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The Dragon Keeper   作者：Robin Hobb   出版日期：2011 / 04 / 29   出版社：HarperCollins   ISBN : 9780007290253   原價：NT 378 元   售價：NT 303 元 特價：NT 189元

內容簡介

Return to the world of the Liveships Traders and journey along the Rain Wild River in this standalone adventure from the author of the internationally acclaimed Farseer trilogy. Guided by the great blue dragon Tintaglia, they came from the sea: a Tangle of serpents fighting their way up the Rain Wilds River, the first to make the perilous journey to the cocooning grounds in generations. Many have died along the way. With its acid waters and impenetrable forest, it is a hard place for any to survive. People are changed by the Rain Wilds, subtly or otherwise. One such is Thymara. Born with black claws and other aberrations, she should have been exposed at birth. But her father saved her and her mother has never forgiven him. Like everyone else, Thymara is fascinated by the return of dragons: it is as if they symbolise the return of hope to their war-torn world. Leftrin, captain of the liveship Tarman, also has an interest in the hatching; as does Bingtown newlywed, Alise Finbok, who has made it her life's work to study all there is to know of dragons. But the creatures which emerge from the cocoons are a travesty of the powerful, shining dragons of old. Stunted and deformed, they cannot fly; some seem witless and bestial. Soon, they become a danger and a burden to the Rain Wilders: something must be done. The dragons claim an ancestral memory of a fabled Elderling city far upriver: perhaps there the dragons will find their true home. But Kelsingra appears on no maps and they cannot get there on their own: a band of dragon keepers, hunters and chroniclers must attend them. To be a dragon keeper is a dangerous job: their charges are vicious and unpredictable, and there are many unknown perils on the journey to a city which may not even exist...

在藍色巨龍廷潭哥尼亞的引導下，他們從海中而來， 一路上排除萬難，力爭向雨野河上游挺進。這是多年以來他們首次發動的以作繭地為目的地的征途。他們之中許多都在旅途中喪生。腐蝕性的河水，茂密的叢林，這個不是一個適合生存的地方。人類因雨野河而或多或少地發生改變。泰美雅就是其中的一員，她出生時，身上長著黑色的爪子以及其它類型的畸變。本應在一出生時就應將這些異常公佈於眾，而泰美雅的父親卻隱瞞下來。對此，其母親始終無法釋懷。泰美雅也和其他人一樣，對龍的回歸著迷。