Men have been at war for centuries with the reptilian race called "Basics." As conquerors always have, the winners of each bloody encounter have made slaves of the losers-but in this far-future war, each side has improved upon its slaves with genetic engineering. And so at last there came to be two neighboring worlds: Aerlith, where men have raised a race of fearsome dragons to be their servants, and nearby Coralyne, where the descendants of those very dragons are served by strong, savage mutants who once were human. Inevitably, those two worlds would meet in one final contest. . . .
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pre-Prime Directive,
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This review is from: The Dragon Masters (Mass Market Paperback)
Dragon Masters is a delightful example of early science fiction. The conflict between the Sacredotes and their human counterparts prefigures the Prime Directive later so important in the Star Trek Universe, and shows the negative consequences such a policy may engender.
The book is well written and the characters are believeable and enjoyable.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well written, quick read, lots of fun...,
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This review is from: The Dragon Masters (Mass Market Paperback)
Like a lot of Jack Vance, really well written.
A surprisingly well fleshed out and interesting concept for a short novella. It would make an awesome premise for a movie or game.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The edition to get,
By king wolf (Jotunheim) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Dragon Masters (Mass Market Paperback)
Of course you should get all of Jack Vance's books - he is science fantasy's greatest author, after all - but this edition of the classic "Dragon Masters" is a double must-have, because it also contains an even better novella, "The Last Castle". The former is an action-packed, indeed violent, meditation on genetic engineering, with the usual Vance wit in evidence; the latter takes human historical cycles as its theme, as a warm-up for Vance's greatest novella, The Gray Prince.
If you haven't read Vance, this is a pretty good place to start, although he has books that are even better. This double book might be a little more accessible to the uninitiated, though - Vance's genius, when on full display, is a little too much for the average reader. He is a bit more restrained here, less flamboyant, more conventional. The best things about Vance are his awesome wit and vocabulary at the sentence level, his extraordinary inventiveness at the world-building level, and of course his common sense, so in opposition to the current times, at the thematic level. I don't know what my favorite Vance book is - they are all so good - but this double edition is right up there with the Lyonesse series, the Dying Earth quartet and the Demon Princes series as having gleaned universal acclaim. Personally I would rank the two Big Planet books, Magnus Ridolph and Galactic Effectuator at the top, also, but no Vance lover denies the quality of these two gems. Each of them won science fiction's major awards, if that means anything to you...
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