Dragons: The Greatest Stories
Martin H. Greenberg, editor
MJF Books
Fiction, Fantasy/Anthology
**
DESCRIPTION: This anthology compiles dragon-related stories from many famous authors, from Anne McCaffrey to Ray Bradbury.
REVIEW: Note to self: Stop buying anthologies that aren't compiled by Bruce Coville. It doesn't matter if it's in the discount section. It doesn’t matter what’s on the
cover. It doesn’t matter what the theme is. Just stop buying them!
How bad was it? A few of these stories didn't even have dragons in them. Merely mentioning the word "dragon" shouldn't be grounds for a story to be included in a dragon
anthology. When I buy a book about dragons, I want to read about dragons, not the metaphoric “dragon within” or a misinterpreted pseudo-dragon. Once again, as so often happens to
anthologies in my experience, this seems to be a case of the editor compiling a list of prominent names rather than a list of interesting stories. It perpetually puzzles me how
authors who write good books can come up with such boring short stories. It also puzzles me that Young Adult author Bruce Coville almost invariably finds intriguing stories to
fit his themes, regardless of whether the author is a big name in the industry, while books like this, which should be able to draw on a much bigger pool of works by theoretically
more talented writers, seem hard-pressed to find anything worth printing. I liked one, maybe two stories in here. The rest varied between merely average to painfully obvious
wastes of my time.
You might also enjoy:
The Dragon Book (Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, editors, Fiction - 19 dragon tales by modern writers)
We Three Dragons (Bill Fawcett, editor, Fiction - Three holiday-themed dragon tales)
A Diversity of Dragons (Anne McCaffrey, Fiction - The famed author tells a visitor about the many dragons of myth and modern story)
Here, There be Dragons (Jane Yolen, YA Fiction - An anthology of dragon tales)
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