the rest of the book. In the end it was worth it and I’ll probably pick up the next books sometime.
When I found Dragon and Thief on goodreads, I saved it to my to-read list simply because it had "dragon" and "thief" in the title. I was winding down on my "thief" streak, and ready for a new binge - which turned out to be "dragon"s. (I am slightly obsessive with certain trends until their hold on me weakens; then, unless they are very good, I forget about them until years later). The Dragonback series was the most fabulous start to any streak I have ever had. What's really good about the Dragonback series is the way Draycos and Jack have such an amazing relationship. Right from the beginning, they just fit together - the reason for that is in the last book, Dragon and Liberator. Of course, though, nothing must ever go right - there must be a thorn in their side somewhere. This thorn presents itself in unhelpful, snide, manipulative, somewhat likable and grudging Uncle Virge, who tried at every opportunity to break apart Jack's friendship with his dragon-friend and ship said dragon off to the local police force along with the huge, bulky problem the dragon lugs along with him, all nicely wrapped and tied off with a lovely bow.What does Jack say? Why, no, of course. Or there wouldn't be more than fifty pages in total (this is an approximation). Anyway, you don't really get to Draycos' problem until Dragon and Slave, the second book. This first book is no less readable, though - in fact, it's even more amazing because it's your first taste of Draycos and Jack, and they always aim to please, yes?Granted, the description is weird. And grammatically incorrect on so many levels. And it doesn't even tell you what the book is about properly. It's as if whoever wrote it decided to give us the important details and let us figure it out all on our own. I almost passed by the entire series because of that, honestly. I didn't, though, and IT WAS WORTH IT. Every. Single. Word.Ah, I'm halfway through Dragon and Judge, so I bid thee farewell and good luck and well met. I hope you can find your way to the Dragonback friends on your own, though; methinks I'll be a little too busy reading.
What do You think about Dragon And Thief (2004)?
A dragon-like warrior who requires a host to live more than six hours, fleeing the massacre of his people, finds a new host and a new set of problems in teenaged Jack Morgan, who has been educated to be a thief but doesn't like the job. Jack and his con man and thief Uncle Virgil were fleeing their enemies when Uncle Virgil died. That's when Draycos, escaping the ruins of his ship and his dead host, finds Jack. Now the two of them are fleeing people who will stop at nothing to find Uncle Virgil, alive--including torture Jack. Now Jack, with Draycos's help, has to pull off one of Uncle Virgil's trickiest robberies--against their part of the galaxy's most powerful businessmen!I'd recommend this not only for science fiction fans, but particularly for people looking for reading for boys. Jack is an intrepid kid, and a dragon who can transform himself to a tattoo-like ride-along is just too cool for words!
—Tamora Pierce
I think I read that this is suppose to be a teen series. Other than only being 250 pages, and the protagonist being 14, I don't know why that would be. Zahn rarely uses swearing and other "adult" content, so that "lack" doesn't seem to contribute either.Regardless, I enjoyed the book. It starts a little slow, but the typical good writing of Zahn prevails, plus this has a fast, satisfying, better than you're usual Zahn ending.There were two problems/objectives and only one of them resolves. It is a series: the second objective/problem will resolve in the next book and new issues will come up, or it'll dangle out across several. I'll read the next one and find out . . .Note that I almost didn't read it because the word "dragon" conjures up the idea of "fantasy," which I do not like. This is Science Fiction all the way. The word dragon is used descriptively, of the alien's looks that the 14 year old encounters (and granted, SF can have dragons).
—Jim
This book delivered on its promise to be a page turner. There is plenty to keep the series going in the plot of this, the first in a series of six books. The two main characters are a K'da poet-warrior from a different arm of the galaxy spiral and a former thief bent on reformation. I look forward to the development of their symbiotic relationship and the emotional and moral changes in the thief due to the influence of the K'da. Oh, and in the mix is an uncle with a different philosophy of life that he keeps trying to impose in his nephew. Oh, yeah, I won't walk away from this series till I know how it turns out! I can happily recommend it to my elementary readers.
—Miz Lee
