Dragon Study

by David A. Wilson

Book by Wilson, David A.

Paperback

Published January 1, 1986

About the author

Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Sol · Rating 2 out of 5]

An odd little volume, half very short essays on the subject of dragons, half fantasy stories featuring them. Set in purple type as if straight from the typewriter, with non-Latin characters hand-written in, it has the appearance of a very well-bound zine. Uncredited illustrations appear throughout, at some at least some of them being recognizable public domain images (the Jabberwocky, St. George and the Dragon, etc.)



Unfortunately, the analysis is superficial and the stories were not inspiring. It ranges too widely for how short a volume it is, too much space is taken up recounting dragon stories from various cultures, and despite dipping into cryptozoology (the Loch Ness monster and Mokele-mbembe are both assumed to be real), antediluvian civilizations, and nuclear weapons, it never quite gets crazy enough. The author is entirely too reasonable. When he brings up Velikovsky's theories, he notes that it's a little implausible that all cultures across the world would see a celestial event the same way, and it seems to assume that dragons would have to already be a recognizable world-wide phenomenon. The best section is on dragon symbology, where he draws out that dragons variously represent eternity, the power of nature, ultimate knowledge, and ultimate evil depending on the culture and legends in question.



The stories fail to get the appeal of dragons across, either as villains or heroes. "Beyond Thurn Mordat", in which King Arthur ventures to the edge of the Earth and slays a dragon, is the best, which is probably why it opens the book. It seems to be ready to slip at any moment into some kind of Jungian allegory, only for the raw power of the dragon to return us to the realm of the fantastic. "The Encounter" has vikings encounter a swimming dragon and barely escape its wrath. "Morningmood Wood" has an ordinary man brought to the same region as Arthur reached, by a supernatural mist, but instead of slaying, he flees. "Roncidor: A Turning Point" is a secondary world story concerning a battle, in which the main character is teleported to a dragon-inhabited desert. It has a pretty map. "The Trial of Llanor" follows the same man on another dragon-slaying quest. It elliptically references "Beyond Thurn Mordat", but not in any particularly interesting way. The man's companion does pull out what seems to be some kind of flashlight/laser gun, which was cool.



The author is quite obscure, having an incomplete ISFDB page, but no SFE page. The publisher, Lorien House, seems very small. The back advertises three other books by Wilson, two short story collections (neither of which is on his ISFDB page), and a non-fiction on religion. One Allen Artos has a book on King Arthur listed. The publisher seems to have mostly published books by him, but also a few others. Self-publishing?