Customer Reviews

The Dragon Book: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Comments: This collection of 19 never previously unpublished short stories by mostly well-known authors is written for an "all ages" audience, meaning for adults but an acceptable cross-over for older teens. The book is entirely language and s*x free, though the themes keep the book form being suitable for anyone younger. There were a couple of stories I didn't appreciate but for the most part I rated the others 4s or 5s. I really enjoyed that this book of short stories contained one longer almost novella sized story along with several lengthy 30 page stories along with the shorter short stories, making for a wide range of reading, with the longer stories letting the reader become quite involved in the story. I certainly had my appetite whetted for some of the others here I hadn't read before, which was shamefully quite a few. Of the 19 authors, I had heard of 12 (even owning books by most of them), of those 12, alas, I had read only 8. A very engaging collection of stories with an amazing array of dragons: good, bad, those who fly and those who swim, with wings and without, those who breath fire, those who breathe ice. Plus the stories are told from all sorts of points of view including that of the dragon itself. A very enjoyable collection of stories. Recommended!



1. Dragon's Deep by Cecelia Holland - I really enjoyed this story of a fishing village that the Duke visits one day and tells them their taxes are now doubled. Not knowing what else to do they venture into the dangerous waters called "Dragon's Deep" to fish where they are attacked by a dragon and one girl, Perla, is accidentally taken away by the dragon. The story shows that a beast can learn to love through human tenderness and that humans can turn to beasts when they forget human tenderness. 4/5

2. Vici by Naomi Novik - An enjoyable and funny story with a quirky ending set in Ancient Rome of a man presumably sentenced to death when his punishment is to single handedly kill a dragon. Pure luck makes him successful and he comes home rich with the dragon's hoard and an egg, presumably is dead. When the egg hatches the man's life takes a turn for adventure and will never be the same again. Quite humorous while rather violent at the same time. 4/5

3. Bob Choi's Last Job by Jonathan Stroud - A dragon hunter goes out on a hunt has an encounter with a couple of dragons. Didn't really get this one. Well, I "got" it but wasn't that entertained. 2/5

4. Are You Afflicted with Dragons? by Kage Baker - This was a fun, clever romp of a man who owns a seaside hotel and has a bunch of small dragons come to roost on his roof. After trying the usual pest control measure for ridding oneself of these wyrmin pests he encounters a man who specializes in the job and promises to rid him of his troubles forever. A clever, humorous tale. 4/5

5. The Tsar's Dragons by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple - Much longer than the other stories at 35 pages this is the story of the beginnings of the Russian Revolution and the repeated attempts to kill Rasputin. Dragon's are in the story but don't really come into play until the end, when the Tsar's black and the revolutionaries red dragons are leashed upon the world. The dragons have a more metaphorical place in this story of empire vs communism. 3/5

6. The Dragon of Direfell by Liz Williams - I really enjoyed this story of a mage who has been hired by a small Dukedom to rid itself of a worm-like dragon wrapped around a mountain. The mage undertakes what should be a routine job and finds more than he expected. Deeper magic is at work and as he tries to expose the hidden dark mage things are even more complicated than they had appeared. 4/5

7. Oakland Dragon Blues by Peter S. Beagle - A Police Officer gets called to a traffic hold-up to find an old, sad-looking dragon sitting in the middle of the intersection. Not wanting to deal with all the hoopla that capturing a dragon is going to cause him he convinces the dragon to move out of the way and out of sight where the officer will see if he can fix his problems for him. Turns out the dragon is a remnant from an unfinished story and he wants to find the author, to have his revenge. Absolutely loved this one. Very humorous and we get to see a dragon's life from his point of view. 5/5

8. Humane Killer by Diana Gabaldon and Samuel Sykes - at 55 pages this started to feel more like a novella than a short story and contained a lot of plot. I really enjoyed it though very much. Two pairs both set off to kill the fierce dragon unbeknownst to each other. One pair is the weakling son of a recently deceased valiant hero who must return with his father's mace to prove himself and joins up with a heartless warrior woman wearing a full body leather thong. The other pair is a half heathen girl, therefore a sorceress, but a nice girl who has reanimated a dead soldier to be her protection and strength as she needs to kill the dragon to rescue a precious spell book. Obviously they meet up and the story is quite hilarious. But it was confusing when it first started with the jumping back and forth between these people without the reader knowing who they were or what was going on. 4/5

9. Stop! by Garth Nix - A short, interesting story that doesn't seem to have anything to do about dragons until the strange ending. 3.5/5

10. Ungentle Fire by Sean Williams - The author has written ten books set in the same world and this short story is also set in that world. A young man is bound to apprentice a warrior until he is deemed fit to go on a quest for his master. After five years his master sends him off to find and slay a dragon plus to bring back proof of the dragon's death, then he will set the man free to return to his homeland and marry his intended. The story starts on the 23rd day of that quest. I really, really enjoyed this story! I've never heard of this author before and this is the first story in this book that makes me want to read more by a new-to-me author. 5/5

11. A Stark and Wormy Knight by Tad Williams - A funny story in which a mother dragon tells her children a bedtime story of the days of old when there were big bad knights who slayed dragons and relates a time when their great great great grandpap pulled one over on such a knight. Humorous story, told with lots of word play in the vein of "Jabberwocky" with Williams creating his own fun words but also adding a "snicker", "beamish" and "uffish" here and there. 4/5

12. None So Blind by Harry Turtledove - Set in some time and world of an explorer's age with magic, a group of explorer's and sorcerers set out to explore a part of the map that has always been labeled "Here Be Dragons". The go to find if these dragons are real and also to find any other unusual flora and fauna. An ok story but I figured out the surprise ending and just didn't enjoy this more than ok. 2.5/5

13. JoBoy by Diana Wynne Jones - DWJ is one of my fav. authors and I loved this one! Can't really tell much without giving anything away but it's about a boy who experiences adolescence with both joyful and painful revelations. 5/5

14. Puz_le by Gregory Maguire - One rainy afternoon, a boy works on an old jigsaw puzzle picked up at a garage sale with strange results. Can't say much as this is short and has a twisty ending. Really enjoyed it! 4/5

15. After the Third Kiss by Bruce Coville - May Margaret is cursed and turned into a dragon by her wicked stepmother and only three kisses from her sea adventuring brother will return her to her rightful form. He unexpectedly does arrive home after hearing his homeland is threatened by a dragon. May Margaret gets her three kisses and the stepmother is punished and you would thing all would be well. But this is just the first few pages! No, this fairy tale-like story has much more to it and May Margaret finds that though she no longer breathes fire, there is a yearning fire burning in her blood. I loved this one! 5/5

16. The War that Winter Is by Tanith Lee - In a land where winter lasts 9 months of the year, and may well last longer as time goes by, the tribes have learnt to cope in this harsh land but one thing they have no control over is the dragon, Ulkioket, who can blast a village with it's breath of of ice and freeze everything and everyone glass-like ice that will shatter. Until one day, a small group of scavengers find a frozen city with a pregnant women near the edge, when they touch her she shatters and a live baby is born, one with pale skin and white hair. This, they believe is the hero who has come to rid them of the dragon. At 29 pages, this short story has a lot of space for a well developed story that I just loved. I've only read a few books and stories by Lee but I've never been disappointed yet. 5/5

17. The Dragon's Tale by Tamora Pierce -This story is set in Pierce's fictional universe of Tortall, which I haven't read before. At 39 pages, this one felt like a novella and really had plenty of time to be a well-developed tale. Told through the point of view of a young dragon who is on a trip with an entourage visiting the Emperor's villages, he gets bored and watches a group of boys through stones at a lady scrounging in the garbage who then runs away. Feeling magic in the air, the dragon follows her and discovers magic and a whole lot more. He keeps his secret and comes up with a plan to keep him occupied with big results. I loved, loved, loved this story!! 5/5

18. Dragon Storm by Mary Rosenblum - Tahlia's eyes are different from every one else in the grove and the other children call her "bad-luck eyes". But she does have a special closeness to the surf dragons and one day when she finds a dragon egg a bit different than usual and it hatches, the dragon does not appear to be a surf dragon. In fact it starts to grow at an alarming rate, protects her against any harm, talks to her and reveals the truth that has been kept secret from her for so long. Another fabulous story that I just loved, just shy of 30 pages making it long enough to really develop some character along with the plot. 5/5

19. The Dragaman's Bride by Andy Duncan - It's the 1930s, in the Virginia mountains and every so often when the sheriff's men are around a few of the adolescents will go missing. At first this caused great concern but they all eventually came back after 6 weeks with tales of a hospital, being treated well, and fed well. The girls all had small scars as they'd had to have their appendix out. The boys, well, they had tiny scars a bit lower down, but after finding out everything worked fine they had no complaints. That is until Allie Harrell goes missing for 3 months causing the mountain folks to rile up against the sheriff and his men. Then one day Pearl Sunday follows an old Fire Dragaman down a hole and discovers a lot of answers. Another longer story just shy of 30 pages that combines some historical fiction with a shapeshifting giant/dragon that reads a lot like a folk tale. Really enjoyed this as well 5/5

With nineteen entries by a virtual who's who of fantasy, fans will enjoy this themed collection that look deep into the eyes of Dragons; as the editors explain in the preface: "by far the most potent and widespread of all mythological beasts". The entries are widespread in terms of time and place so various background brings freshness to the anthology. Especially strong contributions are "Vici" by Naomi Novak in the time of Caesar, the mother and son team of Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple who write of "The Tsar's Dragons, the "Oakland Dragon Blues by Peter S Beagle with no Raiders involved only a traffic problem, and "A Stark and Wormy Knight" by Tad Williams. None of the compilation are bummers as each of the writers soar with this version of the mighty dragon who kick military butts (Garth Nix's "Stop") or freeze you with their eyes ("The Dragon's Tale" by Tamora Pierce) or their heartbeat ("The War that Winter Is" by Tanith Lee). The key to this strong thematic short story collection is the wide diverse range of the authors as each makes flying with Dragons a fun fantasy collection.

Harriet Klausner

Dear readers, when you buy a book titled, "The Dragon Book," what do you expect to get? Short stories about dragons, right? Maybe it'd be nice if the dragons were prominent characters. Maybe it'd also be nice if the dragons - dare I say - are the center of attention for more than 10% of the story's duration.

I love dragons. My bookshelf has (virtually) only books that contain dragons. I especially like the ones where dragons are main characters - or even better: the viewpoint character. I am even an amateur dragon-story writer, myself.

I say all this because I'm going to hold this book to a very high standard, and I want you to understand why. You are, after all, spending your money and reading time on this, and you'd like it to be worthwhile.

So, how can it be worthwhile? When the DRAGONS are worthwhile. The dragons are what my review is primarily based on. Creativity, professionalism, and in-story consistency are also strong influences in the rating I give.

Because this book is a collection of short stories, I will review them one at a time. I'll try to keep spoilers low, but some can't be helped.

1. Dragon's Deep: A promising start with a large and misanthropic dragon who gets a little more chatty about halfway in. There are some good moments to be had, but the story falls apart rather rapidly in the last quarter, as just about everyone (dragon included) behaves very irrationally to force a specific ending. The last segment is so poor that I'd recommend you to stop in the middle and imagine an ending - any ending - for yourself. 3/5 stars.

2. Vici: Right, so, one dragon gets killed about twenty seconds after he's introduced, and a second freshly-hatched and cutely naive dragon (more talkative and long-lived this time) has the character development of an apricot - apologies in advance to any writers with well-developed apricot characters. Now, combine that with the viewpoint character being a thoroughly unlikable jerk. And the hatchling LIKING him. Even though he murdered one of the hatchling's parents. I am not making this up! It's so offensively bad, this story alone has made me never want to look at anything by Naomi Novik ever again. 1/5 stars.

3. Bob Choi's Last Job: The first read-through of this modern fantasy was somewhat confusing, and the second read-through reveals why. The crux of this story is a philosophical (and somewhat one-sided) debate between Bob (a hunter of dragons who murder) and a pair of (murderous) dragons, about Bob's line of work. The problem is, Bob's backstory is revealed only in hints and teeny-tiny pieces. I'm aware of the concept of leaving some character history unrevealed, but Bob is so unique and nonstandard that he needed a few extra pages committed to his Not-Last Jobs. Without that, the debate just feels like shallow cold-calling. 3/5 stars.

4. Are You Afflicted with Dragons?: You may be thinking now, "Does this guy like anything?" Yes, I like this story - about a flock of pigeon-like dragon pests, and the protagonist's efforts to get rid of them. The dragons here don't speak, but are definitely a level above being simple animals. I'm docking a star for some forays into very lowbrow "humor", but the ending segment is quite good - so good that I dare not say another word about it here. 4/5 stars.

5. The Tsar's Dragons: I'm sure this story will absolutely tickle the fancy of anyone who likes a good tale of revolution and political posturing/backstabbing. But you could replace the dragons (who don't do much other than sit around and stare at people) with just about anything, and the story would be no different. I'm giving it the score that I am because this is "The Dragon Book", and not "The Symbolic-Cardboard-Cutouts-That-Look-Like-Dragons Book." Otherwise, I have no doubt that the right audience would enjoy it. 1/5 stars.

6. The Dragon of Direfell: I was feeling optimistic about this one. The dragon was kind of just relaxing in the background, but I have a soft spot for wizard viewpoint characters who are still "learning as they go." The plot is built like a detective story, but I found the resolution to be a bit confusing - in the "I'll sit and explain something for two pages, of which only one tangential paragraph is related to the fast move I'll pull on the third," kind of way. Oh, and the dragon continued relaxing in the background the entire time. You know how much I like that. 2/5 stars.

7. Oakland Dragon Blues: Another modern fantasy, with the premise that a depressive dragon from another world has crash-landed in a busy city intersection, leaving a mild-mannered police officer (who is also an aspiring hostage negotiator) to lend aid. The banter between the dragon and cop are excellent, but all supporting characters are just total mood-killers. This isn't helped by the appearance of an unnamed "author" who hates his job, and is very vocal about it. As a writer myself, this character's prolonged, gratuitous, venomous tirade about his own line of work left a bad taste in my mouth. But by all means, add a star or two if you get a kick out of that kind of thing. 3/5 stars.

8. Humane Killer: Within the first page, you can tell that this story is different. The basic plot is that two pairs characters are independently sent to slay a dragon, and end up meeting each other. But I ought to mention that three of these characters are a genre-savvy witch, a marijuana-addicted zombie, and a sociopath. The fourth is The Straight Man - you know, a normal guy that serves to magnify the eccentricities of the others. The dragon himself has relatively little screen time, but his presence drives the story, and the overall quality is just sublime. 5/5 stars.

9. Stop!: I'm convinced now that the title is a warning: "Stop! Don't read this! Just skip it entirely!" This one tries to be clever (in a giggling fraternity-boy kind of way), but fails miserably. It never improves. I'm not even convinced there's a dragon in it. Even if there is, the so-called "dragon" just appears out of nowhere, rants for a bit, and then the story is over. Great. 1/5 stars.

10. Ungentle Fire: At first glance, framed as someone sent to kill a dragon, but that's where the ordinary ends. This one is unique, nicely fantastical, has a reasonable-yet-flawed main character, and it majorly involves dragons. A little weird, a little unusual in places... but weird and unusual are never, ever bad. See how easy it is to get a top score from me? 5/5 stars.

11. Stark and Wormy Knight: Finally, one from the dragons' point of view, and written in the good ol' "20% of the words are either a slightly-off synonym or an invented word that closely resembles a real one" style. Look at the title again, and you'll see a hint of what I mean. That's fine - I don't criticize stylistic choices. The story is even good, and quite funny... up until the last few pages, where apparently the author was running up against the deadline and had to throw an ending together at the last minute with an injection of unprofessional lowbrow humor. Seems to be a trend. Sad, really. 4/5 stars.

12. None So Blind: Another one that's kind of interesting, but with a rather serious flaw. The plot revolves around a group of explorers LOOKING for dragons. But, I kid you not, 95% of the story has them dealing with distinctly non-dragon threats and discoveries. And dung. Lots of dung. The remaining 5% felt cheap and tacked-on in a "This part is almost entirely irrelevant to what you just read" kind of way. How could it not, when 5% is scarcely more than half a page? 2/5 stars.

13. JoBoy: A unique little story, so short (and a bit rushed, really) that it's hard to really explain a lot about it without giving away key plot points. It has dragons, so that's good. It also has several rare, underused concepts (such as what resembles - but is never actually called - astral projection) without actually stopping to explain what's going on or why JoBoy seems to remain 100% nonchalant while weird stuff happens to, and around him. Still, it's got logical flow, stays consistent in its nonchalance, and I guess if you just run with it, it's an okay story. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, but only because of the dragon content. 4/5 stars.

14. Puz_le: Writing fiction stories sure would be a lot easier if we could just Mad Lib together a completely random beginning, middle, and end. On the last page, the main character is so confused by the rest of the story that she asks a variation of "What's going on?" no fewer than three times, and gets only vague, evasive answers. Even the author didn't know what was going on, apparently... and I certainly didn't! I guess there's a dragon, too. He's the only thing that stops this one from being a complete train wreck. 2/5 stars.

15. After the Third Kiss: A princess has been magically transformed into a dragon, and requires three (chaste) kisses from her brother to return her to human form. She gets them. If you look at the title again, I didn't really spoil anything. The main part of this one is how the princess deals with life after having experienced being a dragon, while the rest of the cast keeps trying to get her involved in the plot. It's quite good... up until a pretty terrible plot hole near the end. It's a really, really obvious one that's either a writer mistake, or marks a certain character as being an (uncharacteristically) complete idiot. I only bring it up to point out that even something like THAT doesn't interfere with the excellent dragon content. 5/5 stars.

16. The War That Winter Is: Weighing in at a tedious 30 pages (on the longish side, relative to the other stories in this book), this one seems to be made for readers who like to have their story's history and lore firmly set. The dragon (with vague indications there may be more than one), though a killer, is described as more of an indifferent force of nature, as opposed to a flesh-and-blood creature. This becomes key when the protagonists seek (par for the course) a way to kill it. To its credit, there's not a thing about this story that's ordinary, and there's definitely an interesting twist or two to be had. However, the rather plodding pace, as well as multi-page fixation on certain parts that are totally irrelevant later, hold me back from handing this one a full score. 4/5 stars.

17. The Dragons' Tale: A charming story told from the first-person perspective of a very young dragon (who, mercifully, narrates in plain English) living under an adoptive pair of (unique and atypical) wizard parents. After said dragon becomes very bored one day and looks for something to do, much of the plot and detail comes from the dragon's very non-human point of view, and her inability to speak in anything but pantomime. On a purely professional level, it's simply impossible to find any fault with this one, although individual taste for the ending may vary. 5/5 stars.

18. Dragon Storm: A somewhat promising start, with the main character (a person with an unusual heritage) having an (equally unusual) kinship with the dragons that are common throughout the land. When she happens across a nest of dragon eggs, and one of the hatchlings speaks to her in plain words (not normal, even for her), you know that some action is going to happen. Unfortunately - and I very rarely say this - the story's last 3/4 is downright generic and predictable. Everything that happens, you can see coming from a mile away, and there's nothing particularly unique about the main dragon character. If some of the other stories in this book are any guide, this is what you get when you ask a famous author to write a dragon story in two weeks, even when they're low on the inspiration and motivation to do it properly. 2/5 stars.

19. The Dragaman's Bride: And finally, the book ends on a whimper, with a story that has NO DRAGONS - not even a single symbolic cardboard cutout, like in "The Tsar's Dragons". I'd hope that it was just a simple misunderstanding on the part of the author, that he simply forgot it was supposed to be a dragon-related story and had a really awesome idea he just HAD to go with... but the story doesn't have a single other redeeming quality to make up for it. It's like he just kind of wrote whatever he felt like and hoped the editors would still include his story and pay him. They did, unfortunately. 1/5 stars.

Altogether, we've racked up 57 stars, and 57 divided by 19 is 3, thus we get the final overall score. Obviously, you could do worse, but with so many other great dragon books out there, you could do a lot better as well - and save a couple dollars. I've given you my criteria, I've given you my reasons, and I've given you my rating. The final choice is still yours.

The other reviewers covered a lot of the ground here, except that this book is NOT sex-free. The theme and cover are designed to tap in to the audience for "How to Tame Your Dragon," and there's nothing to warn parents that this is really aimed at a YA audience. For more mature teen readers, there are some good reads in here, altho' the usual spottiness you get in any short story collection. For younger readers, however, this should be a miss, unless you want to find yourself explaining to your kids what "whoring" is or what it means for a woman "to allow herself to be raped." Wait... actually I'm an adult and *I'm* a little confused by that gruesome turn of phrase...

I bought this book mainly because of the Naomi Novak story "Vici" that is in it. Though I did read the entire book. In the end I was surprised this is a wonderful book full of wonderful stories buy some of the best authors that their are today. It contains everything from modern fantasy, historical what if's (Vici), and your standard high fantasy. This is a book I recommend for any dragon lover of any age middle school and up.

this is a great collection of stories and so far I have enjoyed every one especially Naomi Novik's Vici.

In this book, The Dragon Book by Jack Dann, dragons come
alive in many countries. Twenty-one of our young adult
writers wrote these short stories for us to read and
enjoy, and enjoy you will. Even though the stories are all
different, they all have the same idea... DRAGONS! In one
of the stories a young dragon asks his mother how they
came to be, and she talks about an evil knight. In another
story, a young lady is special... but not in a bad way.
She can talk to dragons, and she even has her own personal
dragon! So, as you can see, these stories are different
and individual in there own ways, yet they are about one
of my favorite things, dragons.

Do you love dragons? Well I do, and that is the main reason I chose this book
in the first place. When I first started to read this
book, I wasn't so sure I made a good choice in my
selection. Just like with any collection of short stories
some stories are better then others. In this particular
book you must read a few confusing stories. But a couple
stories in, I realized how great the stories were. Each
author's style was unique, so I got a taste of how each
author writes and how their imaginations are working. All
of the authors reached their goal which was to talk about
dragons. Every time I closed my eyes I could imagine
dragons soaring or helping out a new friend, and when I
finished that story and would go on to the next, I could
imagine the two dragons and the people from both stories
forming a whole other book. Even though it wasn't the
greatest book I've ever read and had some flaws such as
the titles of some of the stories, and how confusing some
of the stories were with their plots. It was really good,
and I hope I will be able to read some of these amazing
authors works again sometime soon.

Reviewed by a young adult student reviewer
Flamingnet Book Reviews
Teen books reviewed by teen reviewers

This was an almost uniformly bland collection, which disappointed me, because I quite enjoyed the previous anthology in this series, Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy. There weren't any stories that I hated, or even particularly disliked, but there were also precious few that had any spark whatsoever; I finished the anthology yesterday, but can't recall more than four of the nineteen stories without consulting the table of contents. And even the best stories were still significantly flawed. Part of the problem, I suspect, lies in how little creativity the authors approached the subject of dragons with -- all of the dragons but two were of the typical European fire-breathing variety (the two holdouts were an ice dragon and a sea dragon), and most were presented as monsters and the thrust of the story was in finding that they are intelligent and not intrinsically inimical to humanity. There was one story that took the full-fledged companion animal fantasy route, but even that treatment brought nothing new to the table. So overall I was a tad bored throughout, and can't recommend this collection unless you are a completist about either dragons or one of the authors included herein.

"Dragon's Deep," by Cecelia Holland: This story was one of the most moving of the collection. It presented dragons in a very classical feudal European setting, and the plot was entirely predictable, but the feudalism was presented realistically rather than with the usual benign Disney-fied fairy tale atmosphere, and the protagonist's conflict of loyalties in the climax had the potential to be wrenching -- if it hadn't felt rushed. The story could have blossomed at novella-length, but the ending was just too abrupt to work.

"Vici," by Naomi Novik: This story will likely be of interest to fans of Novik's Temeraire series, as it details how the Roman military first came to use dragons in combat, setting the groundwork for the English dragon corps; unfortunately, that's all the story does. It's cute, and has one or two slyly humorous moments, but doesn't really go anywhere.

"Bob Choi's Last Job," by Jonathan Stroud: This is one presenting dragons in a modern setting, and it does have a Chinese dragon in it, but that felt like window dressing -- it was totally irrelevant to the story. But then, the whole story felt kind of irrelevant -- it might make sense in the larger scale of some novel by Stroud, but without that background I didn't get the point. I didn't understand how the world worked, nor did I care; I predicted the decision the protagonist made at the end, but never understood why, or again, why I should care.

"Are You Afflicted with Dragons?" by Kage Baker: This story is the reason I bought the anthology; Baker's short story in Wizards was absolutely brilliant, and made me go out and buy all of her novels, and they did not disappoint. So I had high expectations for another short story set in the same fantasy world, and while this story didn't meet those expectations, it wasn't bad. It returns to some characters from The Anvil of the World and shows how they deal with a minor dragon infestation of their hotel; it has enough of Baker's wry humor to be enjoyable, and the ending twist is well set-up and executed, but it was overall fairly lightweight.

"The Tsar's Dragons," by Jane Yolen & Adam Stemple: I wanted this story, which adds dragons to the Russian Revolution, to come to more than it did. It was dragged down by too much literalness, and far too surface-oriented a reading of history. There was no atmosphere, no sense of desperation, and the villains managed to be neither villainy (which might have worked here) nor well-rounded human beings (which I think is what the authors were going for). Too ambitious, I suspect -- all the story made me want was someone else to do it better.

"The Dragon of Direfell," by Liz Williams: This was probably the most unique treatment of the dragon; it also had the feel of a well-developed alternate world behind it, enough to make me wonder if it's set in the same world as one of Williams' novels. Unfortunately, neither the characters nor the plot was interesting, and other than earning a snort for a line in the closing paragraph it left no impact.

"Oakland Dragon Blues," by Peter S. Beagle: This story is probably the strongest technically in the collection; Beagle was clearly in complete control and the story delivers everything it should. It's another that places a dragon in a modern setting, and it has some humor and a nice metafictional twist. If the collection had been more interesting I would have quite liked it. Unfortunately, it was just too slight a story to carry over 400 pages of "meh."

"Humane Killer," by Diana Gabaldon & Samuel Sykes: This story spends a very long time doing very little, then has the climax occur entirely off-screen. It is probably the story I liked least, simply because I felt I invested quite a lot of reading time for very little payoff. It's another straight-forward medieval dragon & world, and the characters were all loaded down with too much backstory that never came to anything.

"Stop!" by Garth Nix: This is the second short story I've read by Nix, and both struck me as ugly and pointless. It's very short, and places its dragon in what appears to be a nuclear test zone during WWII, but there were too few details for me to be sure -- about the setting, or any of the characters, or why on earth I was bothering to read it. It also uses "f--ing" a lot, and that isn't my elision, which annoyed the hell out of me. The dashes are a copout that simply draws attention to your hypocrisy.

"Ungentle Fire," by Sean Williams: This story had the potential to be brilliant, but needed a firm editorial hand. It was set in a steampunk alternate Australia, and there were some beautiful images and beautiful character moments. Unfortunately, the ending was a total clunker, because Williams felt the need to spell out all the stuff he implied so gently just moments before. If it had ended one page earlier I would have loved it, but lines like "He was aware now that the emotional pitfalls he had been skirting during his quest. . ." really dragged it down.

"A Stark and Wormy Knight," by Tad Williams: This wasn't a bad story, but it kept reminding me of a blog post by John Scalzi in which he talks about the difference between clever and good. This was merely clever, unfortunately it didn't make me laugh, so it didn't work for me. The title is a very good sample of what the whole story is, so if you like the title you'll probably like the story, and if the title leaves you cold, well, there's a lot more of that coming.

"None So Blind," by Harry Turtledove: This is a Milieu story if ever I've seen one; I suspect it's set in one of Turtledove's alternate histories, but haven't read any of them so I can't be sure. It never ends up being more than a travelogue, and the constant repetition that in this world the tropical savages are blonde and the colonial oppressors are dark(er) get really obnoxious, mostly because there's never any reason given for WHY the tropical people would be light-skinned and the people from the cold-climate would be dark-skinned. It also hammers the titular point home, which I did not need.

"JoBoy," by Diana Wynne Jones: This story felt like it was aimed very young. The setting is barely established at all (I believe it's a modern English city) and the characters get only slightly more treatment; the whole story revolves around a very simple mystery and then stops.

"Puz_le," by Gregory Maguire: This was one of the few stories that managed to develop an interesting atmosphere; the dragon and the magic creepy and intriguing. Unfortunately, it read like chapter 1 of some novel or, worse, a treatment for a novel. The instant that the tension was at its highest, another character came in, broke it, and basically said "I have so much to tell you!" The end. It made me want to read more, but simultaneously resent Maguire and therefore want to swear him off forever.

"After the Third Kiss," by Bruce Coville: This very heavily fairy tale influenced story was doing moderately interesting things that looked rather like Robin McKinley's brilliant Deerskin -- until it said outright "no, that isn't happening here," at which point I got bored and started paying less attention. Then (possibly because I was paying less attention, but maybe not) the ending came out of nowhere, and was heavy-handed to boot.

"The War That Winter Is," by Tanith Lee: This is my favorite story of the collection. It is lyrical and epic and (unusual for this collection) exactly the right length. It feels rather like a Norse Saga (this is the one with the ice dragon) and if it weren't for a slight stumble on the dismount I would have loved it unreservedly; as it is, it too fell into the trap of spelling things out just the slightest bit too clearly at the end.

"The Dragon's Tale," by Tamora Pierce: Like Jones' story, this one felt aimed just a little too young for my taste; it has a first-person dragon narrator that veers a bit closer to precious than I would have liked. Other than that, it works well enough; I assume it's set in one of her established worlds (maybe even with already established characters?) and so I felt I was missing some of the references, and the resolution is too easy for the amount of jeopardy the characters were placed in, but it's a decent enough example of a short story for pre-teen readers.

"Dragon Storm," by Mary Rosenblum: This is the story with the sea dragon, and the only one that does the full companion animal fantasy treatment; it suffered from being entirely predictable and having an ending that was too easy for the jeopardy set up just before.

"The Dragaman's Bride," by Andy Duncan: This final story ended the collection on a strong note. It was set in Appalachia in the 1930s and felt authentically Southern -- the Dragaman was not a European dragon transplanted wholesale, but rather what a dragon myth might have evolved into in a new environment (I know little about Southern folktales; maybe it *is* authentic) -- and the mix of fantasy and history was perfectly balanced. (Also perfectly horrifying.) I didn't love the voice, and the villains got off incredibly easily, but this was a good story, and one of the few that got me interested in seeking out the author's other work.

I have been reading books about dragons for years. From Barron to Paolini, from the very young to the more mature but never have I read stories that were so boldly suggestive. The first 2 stories were so appauling, that I put the book away.

I ejoyed The Dragon Book because it had stories by so many first rate fantasy writers. I originaly wanted the book for the story by Tamora Pierce. It was a lot of fun to have a story from Kit's viewpoint.