By Gordon R. Dickson
Published by Ace Fantasy, 1994
If you see a book that has a colourful dragon, a knight, and a troll on its cover, don't you want to pick it up? This seems to be recurring theme with me. I see a cool cover and I want to read it. There's something about old school fantasy covers that speaks to me.
Characters
Those that are familiar with the Dragon Knight series will be familiar with the characters in this book, but I was not, as I didn't realize this book was part of a long-running series of books. That being said, the author lays out who's who pretty clearly, so I didn't feel like I had to read the other books to follow what was going on.
The main character is Jim, or Sir James, a 20th century man who was transported to an alternate version of medieval England in the events of the first Dragon Knight book. He is called the dragon knight because he can apparently transform in to a dragon. He also the apprentice to a wizard named Carolinus, who acts like a snotty version of Merlin.
Jim is married to Angie (called here Lady Angela), who also comes from his era. They are both members of the lesser nobility, Jim being mistaken for a Baron as he arrived in this alternate history.
There are also a few other characters that come up, such as the Earl of Somerset, and the Troll Mnrogar. We also have Aargh the English Wolf (I never found out what that meant), Sir Giles, Sir Brian, and a hobgoblin with no name, and even a few people from real history such as John Chandos.
Story
The story involves Jim mediating between a troll found to be living under the Earl's castle as a neutral third party and orchestrating events that would satisfy both parties.
To that end, the entire novel takes place within the immediate area of the castle itself.
It is humourous, but also presents a pretty historical portrait of medieval england, aside from the dragons, trolls, talking wolves, and whatever else.
What I Liked
The book was interesting in its portrayal of scenes and the characters were pretty well fleshed out. The author seems to have a very clear idea of which historical elements are important and which fantasy elements are important.
There is a clear system defined for how magic and religion interact in this world as well as how monsters and real-world conflicts co-exist.
What I didn't Like
It didn't feel like an adventure. It felt like a sitcom about a bunch of weirdos at a Christmas party together. Sure, there were many fantasy elements, but there was hardly any heroism or a defined story arc. The main character is basically just a link between the fantastical characters and the mundane ones, and just spends the entire book trying to prevent either side from starting fights with the other.
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