Let me start by giving you a ‘heads up’. Traakenholt is part of something much bigger.

About 25 years ago I set myself the task of creating a space opera / hard science / hard fantasy saga with the working title the ‘Orb’. My ‘higher’ goals in this project were to challenge pre-conceptions about such things as the fabric of space and time or the nature of intelligence. At the same time, my ‘base’ objective was to have a lot of fun creating multidimensional characters and then following their dynamic development as they interact and interweave with each other.

This is a very complex project. It has taken me a lot of time and planning to achieve coherency across the wide variety of settings and characters involved. However, my biggest difficulty was in identifying a meaningful point at which to enter.

‘Traakenholt’ is this entry point. It lays the foundations for the ’The First and Final Dragon’ epic which in turn plays a pivotal role within the ‘Orb’ saga as a whole. Starting in ‘Traakenholt’ and throughout the rest of the ’The First and Final Dragon’ we shall discover the answers to questions like:

Where did Dragons originally come from?

How are they born and what happens when they die?

Why are their fewer Dragons now than in the past?

Can Dragons really fly and breathe fire?

Where do Dragon Masters and Dragon Slayers fit into all of this?

‘Traakenholt’ is set in a distant time and place where two unwitting fisher sons rise from a dull back country existence to a celebrated life as great dragon slaying heroes. Driven by their guilt over a terrible mistake, the story arc follows their stumbling career from a disastrous initiation into the underlying Dragonlore of this realm to a shattering final bloody confrontation.

I very very much hope that you have as much fun reading it as I am having writing it, so please please please give me lots of feedback.