The Dragon, the Earl, and the Troll
core novel 1994 The Dragon Knight
Record
| First published | 1994 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.83 (859 ratings, collected 2026-09-05) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780441002825 |
| Internal chronology | 5 |
Synopsis
Jim and Angie are invited to spend Christmas at the castle of the Earl of Somerset, a visit that quickly turns into a tangle of overlapping crises that Jim's magical mentor Carolinus expects him to resolve. Angie's wish to adopt an orphaned child complicates Jim's private hope of eventually finding a way back to the modern world, while an ancient, eighteen-hundred-year-old castle troll lodges an urgent complaint about a rival troll trying to infiltrate its territory. Beyond the castle walls, a mysterious troll army begins gathering, local dragons expect to be admitted to the holiday festivities, and a higher-ranking wizard arrives to challenge Jim's competence as a magician. Caught between hospitality, household politics, and looming supernatural danger, Jim must sort out which crisis actually needs his attention first.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Dragon Knight
- Series: The Dragon Knight core; position 5 of 9 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Gordon R. Dickson
Notes
- From the series record (The Dragon Knight): Nine-novel portal-fantasy series (1976-2000) about Jim Eckert, a modern graduate student pulled into a parallel fantasy world and transformed into a dragon, who must navigate a mixed cast of dragons, knights and magical creatures to rescue his fiancee. Opened with a British Fantasy Award-winning novel expanded from a 1957 short story; completed with the ninth volume in 2000, before Dickson's death in 2001, no further installments planned or announced.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Dragon Knight: position 5 of 9: previous The Dragon at War (1992) · next The Dragon and the Djinn (1996)
Sources
- Dragon Knight (novel series) - Wikipedia
- Gordon R. Dickson - Order of Books
- https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/gordon-r-dickson/the-dragon-the-earl-and-the-troll/
← The Dragon Knight dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.