The Dragon Business

By Kevin J. Anderson

Is your kingdom bothered by a pesky dragon problem?

 

Need any giant monsters slain? 

 

Are your own knights in shining armor unreliable or—worse—cowards?

 

Young Cullin, wanting to see the world, joins a band of renowned knights errant who will slay your dragon for a price. Satisfaction guaranteed! 

 

The only problem is, it's all a scam. The "dragon" is no more than rumors and tall tales spread by Cullin and his gang, giant three-toed footprints stomped into the ground near strategically burned-down huts and charred skeletons (procured from the local graveyard). It's a great con job, so long as Cullin and company can take the money and run, move on to the next kingdom before anyone catches on.

 

But even con men can be caught in their own game. Clever, spunky Princess Affonyl doesn't want any part of the arranged marriage to an evil duke from a neighboring kingdom. And she realizes that a fearsome dragon, even an imaginary one, is the perfect cover for her escape.

 

It's one caper after another as these medieval dirty, rotten scoundrels try to outsmart one another. And they discover that the dragon business is more than just a game…especially if a real dragon might be involved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WordFire Press
• Release date: Dec 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781680570700

Kevin J. Anderson

Kevin J. Anderson has written dozens of national bestsellers and has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the SFX Readers' Choice Award. His critically acclaimed original novels include the ambitious space opera series The Saga of Seven Suns, including The Dark Between the Stars, as well as the Wake the Dragon epic fantasy trilogy, and the Terra Incognita fantasy epic with its two accompanying rock CDs. He also set the Guinness-certified world record for the largest single-author book signing, and was recently inducted into the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame.

Reviews for The Dragon Business

[dlmorrese · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Dragon Business is a fun comic fantasy with bits of satire about human credulity and occasional snide comments about the business of fiction.
I did not find it as charming as The Princess Bride by William Goldman, nor as witty as the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett, but if you liked those, I think you'll like this.

[sadiesforsythe · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I won a copy of this book from Goodreads.

This was amusing, as it was meant to be. It is almost wholly satire, after all. It's witty and well-written. I generally really enjoyed it. But there came a point when the joke just kind of got stale and all the anachronisms (which are purposeful) started to grate. But if you're looking for a laugh that pokes fun at fairy tales, pretty pretty princesses and knights in shining armor, look no further.

As an odd aside: I take issue with this sentence in the description: But with her father sending a crew of do-gooder knights to find her, the dragon business just got cutthroat. It simply doesn't happen in the book. Go figure.