The Dragon Quintet
Marvin Kaye, editor
Tor
Fiction, Anthology/Fantasy
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Five short novels by top writers explore the wonders and dangers of dragons:
"In the Dragon's House", by Orson Scott Card: A storied Victorian house bedecked in gables and gargoyles holds a secret within its ancient wiring, a heartbeat and a whisper and waking dreams that speak to one orphaned boy.
"Judgment", by Elizabeth Moon: The human villager Ker doesn't know what to think when he spies the rocks that looked like eggs scattered along the path, but suspects they belong to the other folk, the people of stone or song, and are thus best left alone. When Elder Tam breaks one open to discover crystals within, a dark change overtakes the people... and only Ker and his mother seem immune.
"Love in a Time of Dragons", by Tanith Lee: An enslaved young woman lives a cold and brutal life until she glimpses her true love in the autumn forest, shortly before a warrior arrives to confront the drakkon that's plagued the area for centuries.
"Joust", by Mercedes Lackey: After dragon-riding invaders conquered his nation and turned the people into slaves or serfs, young Vetch has been filled with anger. But then a rider selects the boy as a new servant, to tend the needs of himself and his dragon... giving Vetch an unexpected opportunity for both freedom and, perhaps, vengeance.
"King Dragon", by Michael Swanwick: In a faerie world of magic and malice, young orphan Will is enthralled by the great iron war dragons that scream overhead... until one crashes in the nearby woods and becomes the cruel overlord of his village, recruiting him as its ambassador.
REVIEW: I found this anthology, originally published in 2004, for a very good (cheap) price at a local thrift store, so even though I have some mixed opinions on a few of the authors, I figured it was worth a try because dragons usually are worth a try. I shouldn't be too surprised that I had a mixed reaction to the stories within.
Orson Scott Card's tale is a long walk of a setup to a somewhat vague payoff in a way that makes me suspect that it was intended more as some manner of allegory or sermon than a story in and of itself. It takes a long time to get to even a hint of a dragon (save a gargoyle that dumps water on the sidewalk in front of the house after every rainstorm), and the boy Michael doesn't really do much or have much agency as he comes to understand his unusual bond with the old house and the energy humming through its walls. Much of the wordcount is devoted to the aging homeowners' love of theater and plays and how they take in foster children (Michael being one), but that all becomes so much wasted word count by the end. The dragon itself is an interesting concept, but generally too vague to really invest in.
"Judgment", set in a world of primitive villages and fae beings (and, of course, dragons), delivers a stronger story. Young Ker initially only hopes to earn the goodwill of the respected elder Tam, whose daughter Lin he intends to marry, but the moment he spies the peculiar "rocks" he knows they're bad luck, while Tam reveals a selfish, greedy streak at the thought of the "pretties" that may be within. This is a world where magic and luck aren't just abstractions, and there are very real reasons for the superstitions that abound in the people's lives, very real and powerful entities about that might take offense and inflict real harm. A fair bit happens, though the ending feels a little unfinished, as though Moon intended to expand it or write more. (I'm not familiar enough with her works to know if she ever did, or if this was a spinoff of an existing world or series.)
Tanith Lee's entry paints a vivid portrait of desperation, cruelty, and almost otherworldly wonder and danger in the tale of Graynne, who has been used and abused terribly in her young life, and finally takes a desperate chance to chase love and freedom by following a handsome would-be dragon slayer... but not all is as it initially seems. It feels somewhat long for the tale it's telling, wallowing at several points rather than progressing, and there's something dark and twisted but also cathartic at its heart. Lee uses language brilliantly here, particularly in the descriptions and in the last parts as she evokes a time jump with subtle terminology shifts.
With an Egyptian-flavored fantasy setting, "Joust" should've been more interesting, but everything seems to work out forever in Vetch's favor despite lip service given to long odds and difficulties, robbing the story of its tension. Yes, he starts out a serf to a cruel landowner (the first of many flat characters), but he's quickly plucked away by the world's kindest and most understanding dragon rider, who has a coincidentally unusual backstory and philosophy that basically hands Vetch a blueprint for his own freedom on a silver platter, and despite being new to the world of dragons and being ostracized by other dragon-boys he excels at everything he puts his hands on. It struck me quite early on that it felt familiar somehow, and then I realized that, in essence, Lackey had just given a light massage to the basic story of Jane Yolen's Pit Dragon books - in which an enslaved boy steals a dragon egg from his master, training it in secret for the pit fights that are the only path out of poverty on his desert world, only Jakkin faced steeper odds and setbacks and took far greater risks - with a light touch of Pern and a dash of Dick King-Smith's children's book The Cuckoo Child, about a bird-loving boy who steals an ostrich egg from the zoo to raise at the family farm (only again, the boy Jack Daw and ostrich Oliver encounter more obstacles and stumbles than Vetch). Lackey later expanded the idea of this novella into a series, but if this story is any indication, I've already read it all elsewhere. Even the titular dragon "jousting" barely enters into it. There are a few nice descriptions along the way, and maybe if I hadn't read the other books it borrowed so heavily from I'd have been more invested (or if something had actually gone wrong or been complicated enough to create genuine tension), but overall I found it too derivative to be interesting.
I have only read one book by Michael Swanwick, The Iron Dragon's Daughter, which shares a universe with this tale. I did not like The Iron Dragon's Daughter, despite some intriguing ideas, but it was a long time ago when I read it; perhaps, I thought, I just wasn't ready for the story he was telling. Perhaps it was a younger me that felt so utterly repulsed by the ugly subtexts of his world and its hateful, sadistic, monstrous dragons. Well, if it was just me then, it's still just me now. While Swanwick weaves a suitably surreal fairy realm - the sort that hearkens back to older, stranger, colder ideas of fae magicks and ways - I was just plain sickened by much of what occurred there, and did not like anyone or anything I encountered in it, least of all the beastly dragon (let alone Will)... and that's not even getting into the unsubtle rape themes. This is a world that can kiss a basilisk full on the lips and burn to ash and probably be a more pleasant place for it.
At the end, editor Marvin Kaye discusses more dragons in various media... but he not only confesses ignorance about one of the most popular draconic franchises of the time (Anne McCaffrey's Pern series, still classics to a degree), and further mentions a couple movies just because he dislikes them, but then he provides a selection of recommended dragon media that is... quite eclectic. For instance, 1962's Harryhausenesque (but not actually the work of stop-motion FX master Ray Harryhausen) family fantasy romp Jack the Giant Killer (which I've seen brilliantly riffed by the Rifftrax crew - highly recommended, and the movie's entertaining enough, of a bit goofy and thin on logic, to keep one interested on its own) barely features a dragon at all. The websites are, as one might expect more than twenty years after this book was published, largely defunct, save "urbandragons.com", which appears to be a fossil site that hasn't been updated in quite some time. There were many great dragon websites back in the day I would've recommended over this one, though most have long gone to the Wayback Machine.
In any event, having only paid a couple of bucks, I can't say I'm too disappointed in my reading choice here. The five stories did, at least, all feature actual dragons (not "pseudo-dragons" or "dragons within" or other dodges I've seen passed off as dragon stories in other anthologies), and they each are distinctive in their own ways, even if I wasn't fond of the tales themselves. Some of the imagery does linger. But I still found myself wishing for better...
You Might Also Enjoy:
We Three Dragons (Bill Fawcett, editor) - My Review
A Diversity of Dragons (Anne McCaffrey with Richard Woods) - My Review
Here, There Be Dragons (Jane Yolen) - My Review
