dragons

dragons in my opinion are the best mystical creature out their! they are so mysterious and scary what do you guys think of them?

I've always liked stories about dragons! Authors have done a lot of interesting things with them, from villians to heroes. I enjoy that they always seem to be so flexible - the dragons of Pern are very different from the Pit Dragons or the rulers of the Enchanted Forest.

What are your favorite dragon books?

i liked um dragon rider

Very cool! If you get a chance, try the Pern novels, starting with Dragonriders of Pern. They're excellent.

Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly is my best ever. So good I've been afraid to read the sequels and ruin it. Also liked The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley, which has one nasty dragon in it along with some minor ones. Her Dragonhaven is a totally different treatment of dragons. Also, The Ring of Allaire by Susan Dexter.

The Hero and the Crown was one of my absolute favorite books as a teenager. It holds up very well as an adult, too! I love to read it and the 'sequel', The Blue Sword, whenever I need something good and bite-sized or relaxing and comfortable.

I was absolutely mad about the Pern books, too - although I would suggest starting with the Dragonsinger triology.

I also remember adoring Jane Yolen's Pit Dragon trilogy, although I haven't read them in years and forgot about them until I joined LibraryThing!

I'm not a big fan of dragons, myself, but some of the more interesting versions I've come across are in Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders trilogy and Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

Depends on how well they are done, but they are one of my favourites - always powerful.

For Pern fans there is an LT Pern group that's a bit quiet and always looking for new members.

I like the magesty and wildness of the dragons in the earthsea universe. Or in Song of the beast where "The dragons are resplendant powerful terrifying and all that one would hope a dragon should be. "

As more tameable versions though still independant there is dragonwing deathgate 7book series. Or Weis's more famous dragonlance series where they have retreated from the world - a theme taken to extremes in light fantastic.

Harry Potter has then - too mild for my tastes, and then there's the arch dragon Smaug in the hobbit

My favourites I think, are probably Earthsea.

I'm a big dragon fan :) I prefer the majestic & protective image than the agressive fighting image but all dragons are intriguing to me.

I am usually more interested in the more traditional dragons, but Robin Hobb's liveship dragons are def a fave as they're in my fave series & I was very interested in the elemental dragons in Storm Constantine's Magravandias (?spelling?) series...

Although these arent all necesarily fave books, when I think of Dragons I've enjoyed reading about these all come to mind: Pernese dragons & firelizzards, Naomi Novik's Temeraire & co, Jane Yolen's Pit Dragons (as mentioned by a few - i didnt realise these were popular at all!), The dragon in The Obsidian Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey & James Mallory & the dragon's in the Joust books too (I think they were by Mercedes Lackey???)... I'm sure there are others I've forgoetten atm so I'll prob come back & add to that list :)

My favorite dragons are the ones from Dealing with Dragons and the other books from that series. The books are very light and funny. I also like the ones already mentioned and the Eragon series.

The Dragon and The George by Harry Harrison is fantastic. Then there is one great dragon of all dragon, Smaug from The Hobbit, makes the whole story work, so to speak.
It is early on Jan 1, so it is hard to think of many more at this moment, but there are many out there. The entire Pern epic of course, and then Melanie Rawn brings in Dragons as minor to her trilogies. Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood I recall being atune to dragons, then I think Robert Don Hughes has a series of four books that are Dragon related, The Prophet of Lamath being one of them.

How about the "dragons" in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis.

#9 Very excited about Robin Hobb's next book set in the Rain Wilds, Dragon Keeper. With a bit of luck it should be available from the UK around July this year. I've really enjoyed the Temeraire series too and am reading Victory of Eagles at the moment.

I also love the books by Patricia Wrede which include Dealing w/Dragons,Searching for Dragons & others. I also love the Inheritance series because of the inter species cooperation in both of the above series.

That said i also love the interplay between Bilbo & Smaug in the Hobbit. Find the litle swamp dragons in Guards, Guards & The Last Hero & probably other Discworld books to be very amusing.

My room looks like a shrine to dragons w/posters, pictures, & numerous dragons of resin, plaster, pewter, wood & plastic-not to mention many stuffed ones of all sizes & a cardboard one hanging from the ceiling. Of course my library contains numerous volumes all about or featuring dragons. I am going to read The Dragons of Pern series (it is in my TBR pile! 8^)

ilove dragons
i gonna read Dragon Rider and recently finisthed The Fire Within series

I'm a huge fan of fantasy...but I hate dragons. I guess I just find them cheesy. A bit too cliche. I don't care how typical a fantasy story is in terms of wizards, dwarves, and elves, I'm fine with it. But dragons? Meh. I get no enjoyment out of them.

One dragon series I haven't seen mentioned are the Bazil Broketail books by Christopher Rowley. In these stories the dragons are the dominant species and humans are their helpers.

i loved the bazil broketail ones! i haven't read it in a long time!

my faviroate dragon story. hmm, i can't decide on one. there are so many. the pern books, the dealing with dragons ones, the hero and the crown (which i positively adored when i was younger and still love), the joust ones by mercedes lackey, the Eragon books. the dragonlance books, of course, but i haven't read those in a long time. there are lots more.

Definitely second McKinley's Dragonhaven. Almost didn't finish it because of the dense slow start, but luckily persevered and it turned into a WOW winner with a really unexpected and satisfying twist.

Got a few lesser-known favorite series that shouldn't be missed. The best is Dragon Blood and Dragon Bones by Patricia Briggs (from her pre-urban/punk werewolf/vampire days - which are also great fun). This story has great well-developed characters and more unexpected twists. Two more favorite series start out with great first books but don't satisfy quite as much in the sequels (good but not great). These both also have a stronger romance flavor (but not "R" or "X" rated - a detestable new trend in my opinion). The first set is The Last Dragonlord and The Dragon and the Phoenix by Joanne Bertin (plus the prequel short story "Dragonlord's Justice" in the anthology The Ultimate Dragon. The second trilogy (excellent and rather unique premise) is Song in the Silence, The Lesser Kindred and Redeeming the Lost by Elizabeth Kerner. A nice touch in these is that "guy gets girl" isn't strung out forever and "happily ever after" isn't the end. In the follow-up books, the characters enjoy a more mature married romance as they continue their dragon adventures.

A final favorite I read years ago was Tea with the Black Dragon, but I haven't got around to locating my own copy yet. I've seen it mentioned a number of times in these threads, so it probably is as good as I remember it.

One of my favorite dragon books is Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton. It's the Pride and Prejudice of dragonkind.

>19 anneanni: I have Tea with the Black Dragon on my TBR Challenge list. I've heard very good things about the story.

I was always fond of Stanley the Steamer from the Xanth books! I would still love to get a print of the cover on Dragon on a Pedestal. Another book I enjoyed with dragons is Song of Sorcery by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough.

Elizabeth Haydon has an interesting take on dragons in her Symphony of Ages series, regarding them as mostly elemental. One of her main characters have mixed draconic and human blood and she explores the conflict this causes within him.

Also some dragons in Magician by Raymond E. Feist, acting as the mounts of the Valheru.

When I came across Stanley Steamer, I threw the book aside in Disgust. I am not a fan of foolishness.

I, too, love the Pern books, at least the first series, they sort of fell off after the first 3. (I got sick of all the characters slapping each other on the back). The Melanie Rawn Dragon prince books are a bit of a cheat; dragons aren't terribly important until the 3rd book, and I am sick of her characters now. The Joust by Mercedes Lackey series is pretty good, but I prefer the intellegent, protective dragons to lumbering, cuties. I'm writing my own book on Dragons, because I am tired of being disapointed.

I liked the Eragon books, Dealing with Dragons,Dragon Rider and Dragon's Bait. I also really liked Dragon Slippers! It is good and I did not see it mentioned above. I have read the first of the pit dragon series (I like dragons better when they are smarter). I got twenty pages into one of the pern books but gave up. It was so hard to get though!

Dragons are so cool, I can't believe how some people just label them as monsters, they are some of the wisest creatures ever. Just spreading their gaint wings, man they are just so garceful. Saphira in Eargon was just a magnificent and beautiful creature.

I feel sort of ambivalent about dragons. I'm not drawn to a book because dragons are in it, but I do enjoy them when I read them.

I rather inenjoy the Bone series of graphic novels, which have some interesting dragons.

And The Wizard of Earthsea has an interesting look at dragons. Old, intelligent, and very, very dangerous.

But in both cases these dragons are not the main thrust of the stories.

It would seem in fantasy we have 2 ways of seeing dragons, one as a creature in the story that humans whose point of view we are engaged with interact with, and then the POV from the actual dragon. (A subset of that is the Dragon and the George where a human becomes a dragon.

By far the more interesting depiction is when we see the world through the eyes of a dragon for me.

I agree with DWWilkin, its very interesting to see life through the dragon's eyes.:)

Do you guys prefer good dragons or bad dragons? I admit I tend to prefer the traditional bad dragons like Smaug (Tolkien) and Maur (McKinley), but I've enjoyed stories with sympathetic dragon characters too. I think the thing I really like about bad dragons is that they are so very, very bad, furnaces of malice and fire and power. They make excellent villains!

True wisewoman, I love a good villanous dragon, and they have proven themselves over the centuries to be very very evil. But its nice to see the soft side of a dragon every once in a while. I really love a a strong heroine dragon, they are wicked.:)

A very nice YA with original plot is Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George.

I Just finished reading Dragon Slippers and loved it! The main character is a girl who was set as bait for a dragon and finds out that dragons aren't the bad creatures they are said to be. She works to help the dragons and the humans get over their prejiduce of each other. It is very well written.

I, too, just read Dragon Slippers and loved it. The sequel, Dragon Flight is good too.

#29 Wisewoman, I completely prefer good dragons. When I was little I read Dragon's Milk by Susan Fletcher which is about a girl with green eyes who was able to connect with dragons. I desperately wanted green eyes and a dragon for quite some time after that. The idea of mental links is one of my favorite aspects of dragon stories, hence preferring good dragons. The bad ones tend to eat people before there is any chance for mental links. ;)

I got The Dragon of Trelian from the Early Reviewer program last month and it was wonderful. It immediately became one of my favorite dragon books. The dragon isn't the central focus, which was part of the book's uniqueness, and the characters were outstanding. I was immensely impressed with the characters' personalities.

Got Dragons Wild from the library today-looks like it'll be a good one! Have not read any his books yet so this will be the first. 8^)

I pretty much had my fill of dragons with the first two Pern trilogies, but I greatly enjoyed these treatments:

Tea With the Black Dragon
The Other Wind
Neveryona

Any book with or about Dragons, I will try and read. Have read all of Pern, all of the Temeraire books and am always on the lookout for more.

dragonsign

@35, I kinda forgot that he'd started another series so I'll have to add that to my 'To get list'. His Myth series are amongst my favourite quick reads of all time (a dragon is featured here also - Gleep!).

One of the Myth books actually has us see the world from Gleeps viewpoint as I recall. Asprin died last year? I think. I was reading the first book one day before class, just the first few pages and I broke out in hysterical laughter it was that type of funny. Got a lot of strange looks. Myth Adventures is my first copy, but it is an omnibus of the first few books, more bang for your buck? Gleep however is a secondary character as part of making fantasy tongue-in-cheek.

Of course, having implied in message 36 that dragons weren't really my thing, I immediately read Dragon's Winter by Elizabeth Lynn, which I greatly enjoyed. It features a changeling, a man who can become a dragon. I look forward to reading the recent sequel, Dragon's Treasure.

There was a book called Jernigan's Egg that had a dragon within it. I think the egg is that of the Dragon...

I love Patricia C. Wrede's dragon books, and recently finished the latest Temeraire book, Victory of Eagles (hope there's another one!). Novik is my favorite new author! I didn't see anyone list Dragonworld by Byron Preiss, another great one.

Wasn't the Dragon and the George by Gordon Dickson? I seem to remember a number of sequels to it as well which I enjoyed reading

One of my fav dragon books was the White Dragon, part of the Pern series. I also love the Wizard of Earthsea series. Eragon is in my tbr pile. Has anyone read the new Weis/Hickman series? It think it is something like Dragonbones and the characters are like vikings.

I think the inheritance series by christopher paolini starting with eragon is good.so far three books have been released .I am eagerly waiting for the fourth book .Its about dragonriders in a mysterious world called alagaesia.It has everything like elves and dwarves .

>26 andreablythe: I hated Wizard of Earthsea with a passion! I know that is off topic but I have to say it. Her sentences were so long! She used WAY to many words!

46> I love lots of words and long sentences; I need my prose to reach a certain richness before I can truly appreciate it. I just found the Earthsea books to be boring.

I only like the first three Earthsea books. The rest are absolutely dismal in terms of plot, and even Le Guin's signature writing couldn't save them. The Tombs of Atuan is one of my all-time favorite fantasy books. I don't find it slow at all.

We are getting off-topic, aren't we? Oops.

I've only read the first three, and The Tombs of Atuan was definitely the most enjoyable of the bunch.

On topic... Um, dragons?

It (Earthsea) lacked the fast-paced adventure-ness (sorry! Couldn't think of a better way to say it.) that I enjoy in fantasies.

I have been experimenting with Wyverns for a bit of a variant in the next book I am struggling to get finished. I will send you a bit of a scene if you like...

The trick is, I think, to give them personalities that are utterly un-human-like.

i found the movie version of Eragon really interesting with fast paced action.

I loved Eragon, Raising Dragons and Voices of Dragons. These are truly amazing!

I love dragons! But, only when they're treated as intelligent, thinking creatures. If they're bad, there must be a good reason for it; not simply evil for the sake of being evil.

My favorite dragon books at the moment would be E.E. Knight's Age of Fire series. Dragonriders of Pern, though, will always be near the top for the inspiration it's given me in creating my own dragon world.

I LOVE DRAGONS. Seriously. Put you can probably say that according to my username. I even have scientifical and logical proof that they exist.

The dragon books I love is Eragon, Eldest, and Brisingr the most. The Fire Within, Ice Fire, and the rest of the books in the series is good, but they are long and you must have a great memory to keep track of everything that's going on in the series. One of the first good-sized dragon book I've read is Dragon rider, so it is close to my heart. I've recently read The Last Elf, but I didn't like that much. Won't give out any spoiler, but if you read it, I think you know what I mean when the whole story is utterly pointless. I haven't read The Dragonriders of Pern since they were started before my time, but it is on my bucket list.

I just finished reading The adamantine Palace, and the dragons in that book are worth reading the book.

One of my favorites is the dragon in Door into Shadow by Diane Duane. An alien life form with the ability to manipulate the past. But still very draconic.

There's also Flight of Dragons by Peter Dickinson that posits a natural history of dragons in our world, and a reason why there are no fossils.

I also like dragons because they are strong and free, and although popular opinion has them as villains (see Dragonslayer), they come in so many different flavors in sff.

Dragons are KEWL! Aside from the Pern novels, I love "The Song in the Silence" by Elizabeth Kerner, the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, and the Dragon Delasangre series by Alan F. Troop

If anyone wants to meet a dragon even more cynical than Smaug, and enjoy a minor literary masterpiece, read John Gardner's Grendel, which tells the Beowulf legend from Grendel's viewpoint -- the whole concept is great and the book is rich and complex. And as I said, Grendel encounters a wonderfully cynical dragon along the way.
It's interesting that dragons, which could be presented as sheer force, are so often portrayed as wily, wise, crafty.

I freaking adore dragon books; I've been reading them across all levels of good to evil and intelligent to animalistic and funny to scary, and across all reading "levels", from Dealing with Dragons when I was wee to A Dance with Dragons this summer. I am so glad to be seeing so many new recommendations on this thread, though, I'll have to go pick up some new ones!

One of my faves as a kid was Bruce Coville's Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. Also, some of the Discworld books have dragons (most notably Guards, Guards!), of which there are two kinds--big traditional dragons and adorable little swamp dragons.

I really hated Eragon, though. I found it very derivative.

The only thing I liked about Eragon was the dragons. There's really no other reason to read it.

Are there some good dragon "heroines" outside of the Eragon books? I'm not keen on Paolini, but I'd really like to read about some lady dragons (good, not evil).

There are female dragons in the Temeraire series. One bad one and quite a few great ones.

The King of the dragons in Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest chronicles is female! And awesome, too.

Sorry to dredge this up again -- but could someone tell me a little more about the female dragons we're supposed to LIKE in the Temeraire series?

One of the things that's been holding me back from starting this series is the pitting of the Righteous Male against the Incredibly Evil Female who must be expunged if Right and Justice are to prevail. This juxtaposition has always bothered me, and I really regret to see a female author choosing to make her most important female character evil.

But if I knew a little bit more about the GOOD female dragons, I might feel a bit better about launching into this series. Can someone enlighten me?

I can't decide if I want my dragons to be sentient beings or beasts of burden, over all.

#67: One of the female dragons in the series is a natural mathematician. The first book is really good, but the last two books were severely subpar, given her skill. I also didn't like how she started switching between using the female characters' first names and last names. It's fine to call the girl Emily, because she's a child, but I don't understand she started wavering on the women's names. It's fine to switch in dialog since certain people will address others differently, but you cannot waver like that in narrative.

67. Lily??

Lily and the baby firedragon in one of the later books, whose name escapes me

Curiously, one publisher I recently sent a submission to told me that they would automatically now reject anything with a dragon in it, as they felt the subject had been "done to death".

Well, that's a shame, as there's a dragon story I've been itching to write. It will take me a while to write it, so maybe by the time it's finished they will have changed their minds. But then, news like this gives me some hope that maybe soon, publishers will have good-and-had-it with vampires. (Now THERE's a supernatural creature I'm sick of.)

After taking some time to skim through In His Majesty's Service, the omnibus of the first three Temeraire books, I have decided not to read further. It's just too guy-centric for my taste, at least 75% of the page space being taken up by the doings of the male characters. Yes, there are some females, but with the exception of the evil Lien, they seem, alas, like so much background noise. I swear, some female authors write as if they think any focus on a female character will automatically result in a romance, and they'll only bring females front and center if they have a mushy love story to tell. (Thank Heaven for Elizabeth Moon and her ilk.)

Since I don't mind YA, Robin McKinley's Dragonhaven and Jane Yolen's Pit Dragon series seem much more promising. Any thoughts?

Just finished the first volume of Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Kazul is indeed a dragon after my own heart.

Mmm...I read Robin McKinley's Dragonhaven recently and I _really_ don't understand why anyone would recommend this. It was extremely boring and badly written (yes, on purpose, but that doesn't change the fact that it is badly written).

I second McCaffrey's Pern series and I liked The Enchanted Forest Chronicles as well. Naomi Novik's Temeraire #1 was very nice, but IMO the next books were not as good as the first.

71: I'd like to know any subject (worth reading) that hasn't been "done to death". Heck, even subjects not worth reading seem to have been done to death.

Have you tried The Dragon and the George by Gordon R. Dickson? About a contemporary couple that are accidentally sent to a world where the guy is a dragon named Gorbash and his girl a "George" (meant to be eaten) - hijinks entail.

Has anyone read E.E. Knight's Age of Fire series? I understand that in these books, the dragons are the main characters, not the supporting characters in humans' stories. Moreover, one of the main dragon protagonists is female. That sounds mightily intriguing to me. Are they any good?

73 - I'd recommend it. It took me a while to get used to the writing (I see it as a style, not bad writing) but once I did, I highly enjoyed the book. It made me seek out other of her works, which I have enjoyed as well.

If you want to read a rather awesome horror story about a dragon, try out Chasing the Dragon by Nicholas Kaufmann. Obviously, it doesn't present the softer side of dragons, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.

11> The Dragon and the George was by Gordon Dickson