A Son of the Rock

In The Kar-Chee Reign and Rogue Dragon, Ace, 1979, (188 p out of 381.)

Since the reign of the Kar-chee ended the diaspora has rediscovered Earth – as a resort for dragon hunting. This takes place under the control of the Gentlemen of the Hunt Company. Jon-Joras is an emissary from his home planet. When an impromptu dragon hunt goes wrong he is thrown into a set of adventures which leads him to discover that not everything on the “Prime World” is as it seems. He falls into the hands of a group of so-called “doghunters” who resent the Gentlemen and who train dragons to resist the distractions (and therefore become rogue) as a means of resistance and seem to think Kar-chee and dragons are the same species. Thereafter his travels take him into a forbidden region called The Bosky where the dragons are said to be more dangerous than the more or less domesticated ones kept for the hunts.

Overall I would say that this is fairly typical of mid 60s SF.

Pedant’s corner:- evesdrop (eavesdrop,) coördinate (an obsolete spelling now,) “a group of young , naked-chested archers were shooting” (a group was shooting,) wheal (weal,) a small group of Gentlemen were standing close (a group was standing,) “of the pleb-peoples’” (the “of” already makes pleb-peoples possessive, no need for the apostrophe,) “scarcely able to breath” (breathe.) “‘Wouldn’t be fools if we did’” (context demands, ‘Would be fools if we did,’) jejeune (jejune,) haled (is now archaic,) Henners’ (Henners’s,) “it was suppose to be” (supposed,) “no sooner was his …..then” (than,) took ahold (took a hold,) “‘and were guiding him’” (‘and we were guiding him’,) “scratched his naval” (navel,) “other than to affect his own capture” (effect,) “Where would he be safe.” (Question mark required,) “with tiny small lights” (tiny small??) “another species’ sport” (species was singular; so, species’s,) “he would never believed” (never have believed,) dragon-suint (dragon spraint perhaps,) “and yet he would not accept that there should be no answer, and yet he would not accept that there should be no answer.” (One of those instances of “and yet he would not accept that there should be no answer,” is superfluous,) “unless he knew the comination” (combination,) chronomoter (chronometer,) thrust foreward (forward,) “Not matter” (No matter,) despite it being a US publication we had archaeologist, not archeologist.