Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror are the hardest books for me to read. Often I end up enjoying them once I've begun, but I very rarely feel compelled to read in those genres. Of course, these are big genres in the classroom, so over the past couple of years I've read more and more excellent fantasy and science fiction books (horror is still a little hard to find), and I've developed some favourite authors.
One of those is Philip Reeve, and you only need to read the first page of No Such Thing As Dragons to understand why.
So they went north, the man and the boy, and the roads narrowed, and big slate-headed mountains reared up ready to eat the sky.I think I must have read and reread that first line over and over and over again.
The story is actually fairly simple. A boy who became mute after his mother's death is apprenticed to a famed dragon hunter. As they make their ay into the steep mountains, Ansel begins to learn the secrets of his master's success - there is no such thing as dragons. Or is there . . . ?
This is what I would call traditional fantasy, with interesting debates on educated vs. uneducated, real vs myth and right vs. wrong. What makes the book special is the amazing writing, which fills your mind with imagery. I'd love to compare it to other books with dragons, including The Hobbit, Rowan of Rin and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
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