Pit Dragon Chronicles

Cockfighting. With dragons.

The Pit Dragon Chronicles are a trilogy series of books by Jane Yolen, consisting of Dragon's Blood (1982), Heart's Blood (1984), A Sending Of Dragons (1987), and Dragon's Heart (2009).

The story takes place A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away, on the harsh desert planet of Austar IV. Once used to dispose of criminals, Austar IV has now flourished, under a system of masters and 'bonders', a lower class that has to pay a bond price to rise up in the world. The books mainly revolves around Jakkin Stewart, a worker at a dragon farm run by the mysterious Master Sarkkhan. He steals a dragon egg and manages to raise the hatchling, named Heart's Blood, into one of the greatest Pit fighters the world has ever seen.

Of course, things aren't quite as simple. In the later books, Jakkin quickly learns of The Federation's attempts to control Austar IV, a rebel uprising, and the cruelty society inflicts upon dragons. And thus does the Space Opera unfold...

Might need a better summary.

Tropes used in Pit Dragon Chronicles include:

• Author Appeal: Yolen talks about how "wonderful" it would be to be a pregnant dragon. And then there's the end of the second book, which is pretty much draconic unbirthing with a more brutal means of entry.
• Beastly Bloodsports
• Bloody Murder: Dragons have acidic blood, though they don't actually use it as a weapon.
• Calling Your Attacks: This is Ssargon's favorite method of speaking. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny.
• Chekhov's Gun: The dragon's blood as a restorative power returns in full force at the end of book two, where dragon's blood helps Jakkin and Akki survive in the Austorian outback.
• Death by Irony: For once, it's not karmic. Defeated dragons are given two slashes to the throat by the victor. Heart's Blood dies from two darts shot into her neck.
• Desert Punk
• Dragon Rider: Outright mocked.
• Eat the Dog: Dragons go for three uses: "Pit, pet, or stew." It gets more and more disturbing as the dragons become more obviously intelligent.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Literally. Servants need to earn enough to buy their way out of bond.
• The Empath: A human can become this by sheltering in the womb of a dead mother dragon.
• Encyclopedia Exposita: The Encyclopedia Galaxia, which provides background on the planet and its economy and inhabitants. It also serves as the epilogue in the last book.
• Fantastic Drug: Blisterweed. It's normally a food source for dragons, but some humans roll it up and smoke it, causing them to be extremely aggressive.
• Get It Over With: "Fool's Pride," which occurs sometimes during pit fights. The defeated dragon will try to drive the victor to kill it with a specific type of roar. Any dragon who kills like this is considered unfit to fight and will usually be killed itself.
• Groin Attack: Part of the Dragon Rider mocking. Dragons have scales with extremely sharp edges along their backs. Guess what happened to the people who tried to ride one?
• Heroic Sacrifice: Heart's Blood's death. Also a Tear Jerker for some readers.
• Imaginary Love Triangle: In the first book. Jakkin develops feelings for Akki, but becomes convinced that Akki is Sarkkhan's lover. She's not. She's his daughter.
• Jerkass: Likkarn, especially at the beginning of Dragon's Blood, when he's really hitting the blisterweed. He becomes less so after he quits smoking.
• Late to the Punchline: The "baggeries" are subtly implied to be houses of prostitution. Most young readers won't get this implicitation until they're older.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Dark red dragons are greatly desired as fighters due to their exceptional ferocity. However, it is noted that a successful pit fighter requires more than just a good color.
• Letter Motif: The double K is found in almost all names. It appears to be a nod to Austar's original designation when it was a penal colony, KK 29.
  • A few higher-class characters are observed to lack the double K. It's later confirmed that these are the descendants of the guards.
  • It's stated in the first book that people who were born as Bonders have a double-k in their name. Jakkin is an exception: he was born free, but was named after his grandfather, who was a Bonder.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The size of an elephant but with bones too light to hold up a human, burning blood, a range of colors from yellow to red which suggest their temperament, and telepathic (but "sending" only distinctive patterns of color unless you've undergone a certain process.)
• Penal Colony: Austar IV used to be penal colony KK 29.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Akki
• Slap Slap Kiss: Jakkin and Akki's burgeoning relationship in the first two books could be interpreted as this.
• Rebellious Princess: Akki is the daughter of the local Lord, but she remains a serf because she intends to buy her own freedom.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Averted for the dragons and the vast majority of Austar IV's reptilian life, but played straight with the drakks. Justified, as most of the humans make their living from dragons and drakks eat eggs and hatchlings. And they smell really, really bad. Drakk blood turns out to be an incredibly valuable resource in the last book.
• The Reveal: Dragon's Heart reveals how Likkarn and Jakkin are connected - Likkarn is Jakkin's uncle, and has been treating him roughly in an attempt to make him not like his father was, who was Likkarn's half-brother.
• The Speechless: "Mute" dragons, who cannot roar. Jakkin is devastated when he learns that Heart's Blood is a mute, though Sarkkhan reveals to him soon after that he sees muteness as a potential advantage and has been trying to breed a mute fighter.
• Theme Naming: All of Sarkkhan's named dragons come from a "Heart" or a "Blood" lineage. Females are "Heart"s, males are "Blood"s. Heart's Blood is the product of a mating between the two lines. And the aforementioned Letter Motif in human names also counts as Theme Naming.
• Third Person Dragon: Sssargon combines Calling Your Attacks with this.
• Twenty Minutes Into the Future: The timeline for the stories take place in 2400 A.D., and a fictional encyclopedia entry prefaces each book as a way to enter in with the futuristic theories/ideas.
• Trilogy Creep
• Tsundere: Akki towards Jakkin - a lot.
• Shout-Out: The Federation seems ostenibly derived from Star Trek.
  • Heart's Blood's hatchling, a boy, names himself Ssargon, after the legendary king of Mesopotamia.
• Underdogs Never Lose: Again, outright mocked, and Jakkin is praised for choosing the biggest and toughest-looking dragon to raise, instead of taking a weak or sickly one out of misguided sympathy... and selling it for food later.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Dragon masters customarily talk this way to their dragons.
• Your Tomcat Is Pregnant: Heart's Blood is a girl.