So in the run up to Christmas I’m doing a count-down (well, a count-up). Twelve days of books! But just like the song, I’m going to increase the number of books each day, with a theme. I’ll link the previous posts on each new one, but if you’d like to follow along I’ll also be tagging them ‘hermitknut’s bookmas’.
On the Eighth Day of Christmas...dragons are people too.
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman follows Irene, who works for the mysterious Library, stealing books to balance out different realities. On top of that, we’ve got dragons who can look human, fae who bend the world around them into stories, vampires, and werewolves in the sewer system. Not to mention an ex-Librarian plotting something deadly. Fun, excellent, and marvellously inventive!
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien needs no real introduction, I’m sure. Bilbo’s adventure is a classic of fantasy, from Bag End to barrell-riding to exchanging words with the dragon Smaug. Unrealistically male, of course, but otherwise good fun and well deserving of its position as a classic.
Dragoncharm by Graham Edwards follows an all-dragon cast as they try to defeat the wave of evil currently overwhelming their society. It’s a good adventure story that I got quite invested in - sometimes it’s a bit simplistic (people feel their way through the plot by instinct a tad too often) - but I enjoyed it enough that it didn’t bother me. Fun.
Knighthood for Beginners by Elys Dolan is definitely the most endearingly ridiculous thing I’ve read all year. Dave is a terrible dragon. As in, he’s terrible at being a dragon. So he decides to be a knight instead. He collects his noble steed (a goat called Albrecht who has had all kinds of improbable adventures) and gets on with it. It’s wonderful! Funny and cheering and buckets of fun.
Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton can only be described as basically Jane Austen with dragons and it’s delightful. It’s basically a family drama, except everyone involved is a dragon. The father of the family’s will (of sorts) is contested, which leads to various siblings and friends trying to work around it. Marriages, snark, and interpersonal drama.
Eragon by Christopher Paolini gets a lot of flack for being fundamentally predictable, but sometimes I feel like people are missing the point. It’s an ABC story, sure (Eragon, boy from small village, destined to become a hero) but Paolini does tell it well. And the sequels build on the basic foundation of the first story in some interesting ways! Good characters, particularly in the secondary story lines.
The Heart of Myrial by Maggie Furey is a pretty busy book, plot-wise. There’s at least six plot-threads going on at once, which were quite well done. But it was when they started running into each other that I really started to enjoy it. The world they live in is divided into sections - habitats for different species, really - and someone is breaking this, with devastating impact. Our various heroes, villains, and ordinary folk who are caught up in it are all trying to figure out what to do. Started slow, but I’d like to read more.
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman has a neat set up that allows for humans, dragons who can take human form, and part-dragon humans. Seraphina is an interesting character who gets caught up in investigating the murder of a member of the royal family, and has a vested interest in keeping a degree of peace between dragons and humans. A good, character-driven piece - I’m looking forward to the sequel.
Previously:
On the First Day of Christmas… my favourite book of all time.
On the Second Day of Christmas… books about people exploding.
On the Third Day of Christmas… the very biggest fans.
On the Fourth Day of Christmas… books about princesses.
On the Fifth Day of Christmas… memory is everything.
On the Sixth Day of Christmas… serial killers abound.
On the Seventh Day of Christmas… women growing wise.
