This afternoon on Twitter I asked: What’s your favorite book that prominently features a dragon. Either as a shifter, character, etc. Keyword: prominent
I have absolutely no reason for asking other than general curiousity. I was browsing Amazon (avoiding cleaning my closet, like I’m supposed to be doing on Vacation Day Two) and something caught my eye. I can’t even remember what, now, but it got me to thinking about dragon books.
So I asked the question. I purposely didn’t say romance, fantasy, YA. It could be any genre, I was just looking for people’s favorites. Because I fail at Twitter today, I forgot to hashtag the question, so I gathered all of the responses so far and am posting them here. My apologies if I missed any! If you have favorites, you’re welcome to post them in the comments here or add them to Twitter, hashtag #DragonBook.
(note: When a series is mentioned, I’ve tried to link to book one in the series/trilogy, in the Kindle format)
The top 5 mentions so far:
Anne McAffrey’s Pern series
The Smoke Thief by Shana Abe
Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison
Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series
The Aisling Grey series by Katie MacAlister
(side note: I’ve read all of these except Anne McAffrey and I bought her first one, Dragonflight, earlier this week)
Books, series or authors that got multiple mentions:
Eileen Wilks‘ World of the Lupi books
Shelly Laurenston/GA Aiken (one author, two pseudonyms)
Dragon Heat and The Black Dragon by Allyson James
Dragonlance series by Weis and Hickman
Hurog duology by Patricia Briggs
Inheritance trilogy by Christopher Paolini
The Hobbit (by some random dude)
Tea with the Black Dragon by RA McAvoy
Patricia C Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles
Ursula K. LeGuin’s Tehanu and The Other Wind
Liveship Traders trilogy by Robin Hobb
Dragon Prince (and subsequent books) by Melanie Rawn
Firelight by Sophie Jordan (YA)
Barbara Hambly Winterlands series
And books recommended (very enthusiastically) by only one response:
The Dragons of Fyre by Janet Lane Walters
Tamora Pierce, Immortals quartet (YA)
Lover Eternal by J.R. Ward
The Dragon and the George by Gordon Dickson
Master of Dragons by Angela Knight
Eternity and a Day by Aline Hunter
Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick (YA)
A Book of Dragons, anthology
Deborah Cooke, Dragonfire series
Alison Goodman, Eon series (YA)
Sharon Lee & Steve Miller Liaden Universe series where family is known as Tree and Dragon
Minerva Wakes by Holly Lisle
Song in the Silence by Elizabeth Kerner (YA)
Jane Yolen’s Pit Dragon Trilogy (children’s: Brianna used to love these books. I loved reading them to her!)
A Dragon’s Awakening by Aya Knight
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
I absolutely love dragons, but I’ve read very few of these. The theme can get overused too easily.
The word “prominent” stopped me from mentioning my first choice (So I voted for Pern instead.)
Even more than dragons, I love sea monsters. Robert Silverberg’s “Majipoor” trilogy (Lord Valentine’s Castle, etc) includes giant “Sea Dragons” that are more than sentient, they are even more intelligent than humans, and yet they quietly exist in the deep oceans, having little interaction with mankind and the other sentient races on the planet.
What? No one mentioned Song of Ice and Fire Saga by George R R Martin?
I am behind on Twitter today so I missed your question. You have all my favorites in your list. By far the Temeraire series by Novik is my favorite. It is the Napoleonic War but with dragons written in an Austenesque style. I adore it.
My favorite dragon series is, hands down, Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books, most especially the first trilogy and the first harper hall trilogy. The rest of the books go in and out for me – not even sure any more how many there are – but those first six caught my heart over 20 years ago and I’m still reading them.
And now, so are my sons!
PERN!!!
I didn’t care as much for her later books, but the first trilogy is everything I look for in world building and tension.
Melanie Rawn’s Dragon Price and Dragon Star trilogies. Awesome, LONG books. I love ‘em, even now so many years later.
I’m surprised nobody mentioned the Eragon series. The movie looked beautiful, so I had to read the book first (books are always so much better than the movies and they leave out important stuff from the movies…). I ended up reading the rest of the series, and am still waiting on the last(next?) book.
It looks like Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders series was mentioned, but the dragons are also in teh Assassins series (at least the third book, which I suppose is a bit of a spoiler).
@Kristi, I think the Eragon series is Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance series, right? It’s up there under multiple mentions!
@Erastes not one single person mentioned Martin! I haven’t read the books, so I didn’t realize it was such an omission!
I really liked the Last Dragonlord and Dragon and Phoenix by Joanne Bertin (Dragon shifters). which were published about 10 or so years ago There is a rumour that she has finally written the third book in the series, Bard’s Oath. Does anyone know if this rumour is true and when that book might be coming out.
I LOVE the Patricia C Wrede novels! Definitely one of the best YA series I read growing up
I must enthusiastically recommend The Empress Sword by Paulette Jaxton. It just came out recently, and a dragon is a main character.
You must add the Myths and Magic series by Keri Arthur!!! They are amazing!!!