10 best dragon fantasy books for adults
Here there be dragons...
While dragons have been historically relegated to fairytales for younger minds, Game of Thrones proved that these fire-breathers can be ADULT.
After a few flaming massacres of soldiers and civilians, the “nuke with wings” capabilities of these creatures were cemented into the public consciousness. Fantasy stans, however, have known for a long time just how terrifying these beasts can be, and the monsters have appeared as creatures of horror and divinity in mythologies across the planet.
Want to brush up on your dragon lore? Here are the 10 best dragon fantasy books for adults.
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
Love him or hate him, George R.R. Martin is easily the most influential high fantasy writer of the 21st century. While he first began his Song of Ice and Fire series in the ’90s, the world of Westeros was catapulted into pop culture consciousness by HBO’s groundbreaking Game of Thrones series. The Known World has a vast and storied history, and dragons are the most dangerous and catalytic forces of change. The creatures were first domesticated by Old Valyria, but their population was decimated after a fiery Pompeii-esque catastrophe destroyed the empire. Dragons were saved by the Targaryen dynasty, who used their power to conquer an entire continent under one king. After centuries of infighting and civil war, dragons were believed to be extinct, until one exiled princess managed to hatch three from a clutch of eggs and prepared to use the beasts to conquer the world like her ancestors of old.
The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
Anne McCaffrey’s The Dragonriders of Pern is a sci-fi fantasy with dragons, set on a planet where the creatures were genetically engineered by humanity to prevent the threat of a space fungus. Yes, really. In the distant future, humanity has conquered the stars, yet the settlers of the faraway planet Pern were separated from the rest of the human race by a fungus that falls from the sky and devours organic and synthetic material alike. Using surviving bits of technology, the settlers of Pern engineered dragons to burn away the fungus and bring the planet back from the brink of extinction. The sprawling series details the exploits of dragons and their riders, who defend the planet of Pern over millennia. It’s a space opera with dragons, what more do you want?
The Empyrean by Rebecca Yarros
A flagship title in the romantasy genre made famous by Booktok, Rebecca Yarros’ The Empyrean series is one of the most popular dragon-centric tales in recent memory. The action (double entendre intended) centers around young Violet Sorrengail, whose dreams of a peaceful academic existence were shattered after her military mother enrolled her in a program that trains dragon riders for combat. The fragile-framed Violet (who is implied to have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome) must attempt to survive the rigors of dragon taming, aerial combat, and the homicidal ideations of some of her more ruthless classmates. Lucky for her, her squad commander is really, really hot. Like, dragon fire hot. The burn is slow, but believe, it gets there. Multiple times.
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
In the world of Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree, dragons are met with mixed reviews. In the realm of The West, dragons are hated and feared—for good reason, considering that one fire breather that was so horrible that people were too scared to name it is set to awaken from its eternal slumber and reduce the world to ash. Meanwhile, in The East, dragons are benevolent and well-loved by the dragon-riding populace. To stop the rise of The Nameless One, Queen Sabran of the West must team up with her magical handmaiden and an exiled dragon rider from the East to put the wyrm god back in its place, and maybe have a little bit of sapphic romance on the side.
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit features one of the most classic dragons that ever dragoned. Smaug is textbook dragon behavior. He lives in a mountain cave, he hoards riches that he’ll never spend, and he incinerates anyone who tries to separate him from his sweet, sweet dosh. Little does he know, a crew of dwarves led by a reluctant hobbit are scheming to separate the serpent from his spending power. The Hobbit is a whimsical read that can be enjoyed by both children and adults and serves as a prequel, of sorts, to the three-part masterpiece The Lord of the Rings.
Grendel by John Gardner
John Gardner’s Grendel is a weird, dark, esoteric, and enthralling read. It’s a retelling of the Viking classic Beowulf, centering around the titular monster that likes to barrel its way into mead halls and devour the terrified townsfolk inside. Grendel is the story of an outcast, a solipsistic being who is twisted into villainy by his pure and utter loneliness. In his travels, Grendel runs into a dragon—the big bad of the source material—who attempts to teach Grendel about the world beyond his understanding. Grendel is hopeless in comprehending the dragon’s philosophizing, and his lack of understanding proves to be his downfall against the hero Beowulf. While the dragon only appears in a small section of this small book, its influence serves as the main antagonist force that kickstarts Grendel’s ultimate undoing. Grendel represents ignorance and the dragon represents terrible, godlike knowledge beyond comprehension.
The Rain Wild Chronicles by Robin Hobb
Robin Hobb’s The Rain Wild Chronicles is a story of dragons who have fallen on hard times. After dragons disappeared from the river world of Rain Wild, the realm’s waterways became blighted and acidic. A strange malady afflicts the human communities attempting to survive there, causing people to develop dragon-like characteristics and die young. Meanwhile, dragons in the region are born mutated and malformed, and a group of humans and dragons set out on a quest to find the mythical city of Kelsingra, believed to hold the magic that can save humans and dragons alike from their gritty fate. Consisting of four books, the series can be seen as a parable for environmental conservation, and the importance of living in balance with nature.
The Burning by Evan Winter
Beginning with The Rage of Dragons, Evan Winter’s The Burning series takes its name from what dragons do best (and often, in this case). The series centers around the Omehi people, locked in a centuries-long war that has devastated the population. One out of every two thousand women can summon dragons to fight her enemies, while one in a hundred men can transform himself into an inhuman killer. The rest are doomed to be chewed up and spat out by the war machine, including our hero Tau, who was born without special powers. After a tragedy shatters his dreams of early retirement, Tau vows to become the greatest swordsman in all the land to get revenge against those who wronged him—and maybe end the war in the process.
Ascendant (Songs of Chaos) by Michael R. Miller
Holt Cook was meant to do nothing more than his last name suggests and work as a kitchen boy in a castle run by an order of dragon keepers. Ascendant’s author Michael R. Miller had other plans. Everything changed when Holt broke the rules of his order by taking pity on a dragon egg deemed too weak to live and hatched and raised the blind dragon sleeping inside. Now bonded with a dragon bestie, Holt must take wing against a bizarre disease that is ravaging the land, raising the dead, and killing dragon riders. It’s a classic boy and his dragon fantasy that takes a page out of Eragon, but changes the familiar formula by adding an entire magic system based around cooking! For those who are fans of the draconic and the gustatory, this series is for you.
Temeraire by Naomi Novik
Eschewing the classic sword and sorcery environs where dragons are most often found, Naomi Novak’s Temeraire series features the beasts as a key factor in Earth’s military history. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the series revolves around a British Royal Navy captain who forms an unlikely bond with the dragon Temeraire and rides the beast into battle to defeat Napoleon’s dragon-riding forces. It’s a flintlock fantasy story that retells the tale of one of the world’s most famous—and famously devastating—military campaigns, made all the more deadly by the fact that now a tyrannical short king has a force of flying reptilians with which he can reduce his haters to ash. This Napoleon won’t be banished to Saint Helena that easy, that’s for sure.
(Featured Image: HBO)
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