Dragonhenge by Bob Eggleton and John Grant
01/10/2002 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
Pub: Paper Tiger. 128 page hardback. Price: £20 (UK), $29.95 (US) and $46.95 (CAN). ISBN: 1-85585-972-6. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. Check out website: www.papertiger.co.uk
For a Paper Tiger release, I have some
very mixed feelings about this book. Artist Bob Eggleton's standard
of dragons is par for the course.
As he's also experimenting here we also see a variety of pencil
as well as full blown paintings that will appeal to all dragon-lovers.
 If
I was to be critical, it would have been nice to have seen more
landscapes showing where the dragons lived but that's only an opinion
when backgrounds turn to the surreal.
In the introduction, author John Grant says that as this book doesn't
feature humans, he very much put on a dragon's mindset when writing
the prose.
If it had stretched to a dragon's body, he'd be wonderful at barbecues!
To some extent, I also think this is part of the problem. When I
discuss storycraft with neo-writers, something that occasionally
comes up is a frame-of-reference.
The reason a modern day man is often placed in a future setting
is usually to draw comparison to what they have (& where it's
going wrong) to what we have today. When you're a big dragon, scales,
flying around and all the things that dragons do then humans pale
in comparison.
Giving them an intellect greater than whales - cos all their stories
are passed on by word of mouth cos they don't write - means there
has to be some translation. I couldn't help feel that there was
something lost in the translation.
The dragons fly around a bit, develop a philosophical point of
view and that's the end of a story. There's a challenge from a different
tribe of dragons but other than that, I'd hate to say this, but
life is pretty tame on the dragon front.
As this is an experimental volume, it feels a little awkward criticising
from this POV. Fantasy lovers will no doubt say I didn't get it.
That being the case, then you'll no doubt be enjoying this book.
Eggleton fans will be picking this book up for the art.
GF Willmetts
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