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The Brass Dragon
It's bad enough for a teen-age boy to wake up with amnesia, strange burns on his legs, and even stranger nightmares. But when a creepy stranger claiming to be his father tried to remove him from the hospital, his adventure was just beginning -- unless, of course, the adventure had already happened.
125 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
About the author
Marion Zimmer Bradley
835 books5,012 followersMarion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series, often with a feminist outlook.
Bradley's first published novel-length work was Falcons of Narabedla, first published in the May 1957 issue of Other Worlds. When she was a child, Bradley stated that she enjoyed reading adventure fantasy authors such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, and Leigh Brackett, especially when they wrote about "the glint of strange suns on worlds that never were and never would be." Her first novel and much of her subsequent work show their influence strongly.
Early in her career, writing as Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter, and Lee Chapman, Marion Zimmer Bradley produced several works outside the speculative fiction genre, including some gay and lesbian pulp fiction novels. For example, I Am a Lesbian was published in 1962. Though relatively tame by today's standards, they were considered pornographic when published, and for a long time she refused to disclose the titles she wrote under these pseudonyms.
Her 1958 story The Planet Savers introduced the planet of Darkover, which became the setting of a popular series by Bradley and other authors. The Darkover milieu may be considered as either fantasy with science fiction overtones or as science fiction with fantasy overtones, as Darkover is a lost earth colony where psi powers developed to an unusual degree. Bradley wrote many Darkover novels by herself, but in her later years collaborated with other authors for publication; her literary collaborators have continued the series since her death.
Bradley took an active role in science-fiction and fantasy fandom, promoting interaction with professional authors and publishers and making several important contributions to the subculture.
For many years, Bradley actively encouraged Darkover fan fiction and reprinted some of it in commercial Darkover anthologies, continuing to encourage submissions from unpublished authors, but this ended after a dispute with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley's that had similarities to some of the fan's stories. As a result, the novel remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all Darkover fan fiction.
Bradley was also the editor of the long-running Sword and Sorceress anthology series, which encouraged submissions of fantasy stories featuring original and non-traditional heroines from young and upcoming authors. Although she particularly encouraged young female authors, she was not averse to including male authors in her anthologies. Mercedes Lackey was just one of many authors who first appeared in the anthologies. She also maintained a large family of writers at her home in Berkeley. Ms Bradley was editing the final Sword and Sorceress manuscript up until the week of her death in September of 1999.
Probably her most famous single novel is The Mists of Avalon. A retelling of the Camelot legend from the point of view of Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar, it grew into a series of books; like the Darkover series, the later novels are written with or by other authors and have continued to appear after Bradley's death.
Her reputation has been posthumously marred by multiple accusations of child sexual abuse by her daughter Moira Greyland, and for allegedly assisting her second husband, convicted child abuser Walter Breen, in sexually abusing multiple unrelated children.
(from Wikipedia)
Bradley's first published novel-length work was Falcons of Narabedla, first published in the May 1957 issue of Other Worlds. When she was a child, Bradley stated that she enjoyed reading adventure fantasy authors such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, and Leigh Brackett, especially when they wrote about "the glint of strange suns on worlds that never were and never would be." Her first novel and much of her subsequent work show their influence strongly.
Early in her career, writing as Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter, and Lee Chapman, Marion Zimmer Bradley produced several works outside the speculative fiction genre, including some gay and lesbian pulp fiction novels. For example, I Am a Lesbian was published in 1962. Though relatively tame by today's standards, they were considered pornographic when published, and for a long time she refused to disclose the titles she wrote under these pseudonyms.
Her 1958 story The Planet Savers introduced the planet of Darkover, which became the setting of a popular series by Bradley and other authors. The Darkover milieu may be considered as either fantasy with science fiction overtones or as science fiction with fantasy overtones, as Darkover is a lost earth colony where psi powers developed to an unusual degree. Bradley wrote many Darkover novels by herself, but in her later years collaborated with other authors for publication; her literary collaborators have continued the series since her death.
Bradley took an active role in science-fiction and fantasy fandom, promoting interaction with professional authors and publishers and making several important contributions to the subculture.
For many years, Bradley actively encouraged Darkover fan fiction and reprinted some of it in commercial Darkover anthologies, continuing to encourage submissions from unpublished authors, but this ended after a dispute with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley's that had similarities to some of the fan's stories. As a result, the novel remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all Darkover fan fiction.
Bradley was also the editor of the long-running Sword and Sorceress anthology series, which encouraged submissions of fantasy stories featuring original and non-traditional heroines from young and upcoming authors. Although she particularly encouraged young female authors, she was not averse to including male authors in her anthologies. Mercedes Lackey was just one of many authors who first appeared in the anthologies. She also maintained a large family of writers at her home in Berkeley. Ms Bradley was editing the final Sword and Sorceress manuscript up until the week of her death in September of 1999.
Probably her most famous single novel is The Mists of Avalon. A retelling of the Camelot legend from the point of view of Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar, it grew into a series of books; like the Darkover series, the later novels are written with or by other authors and have continued to appear after Bradley's death.
Her reputation has been posthumously marred by multiple accusations of child sexual abuse by her daughter Moira Greyland, and for allegedly assisting her second husband, convicted child abuser Walter Breen, in sexually abusing multiple unrelated children.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
January 2, 2021
I'm honestly surprised with how much I really enjoyed this book - I don't generally read scify and so was ready to find this rather boring. But I rather enjoyed myself and had fun throughout the entire plot, from the lost and frightened Barry to the trip into space, and the fast-paced, harrowing end.
August 2, 2022
Read this in one day. Its definately YA SF which I didnt know going into it after picking it up at a used book store for the awesome cover art. It was still fun and enjoyable with mystery in the begining after our main character wakes up in a hospital with amnesia. The second part of the book where it turns into space travel and alien fighting was where it got good as before this did drag on for around half the book. Not upset I read it or that it turned out to be YA. This would be a great book for a young boy to read starting out in the SF genre.
January 2, 2014
I've loved most of the books I've read by Marion Zimmer Bradley, but this one was bad. I think it was written for young adults. One thing I thought was funny is that she has an advanced race of interstellar travelers that still use a slide rule for calculations.
June 11, 2011
This was the first proper book I ever read back in 1977. I remember loving it so was keen to re-read it. I shouldn't have. It's terrible. Corny and horribly dated.
June 7, 2023
While I didn't realise it when I bought it, this is actually published as a full on 'children's book'. Not Juvenilia (which I think it is more suited to) nor as what we would call today 'YA' but actual Children's.
I think I read it many years ago; so many that while I remembered events vaguely after I read them, I never really saw anything coming, in any case I enjoyed it thoroughly: a young man/boy around 17? 18? wakes up in a hospital bed with amnesia. He was picked up injured with no ID and it set's the scene nicely for the overall story. One of the first things that happens is that someone (we realise someTHING, but they do not) turns up, claiming to be his father calling him 'Barry'.
Now the boy has such a visceral reaction of horror to this someone, that the doctor will not release him and he is still there when ANOTHER man turns up, claiming to be his father and, again, calling him Barry. As a way to escape 'man' #1, the boy pretends to recognise him and goes home with him.
This set's the scene for Barry with no memory trying to re-integrate into a normal life - only with weird and ab-normal things continuing to happen around him. He decides he must find out what happened in the year he was missing and we...
launch into the next part of the story which is how Barry, a year back got mixed up with two sets of aliens, galactic politics and goes careening around the solar system. The secret of the bronze dragon, found in his pocket when he arrived at the hospital is also revealed!
Now the Barry in space part is heaps of fun, it is kind of a classic 'boy's own adventure' and reminds me a lot of some of Heinlein's juvenilia adventures. As a MZB book, it is probably not her best work but I do feel it is more light-hearted than a lot of her books, which tend to be humourless so maybe writing juvenilia brought out a deeply hidden streak of humour. As a book written in the 70's? Well, it reads like something from the 70's in terms of society and earth technology. It is dated to that extent but no worse than that...
Lot's of nice, easy fun a fast read (it only took me a day) and well worth it for classic sci-fi buffs.
I think I read it many years ago; so many that while I remembered events vaguely after I read them, I never really saw anything coming, in any case I enjoyed it thoroughly: a young man/boy around 17? 18? wakes up in a hospital bed with amnesia. He was picked up injured with no ID and it set's the scene nicely for the overall story. One of the first things that happens is that someone (we realise someTHING, but they do not) turns up, claiming to be his father calling him 'Barry'.
Now the boy has such a visceral reaction of horror to this someone, that the doctor will not release him and he is still there when ANOTHER man turns up, claiming to be his father and, again, calling him Barry. As a way to escape 'man' #1, the boy pretends to recognise him and goes home with him.
This set's the scene for Barry with no memory trying to re-integrate into a normal life - only with weird and ab-normal things continuing to happen around him. He decides he must find out what happened in the year he was missing and we...
launch into the next part of the story which is how Barry, a year back got mixed up with two sets of aliens, galactic politics and goes careening around the solar system. The secret of the bronze dragon, found in his pocket when he arrived at the hospital is also revealed!
Now the Barry in space part is heaps of fun, it is kind of a classic 'boy's own adventure' and reminds me a lot of some of Heinlein's juvenilia adventures. As a MZB book, it is probably not her best work but I do feel it is more light-hearted than a lot of her books, which tend to be humourless so maybe writing juvenilia brought out a deeply hidden streak of humour. As a book written in the 70's? Well, it reads like something from the 70's in terms of society and earth technology. It is dated to that extent but no worse than that...
Lot's of nice, easy fun a fast read (it only took me a day) and well worth it for classic sci-fi buffs.
October 25, 2021
This is one of Bradley's early, juvenile (might be referred to these days as YA) stories. It is essentially a 1960s style pulp sci-fi action adventure with the main character still more or less a kid. As such, it is not a deep or thoughtful story, but it is fun and well-written, especially the first part. Part two drags a bit as it is flashback to fill in the backstory that we weren't given in part one, and while it's interesting enough, the reader still finds himself thinking, "Well, this is all well and good, but what's happening NOW?" Might have been a better read if that backstory had been filled in piecemeal rather than done as a giant info-dump, but it still wasn't bad. A fun read and not at all bad for early pulp sci-fi.
September 5, 2024
OMG... aliens use slide-rules! A glimpse into what sci-fi used to be like before computers and smart phones. I must have bought this decades ago to complete the MZB collection but I don't recall reading it before I did today. First person narrative. An easy read. It begins slow as an amnesia patient story, with the protagonist struggling to understand glimpses of flights in space. Then the second half of the book is the flashback of those events, before the confrontation with the bad guy. Where it lost me was the Texas nurse calmly lets this head-case into her car while the aliens are closing in and get this, she doesn't own a gun. An American without a gun? Parallel Earth perhaps?
October 31, 2021
It's kind of fun as a historical document of the '60s (slide rules, "[e]veryone knew the figure five days in free-fall, between the Earth to the Moon" but the no one (including the aliens) talk about faster-than-light travel or time dilation, "Berkeley ... was the sort of place where a little old lady could walk aound town with a hundred dollars in her handbag and nobody would touch her except to help her across the street") but as hard science fiction, ouch.
It reminds me of the old pulp science fiction from Amazing Stories and the like.
It reminds me of the old pulp science fiction from Amazing Stories and the like.
February 16, 2021
Not great. I get this was written in the late 60s, but this all just seems low really effort.
March 31, 2020
Lettura piacevole e scorrevole (lo stile della Bradley è sempre estremamente scorrevole, del resto), ma nulla di speciale. E' una fantascienza un po'... ingenua, che costituisce sì un buon modo di intrattenersi per qualche ora, ma che dubito mi resterà nella memoria troppo a lungo.
August 21, 2023
One of my favorites.
Barry is on his way home from late after school basketball, when he sees another kid attacked and injured. He helps the other guy home, and they all end up taken to Mars.
Barry is on his way home from late after school basketball, when he sees another kid attacked and injured. He helps the other guy home, and they all end up taken to Mars.
April 12, 2018
Romanzo interessante di una Marion Zimmer Bradley all'inizio della sua carriera e non ancora prigioniera delle serie da lei stesse create.
August 11, 2018
Un racconto talmente inutile che posso abbandonare definitivamente la Bradley senza rimpianti.
Pessima anche la traduzione italiana.
Pessima anche la traduzione italiana.
October 26, 2018
Solid old school teenage fiction. Limited female characters who are relegated to passive roles.
December 28, 2018
3.5. had moments, but mostly just kind of forgettable — no pun intended.
May 17, 2020
A good summertime space tale!
March 5, 2022
diciamo fantascienza anni 60 anche se in realtà è poco più di un incoerente favoletta della buonanotte
March 7, 2026
I really liked it.
April 9, 2024
A relatively short book that is very nice and easy to read
June 21, 2019
~• Il drago di Bronzo è un libro di fantascienza scritto ai suoi esordi da Marion Zimmer Bradley. Come saprete è un'autrice che ho molto amato nel ciclo di Avalon, ma questo libricino non è riuscito a rapirmi. Un po' il problema forse sta nel genere letterario che io non amo particolarmente (a meno che non si parli di distopia), ma anche perché non sono riuscita a trovare quello stile dell'autrice del quale mi sono irrimediabilmente innamorata.
La storia è ambientata negli Stati Uniti, più precisamente in Texas e poi in California, e altra ambientazione è Marte.
Inizia in un ospedale della città di Abilene, in Texas, dove un ragazzo si sveglia e si rende conto di avere perso la memoria. Non sa chi sia, né da dove viene, né il suo nome né cosa sia quello strano drago di Bronzo ritrovato tra i suoi effetti personali.
Ben presto però scopre di essere scomparso dalla sua città di origine, Berkeley in California, da più di un anno.
Torna a casa con suo padre e cerca di avere una vita tranquilla, ma strani eventi mettono in pericolo la sua esistenza e quella dei suoi cari ed è così che deve tornare indietro per cercare di mettere insieme i tasselli mancanti della sua memoria per risolvere quello strano enigma.
Ma cosa è successo veramente? E cosa c'entra Marte?
È un libro che secondo me non può mancare nelle librerie di chi ama il genere e l'autrice, ma a me purtroppo non ha preso totalmente.
La storia è ambientata negli Stati Uniti, più precisamente in Texas e poi in California, e altra ambientazione è Marte.
Inizia in un ospedale della città di Abilene, in Texas, dove un ragazzo si sveglia e si rende conto di avere perso la memoria. Non sa chi sia, né da dove viene, né il suo nome né cosa sia quello strano drago di Bronzo ritrovato tra i suoi effetti personali.
Ben presto però scopre di essere scomparso dalla sua città di origine, Berkeley in California, da più di un anno.
Torna a casa con suo padre e cerca di avere una vita tranquilla, ma strani eventi mettono in pericolo la sua esistenza e quella dei suoi cari ed è così che deve tornare indietro per cercare di mettere insieme i tasselli mancanti della sua memoria per risolvere quello strano enigma.
Ma cosa è successo veramente? E cosa c'entra Marte?
È un libro che secondo me non può mancare nelle librerie di chi ama il genere e l'autrice, ma a me purtroppo non ha preso totalmente.
April 21, 2010
This is a fairly early Marion Zimmer Bradley books, one of her stand alones not tied in with her popular Avalon or Darkover series. No, it's not what I'd recommend as an introduction to her, it's pretty forgettable compared to her other books, I had to browse through the books and other reviews to remember the details while other books by her remain fresh decades after reading. And yes, this is based on that hoariest of cliches, a hero suffering from amnesia. For all that I remember it as an entertaining read. Marion Zimmer Bradley is a strong storyteller and there's very little by her that isn't at least enjoyable. But yes, there are a lot of better books out there--including from her.
January 24, 2011
Good book, great author.
July 5, 2011
Ok SF novella :)
Read
July 13, 2011It encouraged me to read more of her books.
April 23, 2012
An excellent example of Zimmer Bradley's juvenile writing!
April 25, 2013
Interesting idea, a good read!
March 1, 2014
This story was okay. Off to listia for someone else to enjoy! =)
April 25, 2014
Un romanzo strano, che ho abbastanza detestato alla prima lettura, mentre alla seconda mi sono più o meno innamorata :D
April 15, 2015
Not a bad story, considering it was relatively short. It was written well and flowed easily. Everything was wrapped up nicely in the end, and hope more adventures befall Barry in the future.
November 6, 2016
Very much a YA book-- story of a young man who can't remember recent past but gradually discovers he was recruited to fight aliens....
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews