Fire consists of five different stories, set across the different ages and places that have one common theme: fire. They all deal with mythical creatures including a phoenix, hellhound and dragon. The five different tales all attempt to keep the reader entertained all the while, incorporating the theme of fire.
The book seemed to really lag a lot from my perspective. I was actually very disappointed with Robin McKinley's two stories, especially since I had enjoyed her previous work. Her first one, Hellhound, while not a bad tale, did not even have the element of fire. It simply had a dog named Flame. Her second story, First Flight is the longest in the book and starts off much like her other writings. However, towards the middle, the story begins to get filled with complicated details and lags; making reader simply just try to finish it. Dickinson's stories were not bad and did all have the element of fire. His first one, Phoenix, is great and gives high hopes for the book. The other stories, Fire Worm and Salamander Man, are simply okay and serve their entertaining purposes. Over all, unless teens simply find the need for a lack of details in some stories and too much detail in others, they may not find it entertaining. Creating short stories to contain within one book, gives the challenge of creating good characters and plots early within the stories. Yet, perhaps if some of the unneeded details were left out of First Flight, then it would have been a great story and more details added to others could have also improved them.
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