I have another e-book review for you today! This one is called Dragon: Ten Tales of Fiery Beasts edited by Rayne Hall, whose own story was one of my favorites in this collection. Here's a brief description of this book, taken from Amazon.com:
"Ten exciting stories - frightening, thoughtful and funny - about dragons by ten authors, edited by Rayne Hall.
The stories selected for this book have different writing styles, from tongue-in-cheek humour to exciting frights, and they present ten different kinds of dragon. Some of these dragons are evil, some are kind, and others just want to be left in peace. But they all are dangerous, and they are formidable foes when their ire is roused.
Leave your disbelief behind and travel with us to lands where dragons roam."
I've loved dragons ever since I was a little kid, and some of my own characters (once I get around to writing about them) are dragons. So needless to say, I was excited to have the chance to read this book. Now that I have, I think I'll have to read more dragon themed fantasy.
I liked this book because it was short but entertaining. Its rated PG13 so it would make a great book for kids. As the description states, this book is full of different stories from authors with varying backgrounds so I really enjoyed the different takes on what exactly they felt a dragon is. Hall's story, the Introvert Dragon, is about an introvert dragon who just wants to live in peace during retirement but her social neighbors have a different idea. It was among my favorites because being an introvert myself I could really relate to this story and I just found the whole thing highly amusing. To Eat a Bard by Larisa Walk was another favorite which sent the sounds of laughter spilling through my home. The writing was a bit clunky, but once I got past that I found it enjoyable. If you ever wondered about the dragon's version of those ancient dragon slaying myths were, well.. this is the story for you. Educating Puff by Jonathan Broughton also stands out in my mind as one of the better stories, and another cause for laughter.
I had read some of the Amazon reviews before reading this book, and one in particular stood out. It claimed this book was mostly advertisement, which had me worried a bit. After reading this book, however, I can appreciate it for what it is. Some of the stories are quite short, only a few pages, which surprised me. Regardless, they accomplish the end goal of telling a story (who ever decided a good story must be hundreds of pages long? not true!) I can see however why that reviewer took issue with this book. The last quarter of the book is information about the authors followed by samples of their other works. Some of the samples are longer than the actual stories in this book. I can understand and appreciate having some information about the authors and minimal amounts of sample work. A quarter of the book in promotional material is overkill.
With that in mind, I did really enjoy this collection of stories and for only 99 cents on Amazon, I do feel its worth the price. I will definitely keep this book in mind when my niece is a little bit older and hopefully she will enjoy these stories as well. I'm currently reading a second anthology edited by Hall, so I hope you will check back for that review.
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
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