Dragons' World

There are over 30 official science fiction conventions on the books already for 2011. Here’s a look at a few of the Southeast’s best offerings for Sci Fi fans this year:
2011 SFI Region One Summit: This annual event is held in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and is best suited for sci fi fans of Mirror, Mirror. Don’t forget about the annual Duck Race!
Timegate: Held in Atlanta (local residents need only gas up the car and set their adt security service in georgia alarms!), this event is held primarily for Stargate and Dr. Who fans – a can’t miss for sci-fi geeks and nerds alike!
ConCarolinas 2011: Held in Charlotte, North Carolina this year, ConCarolinas is the premier event for general sci-fi, horror and fantasy fans. A haven for speculative fiction, this event will feature celebrity appearances, booths and even live-action demonstrations.
Mobicon: Mobile, Alabama’s annual tribute to all things sci-fi should go off without a hitch this year. Fantasy, gaming and sci-fi fans will all find something to get excited about this year at Mobicon.
If you live in the Southeast, there are plenty of Science Fiction events close to home for you and your friends to enjoy! Google event names for additional information.

Dragons are among the most fascinating fictitious beasts. They have figured in a number of myths, and even in the past century many great fantasy writers have created original works in which they figure. In this brief article I will discuss three of them.

In “the Hobbit,” the title character and twelve dwarfs are on a quest to retrieve their treasure from Smaug, the dragon who stole it. Bilbo goes into his cave as a scout and discovers the dragon’s vulnerable spot, a piece Read the rest of this entry »

Scales on the Silver Screen. Dragons in Movies are a Hollywood tradition

1. How to Train Your Dragon
This 3D animated film is arguably the best dragon movie ever made.

2. Eragon
Using modern computer animation makes for a nice looking beastie.

3. Reign of Fire
My personal tastes would rate this at the top. Plus the dragons sack London town.

4. Beowulf
The dragon is the best part of the modern remake of a remake.

5. The Hobbit
Tolkien’s dragon Smaug deserves to make this list, despite the retro animation style.

6. Dragonheart
Sean Connery can use Read the rest of this entry »

The Mythical Dragon
It’s easy to see the stretch of imagination that evolved from prehistoric dinosaurs to mythical dragons of folklore in many countries of the world. In mythical tales dragons are fire-breathing monsters to be feared. Dragons often represented ultimate power. What if in the genre of shapechangers people became dragons and dragons became people?

Dragon People
With shapechanging, a shy person is reshaped into an assertive dragon of fearsome prominence. This certainly might have a serious effect on family members and co-workers. Read the rest of this entry »

It really just depends on how you want to get your critter.

If you choose poison, will it be slow and painful? Or will that pesky thing go quietly in its sleep? Do you -want- them to turn weird shades of green and have everybody around them wonder what in tarnation is going on, or will they go peacefully with nobody the wiser?

Frost, well, that is a little bit more noticable. That there critter will turn a nice, shall we say, healthy shade of blue and be Read the rest of this entry »

The Hoard: Dragons and Their Treasures is a unique gaming experience that as sure to be a hit with players. The Hoard is set in the times of kings, castle, and dragons. In most games set during this time period, players play the part of a hero slaying the dragons and other monsters. If not a hero, the players inevitably play the part of a nation builder and just build buildings in games that sadly resemble SimCity.

Thank goodness Read the rest of this entry »

Dragons are an integral part of many modern fantasy stories, so it’s no surprise that we should find them in the classic forerunner of the genre. I refer, of course, to J.R.R. Tolkien’s collection of writings, known as the “Middle-earth legendarium,” which includes The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and more. In 1938, Tolkien delivered a lecture called “On Fairy Stories,” in which he explained his fascination with dragons in the legends of myth from a young age. It’s no surprise that he later focused on Beowulf’s final nemesis in his paper “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” as well as in his fiction.Naming was always very important to Tolkien, given his love of languages and ancient legends. Within his stories, he referred to dragons, drakes, and worms, and divided the creatures based on details like their method of movement or whether they could breathe fire. The latter were referred to as Uruloki, or “fire-drakes.” Despite Tolkien’s careful attention to detail, he only gives the name of four different dragons in the history of Middle-earth. Perhaps he was trying to maintain some element of the magic and mystique which fascinated him in Beowulf and the King Arthur tales? Read the rest of this entry »

Many people remember 1977 as the year Star Wars was born. Disney also released The Rescuers, one of the first animated films in the ’70s to gain considerable acclaim. That same year, Disney slipped in an oft-forgotten but charming entry to the world of dragons in fictionPete’s Dragon.The film’s plot is a now-familiar take on how a child (unsurprisingly an orphan) retreats into imagination to deal with his difficult surroundings. Even Alice in Wonderland featured a similar premise, so it’s not hard to believe that the film was based on a short story written at least twenty years before the release. What makes Pete’s Dragon so fun to watch is the interaction between the real-life child star Sean Marshall (Pete) and his animated dragon, Elliot (voiced by Charlie Callas). Read the rest of this entry »

Dragons in modern fiction are generally featured in fantasy novels intended at least for young adults, if not older (like the complex Lord of the Rings series). In her children’s series “How to Train Your Dragon” (named for the first installment), Cressida Cowell has captured the magic of dragons in a way that can be enjoyed by young and old alike.The recent Dreamworks film loosely adapts the plot of Cressida’s first novel. In the film, a young Viking named Hiccup tries to win the acceptance of his father and the love of his fierce peer, Astrid, but finds both more difficult when he chooses to save one of the dragons that his tribe is fighting against. Hiccup names the dragon Toothless, but finds it increasingly more difficult to keep the pet a secret as his own stature rises in the tribe.The film (by directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois) has become a critical and financial success. What’s next? A sequel, television show, and live tour are in the works. Cowell’s eighth book was released the year before the film, so hopefully we can expect another work from her in the near future.

If you’re a fantasy fiction fan, you’ve probably wondered what it would be like if dragons were real. I can tell you the answer to that, actually”very scary.” Some historians and anthropologists have wondered the same thing, though, and have even attempted to find the “origins” of dragons in actual creatures. This tendency goes as far back as 300 BC, when Chinese historian Chang Qu described the fossil remains of what was thought to be an Asian dragon.The creatures that we know of which most resembled dragons (large, wingless lizards) lived millions of years ago, such as the Quinkana crocodile and the Megalania goanna lizard in Australia. Both of these could be larger than four meters long, and weigh several hundred pounds, but went extinct almost 40,000 years ago. Additionally, a five-to-six meter long snake, the Wonambi, also went extinct in Australia in the last 50,000 years. Scientist Tim Flannery says this may have been due to the Australian Aboriginal culture, which feared the beasts and forbade their children to play at the water-holes where the snakes waited. Read the rest of this entry »