Here Be Dragons: Book 1 of the Emergence Series

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

[Premise: First contact between dragons and humans, with technology at dawn of the information age. Book 1 complete, Book 2 writing in progress.] What if, billions of years ago, the Earth formed a little differently? A bit less iron, a bit more water, and the first humans evolve upon a lone island, surrounded by vast oceans that span 97.5% of the planet's surface. In the millennia that follow, mankind believes their island to be the only in existence – until the first satellites reveal the existence of two distant lands. Galvanized by this groundbreaking discovery, humanity sends its best and brightest on an expedition, only for a series of disasters to wipe out all but one of the crew.Now, Doctor Alexander Pryce has the honor of being the first and only man to step foot upon a foreign continent. Alone, Pryce struggles to carry on his comrade's mission, and in doing so draws the attention of one ofthe island's native inhabitants: an inquisitive and highly intelligent dragon. Desolate but far from alone, Pryce begins the painstaking process of learning tocommunicate with an alien species, and in so doing becomes the sole representative of humanity – one whose actions will determine the future of both their species. A work inspired by the Temeraire series, Project Hail Mary, and The Martian.Special thanks to VikasRao and Rackiera forproviding and inspiring ideas for the speculative evolution. Links:Discord server, where you can ask me whatever questions you like and I'll probably answer them. (Assuming the answer doesn't involve heavy spoilers) Ko-fi, if you want to send something my way. Don't worry about the different username, I have an arrangement with Rackiera. Paypal, same as the above. FantasticCover Artby Rackiera!

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2025
Author: Second_Sol

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.8/ 5.0
Followers: 1,857
Views: 801,521

Chapters(117 total)

What readers say about Here Be Dragons: Book 1 of the Emergence Series

“It's very fleshed out and immersive worldbuilding, with a nice story that casually explains some scientific knowledge in detail, without it feeling intrusive. It reminds me somewhat of Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, which is a bestselling science-f…”
njaloRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“This story does for me what few others have done: it has made me care. I want to know what happens to the characters, and even though the release schedule is rather sparse, I keep coming back to this story. Style: There is a lot of science in this story, an…”
ColossalRendersRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

njaloRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
It's very fleshed out and immersive worldbuilding, with a nice story that casually explains some scientific knowledge in detail, without it feeling intrusive. It reminds me somewhat of Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, which is a bestselling science-fiction book, with a focus on biology and first contact. And honestly i think i like Emergence more. A must read for science-fiction fans.
ColossalRendersRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This story does for me what few others have done: it has made me care. I want to know what happens to the characters, and even though the release schedule is rather sparse, I keep coming back to this story.
Style: There is a lot of science in this story, and the author evidently is very knowledgeable and pays attention to the details regarding the world. The world itself is great; it feels 4 dimensional (3 for space and 1 for time). The science can take a bit too much of a spotlight at times, although it is brief.
Story: Good pacing and a good story. One complaint I have however is that the characters might have a bit too much plot armor. It's not unrealistic—it's just that nothing truly bad has happened yet, nothing with a large irreversible consequence for the main cast, besides at the very beginning.
Grammar: It's fine. No mistakes that I noticed; nothing stood out to me.
Character: great characters that are 4-dimensional. They feel like real, living beings that I can connect with. They have complex personalities, goals, and mindsets, and most importantly, they grow throughout the story. I believe this to be the strongest aspect of this story.
One important aspect of this story is that the mistakes, while present (no story is perfect), don't bring me out of it. They simply fade into the background.
This is definitely one of (if not the) the best story I have read on here and just in general, and certainly beats some bestselling novels I've read recently.
Can’t wait for the rewrite so I get to experience it all over again. WHERE IS IT I WANT IT
S.nufflesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Captain Pryce has had enough of the SAS, but his vacation isn't going any better.
Style: is good. I take a half star off simply because I think it could go that much further with some more descriptive language like many expedition writers to...exaggerate their explorations. However, the style is clear and coherent, and serves its purpose (which we will get into later) really well.
Grammar: is just as good as the style. Clean and clinical with no glaring continuous faults or mistakes. Cannot complain on this front.
Story: or rather the way it's told is very interesting. With a heavy emphasis on science, and in particular biology, the plot is subversive to the narrative, which builds the story from a unique and intelligent perspective. Instead of a world of magic and whatnot, this brings everything down to real-world basics and then expands from there. It's an interesting way to tell a story that I'm sure science nuts would get a kick out of.
Character: as far as I can see is, again, subsersive to the story. However, Pryce is likeable simply because he isn't stupid. He doesn't have some weird stereotypical personality, nor does this personality contribute negatively to the story. He is a scientific explorer, and I appreciate how clear that comes across.
Overall: SOAP! NO NO NO NO NO-
ShiftyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I've read a number of 'humans meet aliens, try to get along' style books, but this one might be my favorite. Well top 3. Still very high praise as far as I'm concerned.
The entire story building up from the interaction of 2 individuals to the worries of two very different species interacting has been nothing but engaging. The dragons feel like they have a rich history backed by detailed (but not overly so) descriptions of biological and revolutionary forces, which makes them feel like a real species.
It also takes the unique position of dragons being basically smarter than humans, but limited by their own biology (hard to make tools without hands), which leads to a ton of interesting questions down the line.
I hope the story gets to the point where we see Dragon professors and scientists.
SpelljammingRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Well I have been following this story for around 2 years now and it is long overdue for a review for the excellent experience it’s been the whole way. I have read it like 5-6 times over the years.
Sol’s work on Emergence has been excellent thus far and its primary characters, Pryce and Fathom are wonderfully written and play excellently of one another and the same goes for every character introduced thereafter.
Style.
Presented primarily from the perspective Dr. Pryce and secondarily by others, the vibrant writing done by the author, it is punctuated by the journal entries made by Pryce as the days of his story pass. These help break up scenes and I find the thought process of a character writing their thoughts as opposed to thinking them in these sections to be incredibly intriguing.
The writing of dialogue always makes it clear when when a dragon is talking and whether the language is that if man or dragon.
Story
The work done by Second Sol on this narrative incredible. An alternate Earth rebuilt from scratch and laboriously thought out systems of measurement, biology, and the effects of the changes made to this world and how that would influence the speculative evolution of life and society of regular animals and sophonts.
In both the draft and rewrite Language and STEM concepts take a lead role in helping progress events in the story. The process of the sciences make for an exceptionally engaging prospects for those who enjoy them as I did!
I found the story to be paced exceptionally well in both versions of the work. Even with that said I can’t recommend the rewrite enough as events of the story never feel like they drag on. If you however do enjoys more in depth explanations of science and skills obtained from human knowledge I would recommend read the draft only AFTER the rewrite. Experience Sol’s improved work first.
Grammar
There is little to say here other than that the rewrite is very well edited and the spell and grammar mistakes are near nonexistent
Eve
TrysinuxRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
i have read some story of first contacts between humans and dragon, but one that's a human going into a dragon's society is a pretty unique one. Last one I read that has that is 'The Memoirs of Lady Trent Series', and that one, dragons are not communicable via language.
I was glued to the story once I reach to the part where Pryce and Hiron started learning with each other language, within a week, i finished the whole series with a blink of an eye. Something about the whole thing feels fresh and fun to read. And i'm grateful to found it through the reddit post the author posted, which reminds me to pick this one up.
Thanks again for writing the story, looking forwards to the next entry in the series. Cheers.
advocatezzRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
When I first discovered this book, I saw synopsis says it has First Contact with dragon of all things, and still fall within the plausibility of hard Sci-Fi.
So yes, I was absolutely intrigued on how that combination would work. After having read the novel to most recent chapter I'm happy to report that it works fantastically well
The Sci-Fi explanations are formatted in very Eli5 friendly and easy to follow, the casts are expanding (It's a first contact duh) and they all have intriguing personalities and pasts, and it might sounds like slice of life at first but you can always expect things to happen so there's always tensions. The action tag are there for a reason :D
And yes, I'm a sucker for novel with Physician lead dropping tidbits of medical knowledge and healing/teaching people (I hope this isn't classified as a spoiler? since MC being a physician is mentioned in the very first chapter)
The prose is also good. A lot better than some other novels' prose I've seen that got into rising star.
Gab'Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Incredible writing that goes in depth for so many different subjects and the characters are amazingly written, always getting better and more interesting as we learn about them and the meaning behind their names and actions.
The teaching and learning is interesting to follow and the initial inter-species encounter is fascinating.
A perfect story in my opinion.
GravByteRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
To preface, this review is based on before the upcoming rewrite and adjusted events.
I finished this book in about 2.5 days of binging all 68 chapters.
I discovered it actually due to the author's fan alt perspective on Project Hail Mary which had been linked to on a Reddit thread, and I saw this advertised at the end of that.
This story was exactly what I had been looking for. It encompasses all of my favourite things; First contact events with a sapient other being, dragons!, lots of science and a not-dystopian story.
This was all executed very well! And has lots of detailed science, all the emotion and a realistically depicted world (albeit totally fictional compared to IRL which is nice for a change).
All of the characters have great personalities and are well detailed. I somewhat wish they were real!
The writing is also excellent! Being before the rewrite, I can see that it was a little bumpy in the beginning with the grammar however it is great that the author seemed to be listening to comments at the time of writing and correcting these so there were little issues in the current version.
I am now restlessly awaiting both the rewritten version which I will definitely read in its entirety, and especially book 2! I really hope the author does not abandon it. I would buy a hardcover if this were published.
Thank you for writing this!
HexonoidRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is a story about dragons. But to be completely honest, it's mostly about first contact between unique species, civilizations, and cultures. This is the first time I've seen the progression of communication between two species, two civilizations play out in such a realistic manner. All too often communication skips crucial steps, or dumbs down the process. This is usually because such a thing, when played out to it's fullest extent is tedious to the extreme. But by combination of perfect recall and blending in interesting concepts along the way, it not only feels natural, but also interesting pretty much the whole way through. There are cultural differences and misunderstandings. There are competing desires, and shifts in world view. If this not as interesting to you as it is to me, you may be hard pressed to enjoy the other things that this story has to offer.
And offer it does. Aside from the dragons themselves, other elements of the story are quite well done. There is an extensive amount of real science with hard sci-fi elements on top, particularly when it comes to the biology of alien species. The character writing, while often somewhat sacrificed for the sake of exploring more science, is still quite decent, and even endearing. There's definitely an emphasis on the better side of Humanity and (Dragon-ity?) but sometimes it's nice to have the benefit of the doubt and forget about how awful humanity can actually be, which the story so far only alludes to. Overall I have high hopes for the future of this story, and I'm looking forward to more!