I love series with dragons, dating back to my adolescent discovery of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series. Here are my current favorite fantasy series featuring dragons.
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
This series of eight books (so far!) revolves around the adventures of Irene, who can travel to alternate realities through a mysterious junction in the space-time continuum called the Library. The Library attempts to balance the alternate forces of the Fae, a faerie race emblematic of chaos, and the dragons, who represent order. The dragons in this series can take human form, which is helpful when one of them decides he wants to become Irene’s apprentice. Full of witty banter and original worlds, this would be a great series for those who like steampunk and Victorian England mixed in with their dragons.
The Sorcerer to the Crown Series by Zen Cho
In an alternate England, Zacharias Wythe has just unexpectedly been named Sorcerer Royal. His unhappy lot is to try to govern the members of the Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, a collection of misogynistic, bigoted magicians bent on trying to maintain their own power and prestige at any cost. Both Zacharias and the feisty and brilliant Prunella Gentlewoman, are non-white, and face intense levels of racism. Prunella also much cope with the class prejudice and sexism commonplace in the nineteenth century in Britain. As in the Invisible Library, magical beings such as fae and dragons, who can take human form when they enter the mortal realm, coexist with magicians and “ordinary” humans. These books are often compared to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke, and if you enjoyed that book as much as I did, you will likely enjoy this series as well. There are two books so far.
The Temeraire Series by Naomi Novik
Set during the Napoleonic Wars on an alternate Earth (are we sensing a theme here?) where dragons coexist with humans, this series takes a slightly more “traditional” approach to dragons than the Invisible Library or Sorcerer to the Crown. Dragons come in different shapes and sizes as different breeds, many of which are associated with specific countries. They can speak and some have abilities like producing fire or spitting acid, but they are decidedly not magical in nature. The most impressive dragons are the Imperials and Celestials of China, while the dragons of Europe are decidedly middle of the road. The series begins when Captain Will Laurence of the HMS Reliant captures an unhatched dragon egg from a French ship. Novik put a lot of thought into the relationships that would develop between dragons and people. Without spoiling too much, those relationships may have as much to do with a nation’s culture as from the innate qualities of humans and dragons. If you like history with a twist, I highly encourage you to try this alternate globe-trotting series. Complete at nine books.
Liz Helfrich 