Book Review – Dragon Champion
Author: E.E. Knight
Cover Artist: Paul Youll
Publisher: ROC
Binding: Paperback MassMarket
Publication Date: December 2005
Dragon Champion is the first book in a series by author EE Knight who is well known for his Vampire Earth series. Knight gives us main characters that are far from the norm in this wonderful genre of fantasy. Dragon Champion introduces us to a dragon family currently living in the protection of their cave with a bunch of new dragon additions on their way sitting on the egg shelf. And so the story starts…
Plot and Characters
Auron is the focus of this book, and we get to see the classic growing up story, but this time from a dragon’s point of view. Auron starts off on the low end of the dragon’s tail being a Gray Dragon which does not have the hard dragon scales of the metallic dragons. This Gray makes up for it by being not only smart, but fast and quick from birth, with the added benefit of not having a need to eat metals and gems which other dragons crave. Being a Gray is one of the first things that Auron must overcome from birth, as his father wished the red had been the victorious dragon in the egg shelf struggle. This early struggle sets Auron up for the turmoil and struggle he faces in the world outside of the cave, which is thrust upon him way too early in his life.
Auron then is given the weight of the dragon community on his shoulders… find out why dragons are disappearing from the world. This information he needs takes him on his journal with involves an elf dragon hunter with cryptic knowledge, senile ancient dragons, and eventually an answer which is much larger then he ever thought.
The World and History
We are introduced to a pretty standard world with the standard fair included with elves and dwarves along with humans and dragons. We have a few small twists with the blighters and the interesting trade hierarchy within the dwarfs’ society, but other then that it is the norm, which is not to say this is a bad thing as this story is about the dragons.
Miscellaneous
I ripped through this book while on vacation, it was one of those that I couldn’t put down, I just wanted to read another chapter to find out what happens next. It was nice to see a classic story with the nice twist of dragons being the main characters. We have Auron as sort of a hero but we also get to see his animalistic and ferocity as well as the nature of an animal that neither treads the path of good or evil, but rather a survival path. Yes Auron is extremely intelligent being a dragon, but at the same time the moral compass for a dragon differs a bit from a humanoid. It also allows us as the reader to put ourselves in the other shoes per say, giving us the viewpoint of a dragon slaying from the eyes of the dragon. I think this is what EE Knight does best…he flips the coin and does a damn good job at it. He allow us to care for what we have been programmed to fear…allow us to sympathize with a creature we usually see fighting against the classical hero. I think it is almost analogous to us cheering for a great white shark eat a dolphin from the wrong side of the ocean…they aren’t evil it is just part of nature. I am hoping to track Mr. E.E. Knight down for an interview in the near future so keep your eyes open for that.
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