Dragon Writers: An Anthology

by Lisa Mangum (Editor), Brandon Sanderson, Jody Lynn Nye

Dragons are creatures of legend. Of magic. Of wisdom, nature, and the power of creation. They have been in every culture and mythology since the beginning of time.

Writers are creatures of legend. With magic, wisdom, and the power of creation at their fingertips. They, too, are in every culture and have been creating their own mythologies since the beginning of time.

Within each writer is the power of a dragon. . . . The power of creation.

Gathered together are twenty-six stories from writers who dared to tame this power, including New York Times best-selling authors Brandon Sanderson, Jody Lynn Nye, Todd McCaffrey, and David Farland. Through fantasy, sci-fi, romance, and poetry, this anthology celebrates the magic and majesty of dragons, writers, and creativity.

Within these pages, you’ll find dragons who fly through space, who raise hatchlings, who carry the power of life and death. Some dragons are even featured as swords, planes, and origami creatures.

Dragon Writers is a special collection where magic and myth combine to create something legendary.

Genres: Fantasy, Anthologies, Short Stories, Dragons

370 pages, Hardcover

Published October 17, 2016

About the author

Lisa Mangum has loved and worked with books ever since elementary school, when she volunteered at the school library during recess. Her first paying job was shelving books at the Sandy Library. She worked for five years at Waldenbooks while she attended the University of Utah, graduating with honors with a degree in English. An avid reader of all genres, she has worked in the publishing department for Deseret Book since 1997.
Besides books, Lisa loves movies, sunsets, spending time with her family, trips to Disneyland, and vanilla ice cream topped with fresh raspberries. She lives in Taylorsville, Utah, with her husband, Tracy. She is the author of the Hourglass Door trilogy and After Hello.

Reviews

[Susan Ferguson]

This is a collection of short stories from a writers’ workshop. All of them concern dragons of one kind or another. A wide variety of dragons, experiences, and narratives. Very good reading.

[Scott Lee]

This is, despite being a themed anthology, wildly eclectic. It demonstrates just how wrong the stereotypes about the supposed straitjacket of genre fiction are. There are tragedies here, and comedies, and more straightforward adventure stories, all kinds...they just all happen to feature dragons. Is every story perfect? Every single one a five independently? Probably not. But what they become juxtaposed against each other is some thing special.

My favorites:

"Muse," by Jody Lynn Nye. This story brings a living dragon, Ulm Drak, very much a high fantasy character, into the modern world as he teams with, Jamie Blandish, a decidedly unimpressed and brazenly disrespectful female author who's arrived to help him write his autobiography because "she needed money to fix [her] motorbike."

"The Dragon Went Down to Dyfi," by Frog Jones presents the story of what happens when A dragon arrives and insists on competing in the Aberdyfi, the yearly contest to determine the greatest of the human bards. It becomes a powerful meditation on where beauty comes from.

"The Final Fold," by Josh Vogt, presents a magic based on origami, and lets a dragon catch a killer.

"Manifest," by Brandon M. Lindsay presents a glimpse of a world where dragons, like little Melly, provide the magical power to allow dragon artisans, like Torra, to create whatever they can visualize from the materials they provide. A story about the cost of creation and magic.

In "The Essence," Frank Morin takes the battle over dragons to the market place where guilds battle over the power dragon essences provide.

In "His Greatest Creation," Jace Killian writes a short story about fathers and daughters, and how their relationship can reach even across interstellar space. Oh, and dragons. This one hit me particularly hard, 'cause, well, I'm a father of three daughters...

In "Shattered Pieces Swept Away," Gregory D. Little creates my favorite, and for me the most fully-realized, fantasy world of all these dragon tales.

"Black Tide's Last Ride," by Mike Jack Stoumbos re-imagines dragons as human-piloted interstellar vessels in what I found one to be a startling combination of the traditional--hey the dragons look, sound, etc. like dragons--and the very original: dragons as science-fiction interstellar vehicles!

There are of course many other wonderful stories here including stories that reflect well on the various talents of New York Times best selling authors Brandon Sanderson, Todd McCaffrey, and David Farland. It's a wonderful anthology.

[Heather]

What a fun read! It's quite intriguing to read through a book packed with short stories, written by different authors, and derived from the same prompt. As someone that reads for hours on end, I can say this one was a bit tough to read for long periods at a time, just due to the fact that you'd get involved in a world/plot and things would come to a stop. Regardless, this is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Definitely recommend.

[V]

Mostly hits, some misses

[Lyn Sweetapple]

A really good anthology by great sci-fi and fantasy authors. I found a few stories that I didn't understand or like so that is why it is not a 5.

[Rachel Johnson]

A few of the stories in here were good, most were pretty meh

[k.wing]

Disclaimer: I have a short story in this anthology, so I will review the other stories.

This anthology was a lot of fun! I was really impressed with how creative my co-authors were, making the dragons not necessarily literal. I loved the cover by James A. Owen, like always. I especially liked the stories by Brandon Sanderson, Joy Johnson, L.J. Hachmeister, Jace Killian, Nancy Green, Tristan Brand, Adric Mayall (poem), and Josh Vogt.

[papasteve]

As with any anthology, this was a bit uneven. But for the most part I liked them all. Some were tongue-in-cheek, which I really enjoyed. This is the first anthology I've read that was based around a theme, and found I really liked that. One detractor (which doesn't have anything to do with the writing and the quality of it) was that I read this on a Kindle. And for a book group. I wish I would have read it in a hard copy book form so I could keep track where certain stories were, and write some notes, etc. I know I can do that with my Kindle--it just would have been easier if I used a hard copy.

[Andrew Brooks]

AND restored to five star, because that repackaged volume has evidently been discontinued/removed.

The reason for their downgrade to four stars at this re-reading is that this Anthology has evidently been repackaged into Here Be Dragons
With all of this content plus considerable additional content for the same price

[Patrick Kuretich]

Lots of great stories and some new authors I will be looking up. Fun read!