Flight of Dragons [Hardcover]

Rh Value Publishing (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (December 12, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 051734940X
• ISBN-13: 978-0517349403
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,842,699 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Problem of the Flying Brick, November 20, 2002

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Flight of Dragons (Hardcover)

Peter Dickinson's classic book on such imponderables as how (and why) dragons fly is one of my favorite books on the care and feeding of our scaled neighbors. He goes into great detail about what it takes to get a 20,000-pound appetite up into the air and speeding to its next meal. Sometimes slightly tongue-in-cheek, Dickinson draws on legend and story to create a delightful theory that takes the imaginary and makes it real.

Not satisfied with explaining away the impossible, Dickinson goes on to explore the dragon life cycle, habitat and sociology. I took particular delight in the section that explains that most horrific of monsters, the george, otherwise known as 'the mean man in the tin can.' He is quite outspoken about the monstrous atrocities committed in the name of 'dragon-slaying.' And for doubters, there is even a section citing the evidences for the existence of dragons. Of course, those of us who drive from peak to peak dragon-watching in our ancient Volkswagen busses need no further evidence.

The other delight in this book is the rich illustration by Wayne Anderson. We find dragons cute and fearsome, old and new. The work is both beautiful and whimsical, and you will find yourself returning to the images countless times, whenever the dream starts to fade. The book is both beautiful and fun - a worthwhile addition to the mythophile's library.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Answering the key question, October 23, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Flight of Dragons (Hardcover)

The book answers the right question - Not "How could something as big as a dragon fly?", but "Why did dragons need to be that big in order to fly?". The approach is a straight faced, imaginative explanation of dragon phsyiology, psychology, life cycle, and more. The author manages to engage in a ciritcal scientific examination of all the evidece without losing the sense of awful wonder for the dragons he is studying.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome!!!, July 26, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Flight of the Dragons (Hardcover)

I totally agree!!! This is the best book! Basically, he starts out on the premise that dragons actually existed (at about the time cavemen were around), and goes on to explain how something that large could fly, why this lead to them liking maidens, jewels, and gold, why they lived in caves, and why they can no longer be found! Read it (if you can find it)