What to read in summer? Robotic Dragons and Vicar Dragons: 5 Interesting Books About Dragons

Swainwick is generally a master at writing all sorts of unexpected worlds. For example, in Chronicles of the Iron Dragons, they are the local equivalent of the Air Force. The magic-driven iron monsters are vicious and ruthless, just like their elven masters. Yes, these are far from those pointy-eared centenarians who, together with the people, fought against Sauron. Here the elves are quite satisfied with the slave labor of children, here they are quite satisfied with intrigue and incest.

In short, the book turned out to be original and with an elegant and dynamic plot. If the name Swainwick still doesn’t mean anything to you, then it only remains to envy the fact that you will be reading this book for the first time.

I rarely reread books a second time, the impression is not the same. And here Iron Dragon Chronicles is just an exception. As the next book in the series came out (there are three in all), I read the previous one each time.

Technically, Walton’s dragons follow canon pretty well. Some of them fly and breathe fire. They are huge and covered in scales. And they will be quite familiar to you not only in form, but also in content, because they are set in a completely human environment.

Specifically, we are talking about Victorian England, where the patriarch of the family shows up and leaves his children to share the inheritance. Described in many books and peppered with a retinue of dragons, the story is easy to read, and I spent 3-4 summer afternoons on the swing in the garden behind this book.

Separately, I would like to thank the translator, who helped preserve and transmit the author’s stylization of literature a century and a half ago. A dragon in the role of a vicar, helping to decide what part of the deceased each of the heirs should eat – this is strong.

The book isn’t a fantasy masterpiece (strictly speaking, it’s magical realism) like the Swanwick trilogy, but it’s definitely interesting.

If I did not manage to pass the “Saga of the Jester” and I think that I just wasted money on it, then “Living ships” turned out to be a very interesting and unusual book in which you will never know exactly how the ships live. and the dragons are connected.

So, let’s get into more details. Imagine the white, acidic water of the Wilds, where only near-living boats built from dragonwood can walk. And there will be a story about the fate of the merchant settlement, the owners of these ships. Broken ships, broken destinies, betrayals, pirates – I read 3 books in the cycle with pleasure. The world here is really unusual, the characters are well written.

It is amazing how the author, who created a rather interesting and dynamic cycle for herself, was able to suffer and receive awards for the frankly unreadable sheet of the “jester saga”.

This, one of the richest cycles in books, was first published in our country by the Northwest, and people over 30 probably fell into the hands of those same yellow-jacketed books. I’ll be honest, I read only 2-3 books of the cycle, several times I tried to read everything, but somehow it didn’t work.

However, this cycle, which is located at the intersection of science fiction and fantasy, is exceptionally famous and popular, so it is necessary to tell it.

So, many years ago, people colonized Pern. Everything was fine until it turned out that the local star Wormwood occasionally comes to the solar system from this planet, bringing deadly spores – “Threads”.

And so the hard life made people lose their knowledge of high technologies and stop at the level of something like the high Middle Ages. Castles, swords and… dragons, which, along with people, periodically rise to the sky to destroy the falling Threads.

There is no magic here at all. There is an extended fantasy entourage about the SF skeleton, which is quite interesting to read.

Titanic volume-wise, one cycle (about 40, if I’m not mistaken, books), which was also published in our country back in the mid-90s and impressed me so much that after 15-20 years I bought about half just to have it .

If we add the number of books in this collection and average the total amount of magic, then it is thanks to Dragonlance that it will be everywhere at a completely normal level for this style.

Here you have various schools of magic, here you have fights, and the Viliky Black Evil Mage with his sad fate (poor Bupu with his rat… a quarter of a century has passed – but I remember everything). Goblins, Draconians, Leaping Back, Classic great campaign to save the world everything is here Well, yes, dragons. Here they are in abundance in their most classic form.

At the same time, the characters here are way above the level of flat “hit and conjure” people. Each hero has his own motives, there is a very interesting and not sugar-coated romantic line, it is far from a simple parent-child relationship.

if you don’t take completely cranberry conan-barbarian of several authors, in which, I suppose, more than a hundred books have been accumulated, is the Saga of the spear which is the largest fantasy cycle in terms of the number of fantasy books, which you will have to read during almost a whole year. I’m not sure you can handle this cycle, but if you consider yourself a true fan of fantasy as a genre, you should at least give it a try. Already the first ten books, the first 5-7 books, without a doubt, must be read by all fans of fantasy.