The Dragon Lords: Fool's Gold

Hollins's seat-of-the-pants fantasy comedy snowballs wildly into a glorious disaster of fire, magic, multiple threats to people's intestines, and fun%E2%80%94for the reader, if not the characters. Will Fallows's only ambition is to hold on to the farm he inherited from his parents, an unlikely goal considering the high taxes demanded by Mattrax the dragon. Mattrax's soldiers kick Will out and he ends up in the company of mercenary Lette; her partner, the eight-foot-tall barbarian lizard man Balur; the dragon-specializing scholar Quirk, who is trying to leave behind her magic heritage; and Will's former farmhand, the delusional Firkin. Among them they hatch a plan to get rich and take revenge by robbing dragon gold. Their mishap-ridden accidental successes, advertised by Firkin's ranting about a dragon-killing "prophet," spark religious fervor and a war with the surviving dragons. Will and his motley companions might have a slim chance of living another day through if they throw themselves into the fray headfirst%E2%80%94and don't kill one another. Their constant stumbles and suffering will be a dragon's hoard for any fan of comic fantasy. Agent: Howard Morhaim, Howard Morhaim Literary. (July)