Dragon of the Lost Sea
First edition
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| Author | Laurence Yep |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Green Darkness |
| Cover artist | David Wiesner |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Dragon |
| Genre | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Harper & Row |
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Publication date
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1982 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback, Paperback), audio cassette |
| Pages | 213 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 8386889 |
| LC Class | PZ7.Y44 Dq 1982 |
| Preceded by | N/A |
| Followed by | Dragon Steel (1985) |
Dragon of the Lost Sea is a fantasy novel by Chinese-American author Laurence Yep. It was first published in 1982 and is the first book in his Dragon series. Having already written several books, Yep had wanted to adapt Chinese mythology into a fantasy form for some time, and began writing the story in 1980 after undertaking careful research. He had originally intended to adapt a Chinese folktale in which the Monkey King captured a river spirit who had flooded an entire city, which he at first tried to conceive in picture book form.
However, he kept questioning the motivations of the river spirit, who he had renamed Civet. As his outline ballooned exponentially from eight to 800 pages in an attempt to do so, he realized that he would need a series as opposed to just one book to tell her story. Dragon of the Lost Sea, the first book in this series, was originally titled The Green Darkness after Civet's forest home. In a 2002 interview, Yep states that "toward the end of the book I introduced two minor characters, a dragon and her pet boy, who became such vivid characters for me that I finally realized that the story had to be about them" He then "had to tear up almost everything and rebuilt the story" around the two.
The plot centers on an exiled dragon princess named Shimmer, who undertakes a quest to restore her homeland, the Inland Sea, which is now known as the Lost Sea after its waters were sealed up in the form of a blue pebble by a powerful witch named Civet. She gains an unlikely ally in the form of a young, orphaned human teenager named Thorn. Yep wrote Dragon of the Lost Sea at the same time he wrote The Mark Twain Murders as he frequently writes several books simultaneously, but in different genres as he often gets writer's block.
Shimmer, an exiled dragon princess traveling incognito in human form, senses powerful magic emanating from a small village. Investigating its source, she determines that it is the witch Civet, who sealed up the waters of her homeland, the Inland Sea, centuries ago in the form of a blue pebble, now making it known as the Lost Sea. Civet is staying at a local inn in disguise. Shimmer soon encounters a young, orphaned kitchen servant named Thorn who is being harassed by the local children because he claims to have seen the mythical Unicorn, one of the Five Masters. Supporting him, Shimmer is defended by Thorn when the children are about to turn on her, earning a beating from his master the innkeeper. She visits Thorn at the inn out of gratitude, and accepts his offer of a meal and a place to stay for the night, having never met with such hospitality during all her years of exile. Later that night, she saves Thorn from an attack by one of Civet's servants, an enchanted paper warrior sent to kill him because of his purported Unicorn sighting. The two are forced to flee the village after Shimmer defends Thorn against his master. To escape, Shimmer uses the dream pearl, a treasure which she was exiled for supposedly stealing hundreds of years ago, to change into her true form as a dragon in order fly away with Thorn.
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Wikipedia