City of Speed
City of Speed
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Publisher's Hardcover ©2022--
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Just the Series: Battle Dragons Vol. 2   

Series and Publisher: Battle Dragons   

Annotation: "In the city of Drakopolis, dragons and humans have co-existed for centuries. Dragons burn the city's garbage, taxi its busy citizens from place to place, and even compete in vicious underground battles for ganglike kins. But the dragons also compete in legal sports, like the spectacular aerial races that draw in cheering crowds by the tens of thousands. Abel is at just such a race when he witnesses the unthinkable. A long-shot competitor pulls off an impossible win--then flies into a destructive rage! Someone in the city is experimenting on dragons: hacking their DNA, rebuilding their bodies, and breaking their minds. Who could be
 
Reviews: 1
Catalog Number: #319438
Format: Publisher's Hardcover
Copyright Date: 2022
Edition Date: 2022 Release Date: 08/02/22
Pages: 263 pages
ISBN: 1-338-71657-3
ISBN 13: 978-1-338-71657-3
Dewey: Fic
Dimensions: 22 cm.
Language: English
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews

When cyborg dragons threaten Drakopolis, dragon racer Abel must find a way to save both it and them.As in the series opener, it's cops vs. criminal gangs both in the sprawling, corrupt city and in 13-year-old Abel's family, where his older brother, Silas, works for the Dragon's Eye secret police and his big sister, Lina, is a fugitive member of the politically subversive Sky Knights kin. He himself only wants to train and race dragons-particularly after meeting Brazza, an illegal mixed-breed flyer of touchy disposition and astonishing intelligence. While the plot does indeed feature two breathtaking, high-speed aerial races among the skyscrapers and a massive climactic melee featuring hundreds of maddened dragons with cybernetic enhancements and hacked DNA, it's more than just a pretext for set piece battles, as London also perceptively explores both the dynamics of a close family beset with conflicting loyalties and issues tied to subjugating and experimenting on wild creatures who don't talk but can, it turns out, sing and who, in Abel's view at least, are deserving of freedom. Lighter touches, such as 8-ton Brazza's fondness for being read to and occasional mentions of an anarchistic kin dubbed the Wind Breakers, leaven the proceedings. The human cast, though it presents largely White, does include one nonbinary supporting character, a boy who has a dragon queen act, and glancing mention of same-sex crushes.Breathless action, lots of dragons, and chewy themes to boot. (Fantasy. 9-13)

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Kirkus Reviews
Word Count: 66,691
Reading Level: 5.4
Interest Level: 4-7
Accelerated Reader: reading level: 5.4 / points: 10.0 / quiz: 517506 / grade: Middle Grades

In a modern mega-city built around dragons, one boy gets caught up in the world of underground dragon battles and a high-stakes gang war that could tear his family apart.

In the city of Drakopolis, dragons and humans have co-existed for centuries. Dragons burn the city's garbage, taxi its busy citizens from place to place, and even compete in vicious underground battles for ganglike kins.

But the dragons also compete in legal sports, like the spectacular aerial races that draw in cheering crowds by the tens of thousands.

Abel is at just such a race when he witnesses the unthinkable. A long-shot competitor pulls off an impossible win -- then flies into a destructive rage! Someone in the city is experimenting on dragons: hacking their DNA, rebuilding their bodies, and breaking their minds. Who could be driving the dragons berserk?

Abel must find out who's behind the experiments and put a stop to them, and to do so hell infiltrate the kins underground street races on a long-shot dragon of his own. But with his sister working for a kin, his brother serving the city's secret police, and a bully at school racing for Abel's worst enemies, will Abel find any safety past the finish line?


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