A Field Guide to Dragons, Trolls, and Other Dangerous Monsters

by Aaron Sautter

Can you recognize the stench of a troll’s lair? Where is the best place to find a two-headed giant? What is the safest way to observe a dragon? These fantastic creatures and others may not be real, but what if they were? This handy field guide gives you everything you need to study these dangerous monsters of the imagination.

Genres: Dragons, Fantasy, Mythical Creatures, Childrens

32 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2014

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book by accident while searching for Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth in my library catalog. It was not worth the time I gave it. Maybe for a child the right age and trying to find more books that fit their interests it could be fun, but I think there are much better options out there. This is a hack work, the kind of thing someone with experience with D&D and fantasy books could hammer out in little to no time at all, just a bunch of made up factoids drawing heavily from RPG versions of the monsters, but incongruously being tied back to real world lore they only vaguely resemble. The art is only so-so and the credits for the work are somewhat doubtful, referring back only to handles from stock art sites. In particular the forest troll picture reminds me of a fantasy artist I have seen before, though it could just be someone aping his style.

[Tysha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, I admit I'm not a huge fan of 'reference' books categorising dragons by their scale colours (unless it's a RPG manual where it's pretty much expected). To me it's as bad as judging humans by their skin colour. So that kinda put me in a sour mood from the get go. This book also only covers three different Western dragon types/colours as well as Eastern Dragons, but then this is a really slender volume and they have other *dangerous* creatures to warn us about. I think calling itself a Field Guide is really pushing it a bit!

I've given it two stars because the artwork throughout the book is really lovely, but if you are wanting a guide to dragons, or indeed other monsters, there are better ones out there.

[Anna Nesterovich · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish there were a real guide to dragons and other monsters somewhere out there. The pictures here are nice, but the book is too thin to satisfy even a four-year-old. I would welcome a "guide-like" structure for a book like this, but here the attempts to scientific-looking descriptions are quite pitiful, unfortunately. Thus, our search for a good guide to dragons will continue.