I'm sorry to say that, other than trolling for short stories in anthologies, I've exhausted all of Jonathan Stroud's U.S.-available works. Like Garth Nix, Stroud writes young adult fantasy young adult horror underpinnings. Buried Fire is no exception. Overtly a story about dragons and the powers they bestow, it quickly reveals its preoccupation with the unspoken underside--under ground, lost in history, evil, and unconscious. the protagonist, Michael, is as problematic as the protagonist of the Bartimaeus Trilogy; that is, he's an adolescent. Less subtle but more complex than The Leap, it is most similar to The Last Siege, which remains the best of these three. ( )

This was kind of a drone. Nothing really exciting ever happens and it seems all from the wrong point of view. ( )

In Buried Fire, a boy is given the 4 gifts of a sleeping dragon, with the expectation that he will serve its evil cause. It was a cute story, but had some rather strong language for a children's book. I'm sure kids DO talk that way, but that doesn't mean we should encourage them in books! ( )

Drachenglut hat mir nicht gefallen.
Schon der Einstieg war schwierig. Die Geschichte hätte eigentlich das Zeug dazu spannend zu sein. Die Entwicklung der Geschichte ist mir aber zu sprunghaft und zu wenig ausgefeilt. Die Personen sind blass und haben kein Leben. Sie wirken eigentlich nur als "Füllmaterial" für die Geschichte.
Das Ende der Geschichte wirkt, wie wenn der Autor nicht mehr an seine Geschichte geglaubt hat und froh war das Projekt abschliessen zu können.
Das Buch wäre eigentlich gut vorgelesen, wenn ich mir nicht schon alle 7 Harry Potter Bücher von Rufus Beck hätte vorlesen lassen. So errinerte mich die Geschichte allzu oft an HP, ohne allerdings diese auch nur annähernd zu erreichen. ( )

I must say I was very disappointed. I like young adult books, I like Jonathan Stroud, I love books about Welsh mythology. But somehow, this book just didn't work.

My biggest problem was that there is absolutely no character development. I understand that young adult books aren't supposed to be heavy on the psychology, but it literally took me half the book to be able to distinguish the two main characters. Even after that, I still could not muster up any kind of sympathy for either of them. One of the themes of the book is characterizing people's souls as animals, but how is that supposed to have any meaning to me if I have no idea who these people are?

I also noticed a lot of similarities in the ending between this book and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. They were both published in 1999 so I don't really know what's going on with that. I totally approve of writing with influences or ideas from other authors, but the ending of this book just felt really tired and predictable. ( )