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    Talking to Dragons: Book Four of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles
    Unavailable
    Talking to Dragons: Book Four of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles
    Unavailable
    Talking to Dragons: Book Four of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles
    Audiobook6 hours

    Talking to Dragons: Book Four of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles

    Written by Patricia C. Wrede

    Narrated by Full Cast and Words Take Wing Repertory Company

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    "Mother taught me to be polite to dragons."

    Daystar never thought he'd be walking through the Enchanted Forest with a magic sword, a fire-witch, and a baby dragon. He never dreamed his mother, Cimorene, would tell him to leave their home and not to return until his task was complete. Or that he alone held the power to release King Mendanbar and the Enchanted Forest from the wizards' evil spell. He doesn't even know who King Mendanbar is.

    But Daystar learns quickly-and that's good, because he's about to encounter magic and wizards and dragons. Quite a deadly combination.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 23, 2002
    ISBN9780807206409
    Unavailable
    Talking to Dragons: Book Four of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles
    Author

    Patricia C. Wrede

    PATRICIA COLLINS WREDE was born in Chicago, the oldest of five children.  She attended Carleton College in Minnesota, where she majored in biology and managed to avoid taking any English courses.  She began work on her first novel, Shadow Magic (1982), after graduation, though it took her five years to finish it.  Ms. Wrede enjoyed a successful career as a financial analyst, but she always made time to write.  Her published books now total more than a dozen.

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    Reviews for Talking to Dragons

    4/5

    688 ratings25 reviews

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    • 5/5
      On the day when a wizard destroys the front door of their house, Daystar’s mother hands him a sword and tells him not to come home again until he can explain why she sent him away. Questing his way through the Enchanted Forest, Daystar befriends a lizard, a fire witch, and a young dragon, and encounters elves, dwarves, witches, wizards, and many others before his quest is complete and he learns the truth about his extraordinary sword.Not my favorite of the series, but still a very good book, and it does an admirable job of answering the questions left unanswered at the end of the previous book. It’s a good ending to the series, but I never want the series to end — maybe that’s why I don’t love this book best of all?
    • 4/5
      I never seem to enjoy the last book of a series as much as any of the other ones. Cimorene's son, Daystar (stupid name, IMO. What kind of hero has a hippy name?), is on a quest he knows nothing about, with very little guidance to help him out. He doesn't have his mother's spunk, and it seemed to me he kind of bumbled into success, rather than really earned it.
    • 4/5
      I never seem to enjoy the last book of a series as much as any of the other ones. Cimorene's son, Daystar (stupid name, IMO. What kind of hero has a hippy name?), is on a quest he knows nothing about, with very little guidance to help him out. He doesn't have his mother's spunk, and it seemed to me he kind of bumbled into success, rather than really earned it.
    • 4/5
      It's rather different than the first three, but that seems to be because it was written first and about five years before the others. This makes the next-to-last chapter a bit weird to me, but well. Maybe that was, why the first three books were written.
    • 2/5
      Talking to Dragons, fourth in Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, is narrated by Daystar, who has grown up in a peasant's hut with his unusual mother. Cimorene has never told him their story or what happened to his father. One day, after a wizard shows up, Cimorene hands her son a sword and sends him off into the Enchanted Forest with no explanation of his mission. Daystar is a true son of Mendenbar; just like his father he is a passive, inane, and altogether uninteresting character. And hearing the story in his own words doesn't make it any better. Apparently Daystar has been so thoroughly cowed by his intelligent charismatic mysterious skilled enigmatic mother [/feminism!] that he has no personality of his own. The only thing the story really has going for it is the fact that there are fewer inept wizards around to pose an unconvincing threat to our heroes. Hurrah. I really don't understand why this series is fairly popular, and it's not a matter of me being too old to really appreciate it now. I read the series as a child and didn't care for it then. And when a series muffs its second chance, it's not getting a third from me.
    • 3/5
      The last and weakest book of the series, this was a pleasant enough read but was definitely not as original as the first, partly since the plot hinges on a magic sword (rather than a magic frying pan or something equally creative), but also partly because the narrator and protagonist is not terribly interesting. I know in theory why he was made to be so innocent about his destiny, but it meant that the book had a good deal of material that would hold a new reader's attention but was ho-hum for anyone who's already read some of the series. After checking Wikipedia, I now understand that Wrede wrote this book *before* the others in the series -- maybe it could've used more of a rewrite than it got.
    • 4/5
      This is the last book in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Seventeen years have elapsed since the last book and this focuses on Cimorene and King Mendanbar's son Daystar. Daystar has to fight off the wizards and make his way through the enchanted forest to save the king, never knowing why the wizards are after him or his connection to the king.
    • 2/5
      Talking to Dragons, fourth in Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, is narrated by Daystar, who has grown up in a peasant's hut with his unusual mother. Cimorene has never told him their story or what happened to his father. One day, after a wizard shows up, Cimorene hands her son a sword and sends him off into the Enchanted Forest with no explanation of his mission. Daystar is a true son of Mendenbar; just like his father he is a passive, inane, and altogether uninteresting character. And hearing the story in his own words doesn't make it any better. Apparently Daystar has been so thoroughly cowed by his intelligent charismatic mysterious skilled enigmatic mother [/feminism!] that he has no personality of his own. The only thing the story really has going for it is the fact that there are fewer inept wizards around to pose an unconvincing threat to our heroes. Hurrah. I really don't understand why this series is fairly popular, and it's not a matter of me being too old to really appreciate it now. I read the series as a child and didn't care for it then. And when a series muffs its second chance, it's not getting a third from me.
    • 4/5
      Daystar has lived with his mother at the edge of the Enchanted Forest, seeing princes and heroes stop by briefly in their questing. When the wizard Antorell shows up, however, things are a bit different. For one thing, his mother melts Antorell. For another, she goes in to the Forest and comes back with a sword about which she tells him little, just that he has to go in to the forest and figure out why he needs to be there. So Daystar sets out.I really enjoyed the first book in this series, Dealing with Dragons, when I read it several years ago, and finally finished reading the series with this fourth book. Though it had been awhile since I read the others, I had no trouble following this one. In fact, readers who had never read the others may enjoy this one more since, like Daystar, they have very little knowledge of what he needs to do. I had a tough time thinking of Daystar as a believable sixteen-year-old. In addition to being unfailingly polite, just like his mother taught him, he's incredibly naive. I suppose I would be too if I'd lived with my mother at the edge of the forest and didn't really make friends with anybody, but it was a tough hurdle that I never really got over as I read his narration. Shiara, the fire-witch that Daystar meets in his travels, was a fun character that I liked despite, or maybe because of, her temper and willfulness. All in all, the series was a fun one that plays with conventional fantasy tropes, and I would recommend it to upper elementary or middle school fantasy readers.
    • 4/5
      The fourth and final book in a series of anachronistic, faintly parodic fantasy. Very fun, and I definitely enjoyed this one more than the second or third book - I'd say it's almost as good as the first. It resolved (finally!) several plot tangles started in previous books and upgraded the 'bad guys' a bit so they're back to being vaguely menacing instead of completely ridiculous (thank god). Again, I don't entirely like the way Wrede handles romance; I mean, while it's admirable that she's obviously trying to keep things from getting too mushy or bodice-rippery, to me she's taken it too far in the other direction and love seems to pop out of nowhere.
    • 5/5
      book 4 in series (dealing w/dragons; searching for dragons; calling on dragons;
    • 5/5
      This book wasn't as good as the others but it keeps you hanging until the end. Very, very good read.
    • 4/5
      I never seem to enjoy the last book of a series as much as any of the other ones. Cimorene's son, Daystar (stupid name, IMO. What kind of hero has a hippy name?), is on a quest he knows nothing about, with very little guidance to help him out. He doesn't have his mother's spunk, and it seemed to me he kind of bumbled into success, rather than really earned it.
    • 5/5
      The conclusion to the series. Features Daystar, who sets off on a quest to do something or an other, meets a fire witch and a talking squirrel, fights off wizards, and finds out who he really is.
    • 5/5
      everything. I loved everything. it was amazing. I reccomend it to all my friends.
    • 2/5
      The time loop was not explored, not even a little. =(
    • 2/5
      This book really didn't do anything for me, except provide closure for the last book. Loved the first and second books in the series, didn't much are for 3 4 -- not sure if it's me not being in the mood, or just a lack of convincing adventure. Also, Cimorene can get away with teaching her son to be polite to dragons, but not teaching him to dissolve wizards with soapy water? Why not? ergh.
    • 2/5
      I just dont like this book as much as the others in the series. The different narrative form and what I saw as unnecessary and illogical romance were annoying.
    • 3/5
      WHY IS DAYSTAR SO DUMB? this book gets three stars because of the halo effect of the other three books. ALSO! The audible version is read in a way that makes Daystar seem even more dumb, just endlessly surprised by all events.
    • 4/5
      I loved this series, and felt like this book, while it had some issues, was better than the previous one, which was (for me) the weakest of them.

      I do think maybe Daystar was too rational and logical to be an actual teenage boy. I still liked him though, even if he felt a little wooden at times. The fire witch was the standout character, imo.
    • 4/5
      Although Talking to Dragons is the fourth book in Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest chronicles, it was published five years before Ms. Wrede started filling out the back story of our 16 year-old hero, Daystar's, remarkable parents. (I'd wondered how Ms. Wrede could do something so nasty to Cimorene and Mendanbar as to part them from each other for so long some months before Daystar's birth. The three back story books are Dealing With Dragons, Searching for Dragons, and Calling on Dragons, in that order. Daystar and Shiara are okay, but as a hero and heroine they can't begin to compare to Cimorene and Mendanbar. Daystar has been living with his mother in a cottage at the edge of the Enchanted Forest. He may assume he's only a poor boy, but his mother has been teaching him what he'll need to know when he's able to assume his proper station in life. His adventures begin when the wizard Antorell blows up their cottage door. The method Cimorene uses to deal with Antorell is not the same as the one discovered in book one, but after 16 years, we shouldn't be surprised that she found another. Cimorene retrieves a sword readers of the earlier books will recognize at once, buckles it on her confused son, and orders him not to return until he can explain to her why he had to leave. Daystar doesn't argue with her for long. He starts going through the Enchanted Forest as he was told. He meets a talking gold lizard named Suz. Suz tells him his sword is the Sword of the Sleeping King and to follow it, but not as much as Daystar wants to know. Then he meets Shiara the fire-witch.NOTES:Chapter 1: Suz the gold lizard is introduced.Chapter 2: Daystar and Shiara meet.Chapter 3: We learn Shiara's problem.Chapter 5: Morwen enters the scene. She says a helpful spell.Chapter 7: Enjoy the interaction among Daystar, Shiara, and a princess in great distress.Chapter 8: We meet a dragon and a knight.Chapter 10: There's a fully grown fire-witch in this one. Daystar recites another spell his mother taught him.Chapter 11: We have the Peter de Sève cover scene!Chapter 13: Telemain introduces himself to Daystar and Shiara after they come to his home. He says he and Morwen grew up together. He also mentions the unpleasant habits of the fire-witch from chapter 10. Ew. According to Telemain, the Sword of the Sleeping King was meant to deal with wizards.Chapter 14: Telemain advises going through the Caves of Chance to avoid the wizards. He also gives pointers about dealing with trolls and rock snakes. Also, our little group has to deal with a quarter of the wizards looking for Daystar and Shiara.Chapter 15: Daystar finds a key and meets a quozzel.Chapter 17: Daystar tells Shiara why she had so much trouble when she tried to snitch some of the Prince of the Ruby Throne's apples. He also figures out how to solve Shiara's problem.Chapter 18: Daystar, Shiara, and Nightwitch meet Kazul. They find out who the dragon too young to have a name is.
    • 4/5
      I've done reading the whole series, so will copy these comments to 3rd and 4th book, too.

      Love the humor. Love the breezy adventure and endearing characters. Each book focuses on different folks, but the sequence events counts, and I do not recommend trying to read them as stand-alones. The ending of #2 is a bit worrisome, and the ending of #3 is a cliff-hanger, and #4 does have some intensity not necessarily suitable for the youngest readers. On the whole, they're clean and fun, I'd say fine for ages 9 up but if your younger child wants to read them you should also.

      Um, they're also not really memorable - they're probably best suited for people who like to reread books because there's a lot going on, but nothing heavy enough to make an impact on the reader's worldview. I know it's partly my fault because I read them so fast - but then, they were fast reads, and I couldn't help it.
    • 4/5
      This was not as interesting as the other three books in the series, but was still a good story. This book had the characters from the other stories included, but the main character was Daystar, Cimorene's son. This change in perspective changed the nature of the series simply because it wasn't a princess taking care of herself instead of waiting to be rescued. However, the humor was still present and the narration for the audiobook was just as entertaining as the rest of the series. I'm sorry to see the series finish. I was having a lot of fun with these characters.
    • 4/5
      And finished nr. 4. I pretty much read these books in a row, adn I'm still surprised by how much I like them. Their tone somehow conveys the feeling of reading a book meant for children, but the world is so enchanting and it has such great characters, that I love it anyway. It's whimsical, and its heroes make sense. In this book we follow Cimorene's son, and its fun to meet all the other characters again through his eyes. I admit, I could have done without the neat wrap-up that managed to get everyone nicely paired-off, but that's a minor gripe. Overall, I enjoyed it very much and I'm sorry this is the end to the series...
    • 4/5
      I didn't realize till reading a few other comments that this was written first, but after reflecting, it makes more sense to me. Usually I'm a fan of reading in published order (if its debatable) but I think in this case, Talking to Dragons should be read first. I'm not sure if the rest of the books should be read in reverse order or then start at the beginning of the series.