The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City: Prologue
by John Scalzi
On This Page
Description
Old Man's War author John Scalzi's sendup of the heroic fantasy genre, a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story. An over-the-top, humorous short story representing the prologue for a "future" book (written as an April Fool's Joke) published on T The title of the series and book was created from an amalgamation of the most commonly used words in fantasy and science fiction novels over the previous decade.Tags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Scalzi plays on all the stereotypes of fantasy and sci fi to write the opening to a series that doesn’t exist. I repeat, even though it says it’s book one, it’s not. It’s a parody of a series opener. It’s very short (an 11-minute read) and often funny.
A funny comic story that made me desire for a full lenght novel. This book is a Satire of fantasy genre. The author really knows how to write and this short story just prooves that. You can read it online. Just search for the title in google.
For what I see in the reviews many a people would like to see a trilogy.
For what I see in the reviews many a people would like to see a trilogy.
A classic in its own time... Begin the adventure!
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information

135+ Works 67,828 Members
John Michael Scalzi was born May 10, 1969 in California. He attended the University of Chicago. During his 1989 -1990 school year he was the editor-in-chief of The Chicago Maroon. After graduating in 1991, Scalzi took a job as the film critic for the Fresno Bee newspaper, eventually also becoming a humor columnist. In 1996 he was hired as the show more in-house writer and editor at America Online. When he was laid off in 1998, he decided to become a full-time freelance writer and author. His first published novel was Old Man's War. His other works include Agent to the Stars, The Ghosts Brigades, The Androids Team, The Sagan Diary, The Last Colony, and Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas. In 2014 his title, Locked In, made The New York Times Best Seller List. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Awards
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Work Relationships
Is contained in
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City: Prologue
- First words
- Night had come to the city of Skalandarharia, the sort of night with such a quality of black to it that it was as if black coal had been wrapped in blackest velvet, bathed in the purple-black ink of the demon squid Drindel an... (show all)d flung down a black well that descended toward the deepest, blackest crevasses of Drindelthengen, the netherworld ruled by Drindel, in which the sinful were punished, the black of which was so legendarily black that when the dreaded Drindelthengenflagen, the ravenous blind black badger trolls of Drindelthengen, would feast upon the uselessly dilated eyes of damned, the abandoned would cry out in joy as the Drindelthengenflagenmorden, the feared Black Spoons of the Drindelthengenflagen, pressed against their optic nerves, giving them one last sensation of light before the most absolute blackness fell upon them, made yet even blacker by the injury sustained from a falling lump of ink-bathed, velvet-wrapped coal.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 113
- Popularity
- 288,022
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.62)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 2
- ASINs
- 2



























































