Pogue - Book Reviews

***** - Excellent
**** - Good
*** - Okay
** - Bad
* - Terrible
+ - Half-star

Dragonheart
Charles Edward Pogue
Boulevard
Fiction, Fantasy
****

DESCRIPTION: The novel of the movie of the same name, this is the story of the knight Bowen, a dragon, and an evil king. As the story opens, Bowen is the boy prince Einon's teacher, endeavoring to teach the young heir the morals which his father is severely lacking. A rare adherent to the Old Code of knighthood, the Arthurian ideal that a knight is a virtuous and honorable warrior, Bowen was hand-picked by the queen, who hoped to raise a noble son without her husband's barbaric tendencies. Mortally wounded in the same battle that kills the old king, Einon is taken by his mother to a dragon, who saves the boy's life with a piece of his own heart. As the boy grows up to be worse than his father, a heartbroken Bowen decides that the dragon's gift corrupted the boy, and swears to hunt down every last dragon in revenge. Years later, Bowen meets the dragon again, now the last of his kind. King Einon's reign of terror is worsening, and it may be that only dragonslayer and dragon together can stop the monster he has become.

REVIEW: Apparently, this is what Pogue wanted to do with the movie, but was unable to. Parts of it would have been nice to see, and parts were obviously filmed and cut later, but other scenes leaned too far toward dorky slapstick for my liking. All in all, it was a good book. I just preferred the movie (which, if you have not seen yet, I strongly urge you to. Draco the dragon is a spectacular achievement of computer FX.)

You might also enjoy:
Dragon (Jody Bergsma, YA Picture Book - A peaceful young prince meets an angry young dragon)
The Vlad Taltos books (Stephen Brust, Fiction - An assassin/detective works with his dragonlike familiar in a world of magic, demons, and gods)
The Dragonslayer's Apprentice (David Calder, YA Fiction - A girl is determined to become a dragonslayer)
Dragon's Keep (Janet Lee Carey, YA Fiction - A princess born with a dragon-claw finger faces the malevolent dragons who terrorize her kingdom)
Dragons in the Stars and Dragon Rigger (Jeffrey A. Carver, Fiction - A human rigger, capable of navigating interstellar spacecraft via lucid dreaming, befriends the embattled dragons of subspace)
The Book of Dragons (Ciruelo, Fiction - An illustrated book describing dragons and their peculiar relations with humanity)
The Dragonslayers (Bruce Coville, YA Fiction - A trio of unlikely heroes set out to fight a deadly dragon)
The Rain Wilds Chronicles (Robin Hobb, Fiction - A clutch of malformed dragonlings must accept human help to survive)
The Familiar Dragon series (Daniel Hood, Fiction - A murdered wizard's dragon familiar forces a bond with a detective)
The Dragonling series (Jackie French Koller, YA Fiction - After finding a newborn dragonling hiding in its slain mother's pouch, a boy learns truths about the great beasts that change his entire world)
Bitterwood (James Maxey, Fiction - After dragons have conquered and enslaved humanity, one dragonslayer's resistance might help free them - or make matters that much worse)
The Hero and the Crown (Robin McKinley, YA Fiction - A princess discovers a talent for slaying dragons, and a destiny greater than the throne she may never inherit)
Heroes of the Valley (Jonathan Stroud, YA Fiction - Raised on tales of his heroic ancestor, a boy attempts to avenge his uncle with disastrous results)
The Hobbit (J. R. R. Tolkien, YA? Fiction - A reluctant hobbit joins an ill-advised quest to the lair of the great dragon Smaug)
Voices of Dragons (Carrie Vaughn, YA Fiction - A teen girl befriends a young dragon while their races prepare for war)
Dragon's Bait (Vivian Van Velde, YA Fiction - Falsely accused of witchcraft, a girl teams up with a dragon to exact revenge)
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia Wrede, YA Fiction - Fed up with being a proper princess in a fairy tale land, a headstrong girl runs away to live with dragons)
The Dragonback Adventures (Timothy Zahn, YA Fiction - An interstellar boy thief becomes the reluctant partner of an honor-bound dragonlike alien)
Dragonheart - Collector's Edition (1996 movie DVD)

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