Dragon and the George [Mass Market Paperback]

Jim Eckert is living in an ordinary modern world, waiting for Angie on a bright September morning while Grottwold is keeping her busy as his lab assistant. They are on the verge of proving astral projection is possible and believe they can set the spirit free to wander outside the body.

Jim's obvious discontent with the situation is overly apparent and when he has to wait for Angie again he becomes incensed and decides these delaying tactics have occurred for the last time. Just as Jim bursts into the room, Angie disappears from under a helmet-like hair dryer.

Unfortunately, Angie has apported in an experiment that should have only caused astral projection. Both Grottwold and Jim have absolutely no idea where she has taken off to, however it is revealed that she was concentrating on dragons. With a single heroic decision, Jim is thrust into a medieval world as he takes his seat to project his spirit in the same direction as Angie is thought to have gone.

As fate would have it, he forgets to think about Angie and ends up thinking about dragons. This lands him in the body of a dragon and his first thought of wanting to tear Grottwold to shreds brings him to the awareness of his less than human self. Jim awakens to the reality that he is now a talking dragon who everyone knows as Gorbash.

Overall, there is a subtle humor, which now and then catches you unawares. The conversational style changes at times and flows more into pictures painted with words so you really enter a medieval land filled with adventures and moments of brilliance.

Angie's character is not at all fully developed in this story and I am hoping she will evolve more fully in the rest of the series. Once she disappears, we learn very little about her and only know she is trapped in the Loathly Tower, a place of pure evil. Jim has to fight his chivalrous urges to save her immediately and fears she may be in mortal danger. When he meets up with a magician, he is told not to worry about her until he can find companions to help save her.

"Far ahead to the west, the sky was on fire with sunset. It lighted all the fens, the meres and the causeway with a red glow which lay bloodily on earth and grass and stunted trees; and it pooled just ahead, around a low hill, at a rise of a hundred feet or more above the seashore where, touched but uncolored by that same dying light there loomed over all, amongst great, tumbled boulders, the ruined, dark and shattered shell of a tower as black as jet." pg. 231, a description of the Loathly Tower

Gordon Dickson presents each character so you are very aware of their presence in the story and then once they have your heart, he puts them in mortal danger one after the other. Each character (besides Angie) has such a personality, you can literally hear their voice. Aragh the English wolf is so very independent and yet he ends up proving that beneath the growl and bite, there is a much more caring creature just waiting for the opportunity to show his ultimate loyalty.

The romance is mild and is far from the main point of the story. If you are enchanted with the thought of what it would be like to be a dragon and fly above a medieval landscape, this will be less of a consideration. At some points in the plot, Jim/Gorbash looses his focus and just seems to enjoy being a dragon.

There is never a moment when you wish Jim would turn back into his human form. Glimpses of dragon life are interwoven with modern thought and a touch of philosophy in such a creative way, Jim is never fully an animal and yet never fully human. He takes on the best of both worlds and approaches each challenge in a thoughtful manner.

Thank you to my favorite dragon person for
sending me this exciting gift. It was an enthralling
cerebral retreat!

Onward to The Dragon Knight.

~The Rebecca Review

Many sword-and sorcery writers use a formula plot which goes something like this: 1. Hero languishes in a mundane workaday world. 2. Hero, by magic or science, is fantastically transported to a wondrous world where magic works. 3. Hero encounters strange situations and remarkable characters. 4. Hero embarks on quest, rescues the damsel-in-distress, defeats the forces of evil, and saves humanity. One example of this formula is DeCamp and Pratt's "Incomplete Enchanter" series.

"The Dragon and the George" follows this formula to a T, but the result is one of the best examples of the type. One nice touch is that the magic in this new world is treated in a most non-mystical way: It must follow laws as strict as the laws of physics, and it can never run afoul of the Accounting Department.

Dickson uses this vehicle to explore the nature of courage, friendship, and loyalty, and each of the protagonists displays these attributes in varying degrees and varying ways. To save his friends, Aragh faces the hordes of sandmirks alone and with two broken legs. Weak and cowardly Secoh screws his courage to the sticking point to help the crippled Smrgol face the powerful young Bryagh. Dafydd the archer calmly assumes the near-impossible task of shooting down a horde of harpies. Jim Eckert recovers from the blue funk induced by a near-death experience to lead his friends into the almost certainly fatal final battle.

Dickson writes a story in which the most fantastical of characters seem as real as your next door neighbor, and you come to really care about them. Dickson brings new life to a tired old scifi formula and tells a fine swashbuckling story in the process.

Ah, yes. Just the name, "Jim Eckert" brings back whole fleets of nostalgic memories. I first read The Dragon and the George way back when, when my dear father bought me the entire set, in hardback. It must have set him back a bundle, but I could see that he knew I enjoyed it. As I was perusing the archives of Amazon.com, then, I called up those abovementioned nostalgic memories and just had to write a review up. If you read just one more book this year, make it The Dragon and the George. If you read seven or eight more, make it the entire series! Gordon Dickson is, without a doubt, the most enticing fantasy writer I have ever had the privelige to read the work of. His research is impeccable, which is a rare thing in fantasy writers---authors, I should say---and the way he spins the fabric of the story is a true mark of a Master in his trade.