Harrowing the Dragon

This collection of short stories was just beautiful.
McKillip is an artist with words, the way she can describe the worlds and weave magic into every single story.

I must say, there are some stories that are a lot stronger than others. I particularly fell in love with the first two: "The Harrowing of the Dragon" and "A Matter of Music". Oh but "The Fellowship of the Dragon" was lovely too - and "The Stranger" was just heart-wrenching.
Ah, I should probably stop before I list most of the stories.

"The Harrowing of the Dragon" is about a boy who comes to save an island from their sleeping dragon - and a girl who wishes he would stop trying to save them. It's just lovely, lovely writing with a different quirk than you would expect.

"A show more Matter of Music" was (duh) about music. And oh, McKillip's description of songs and notes soaring through the old castle halls are just heart-stopping. The emotions were tense and beautiful and the ending was just perfect. I am definitely overusing the words "beautiful" and "lovely" to write this review, but really, what else can I do?

I almost threw a fit at the end of "The Fellowship of the Dragon" because I wanted to see the end, to continue following these characters. But as I reflected a little (and told myself it's not good to throw fits in public), it really did end perfectly.

There are a couple of weak stories that just seem to be based loosely on a fairy tale with a unique spin, but it never quite comes together.
"Ash, Wood, Fire" was just a little too odd with not enough concrete points to make sense of the whole story. "Toad" was just boring and a poor way to end the novel. "Star-crossed" was interesting for the premise, but also not very exciting or moving.

So there you have it. Some stories are just beautiful, some are meh. But this is one collection worth reading anyway.

3.5 stars rounded down. I really would have rounded up, but there were a few too many stories that were subpar. Highly recommended for any fairy-tale lovers out there, or anyone who loves beautiful language. show less

Harrowing the Dragon is a collection of fifteen short stories by Patricia McKillip, an author well known in the fantasy genre as a master. This collection is, as reviewers are so fond of saying, of "uneven quality" — which is really just another way for us to say we liked some better than others. Short story collections are hard to review because it's clunky to give a plot summary of each story, but it's also awkward to clump them all together.

For me, the highlights of the collection were "The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath," "The Stranger," "A Troll and Two Roses," "Lady of the Skulls" and "The Lion and the Lark." In these stories, the world around the story is distinct, given an atmosphere and feel that serves the story show more beautifully. Some of the stories are funny with a wry humor. Others are very grave, concerned with beauty and art and poetry.

Other stories, like "The Fellowship of the Dragon" and "The Witches of Junket", had a common theme of women banding together to deal with some kind of otherworldly challenge. Sometimes it felt a little too much like Girl Power! Down with the Men! We Gals Have Communion with Mystical Things by Virtue of Our Femaleness! — and that is just such an overused (not to say sigh-worthy) concept. It isn't typical of McKillip, either.

Another thing I found frustrating in many of the stories is that they ended at their beginnings. Several could be full-length novels, but they end just as the story is picking up. They are orphaned first chapters with no second chapter to follow. Maddening!

I was a bit surprised at some of the content McKillip includes, much more sexually explicit than what I have encountered in her longer works. It seems a pity that McKillip should fall into the norms of her genre after staying so aloof for all these years, but I suppose it is to be expected.

Whatever their failings, these stories are all written in McKillip's signature lyrical prose, and that alone makes them a pleasure to read. I love this line from the title story:

The world is just another tiny island, ringed with a great dragon of stars and night.

Not every story in this collection can be McKillip's best, but I can forgive much for words strung together like this. show less

I ended up with two copies of "Harrowing the Dragon" -- invariably ordering it twice on discounted book buying binges. But that's worked out just fine. One copy retains a place on my bookshelves, the other I keep in the car. Because if I'm at a loss for reading material and I have time to spare, it's a great book to have handy. I might have to add this to the "Three Books I'd Take To A Deserted Island" list. It doesn't matter how many times I've read it, I am still transported to another place. How do I gauge when a book is truly good? If when interrupted in my reading, I feel jarred like out of a sleep of brilliant dreams and for a split second have to blink away the sense of being disoriented.

This collection of fifteen short stories was a bit disappointing. All of them have the usual fairy tale feeling, mysterious magical atmosphere and beautiful writing that the author is known for, but I enjoyed some stories more than others and a lot of them felt incomplete. Most of these stories felt like ideas that weren’t fully fleshed out, which is a shame because I loved a lot of these ideas.

So far, I’ve read “The Riddle Master of Hed”, “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld”, “The Changeling Sea” and “Winter Rose”. This book was the one I liked the least. Short stories are hard to pull off and need to rely on strong themes and writing in order for me to enjoy them. I wonder if the other books of short stories by this show more author are similar to this one. I want to eventually read all of her works, but I might leave those for last.

This book includes the following stories: The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath; A Matter of Music; A Troll and Two Roses; Baba Yaga and the Sorceror's Son; The Fellowship of the Dragon; Lady of the Skulls; The Snow Queen; Ash, Wood, Fire; The Stranger; Transmutations; The Lion and the Lark; The Witches of Junket; Star-Crossed; Voyage into the Heart; Toad.

“A Matter of Music” was really long and somewhat boring. Now I worry that I will not like the novel the author has about bards since I wasn’t much of a fan of this one.

"The Fellowship of the Dragon" and "Lady of the Skulls" had amazing concepts, but they felt unfinished. I would have preferred a novel dedicated to each of those stories.

My favourites were “A Troll and Two Roses” and “The Stranger”. “The Stranger” reminded me a bit of “The Changeling Sea”. The story “Baba Yaga and the Sorceror's Son" was the most fun.

Since I have been reading this book slowly for a few months I already forgot some of the stories, which means they didn’t leave a big impression on me.

Overall, this was enjoyable, but not the best work I’ve read from the author. show less

There is an interesting mixture in these fifteen stories - there are quests, dragons, fairy-tale-retellings, riddles, contemporary settings and even something one would have to count as 'Shakespeare fanfiction', about someone trying to solve how Romeo and Juliet died. Some of the stories are confusing, some have startling twists, some have hopeful endings, and others are a little heartbreaking.
None really stand out in my mind, except for 'The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath' and 'Lady of the Skulls'. (I would have enjoyed 'The Snow Queen' and 'The Lion and the Lark' more if they had been novels rather than short stories, although I quite like them how they stand). But nothing bored me; even those I was less fond of were show more captivating to read, and they are all beautifully written. show less

A collection of short stories from one of my favourite authors, this brings together fiction from anthologies spanning twenty five years of writing. It's not surprising, given this, that the quality is a little uneven – but, actually, it's less so than you might imagine. It ranges from the epic through the humorous to the poignant and, it has to be admitted, the pointless (I didn't have a lot of use for "A Matter of Music" or "The Witches of Junket"). Perhaps the best of the collection are the various new imaginings of old stories: "East of the Sun and West of the Moon", a surprisingly modern "Snow Queen". Good and not-so-good alike, they all share McKillip's characteristic lyricism and warmth; haunting and memorable.

More of the same--if you like Patricia McKillip's style, then that means "very good"; if you don't like Patricia McKillip's style, then you won't be surprised in any way.

But I can't imagine why you wouldn't like this.