Krissy's Reviews > I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons

Beagle absolutely wrote this in the 1980s but brushed it off and handed it to the publishers in this age of Gothikana—knowing that name, and not quality, sell. Saga Press should be embarrassed for themselves.

This reads like a time capsule of all the worst parts of fantasy. We as society and as fantasy readers have come so far and this book has not.

1. Our MC repeatedly mentioned being beat by his father with a belt for various reasons. Not a single other character reacts. In fact, the father is occasionally referred to in a positive light as an important community member, even after a beating reference just happened.

2. It doesn’t pass the Bechdel test.

3. It is painfully pastoral, forget getting any descriptions of anything.

4. What I thought was queerbaiting ended up being bad writing. The bizarrely shoe-horned het romance comes out of nowhere even worse.

5. It reads like someone's telling a bedtime story—new elements are invented wholesale with no foreshadowing, characters are forgotten about for whole chapters, important discoveries just come to the MCs as the plot needs them to, Chekov’s gun is never fired, the best element (the pet dragons) is nothing but flavor text, the plot doesn't start until ~55%, and the ending climactic battle has like four parts to it and feels no higher-stakes than the horse ride to get there.

6. This is a children's book that Saga Press decided to market as adult... for some reason... I can only assume for $$$ reasons.

I will be side-eying all Saga Press books from here on out, I assure you, and I’m strongly reconsidering The Last Unicorn, which is sitting unread in the living room. I may just unhaul it to a LFL, this was such a sour introduction to Beagle’s writing.