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Title | Dragonhenge
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Author | John Grant
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Illustrated by | Bob Eggleton
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Publisher | Paper Tiger - 2002
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First Printing | Paper Tiger - 2002
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Title | The Stardragons
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Author | John Grant
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Ilustrated by | Bob Eggleton
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Publisher | Paper Tiger - 2005
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First Printing | Paper Tiger - 2005
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Category | Artbooks
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Warnings | None
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Main Characters | Qinmeartha, Syor, Joli, Girl-Child LoChi, Anya, the star dragons
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Main Elements | Dragons
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Website | bobeggleton.com
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 Dragonhenge
Countless millions of years before the emergence of humankind, the great dragon civilization dominated this world. Not a civilization of artefacts and edifices, it left few traces behind it save legends and one might structure, built as a monument in the final days to the glory of a culter that knew its time was done: Dragonhenge.
The dragons were profound storytellers, and collected here are tales from their oral mythology - tales of the origin of all things, from the birth of the universe as the breath of the primordial dragon-god Qinmeartha, to the gifting of colour to Creation by the heroine Syor. Also here are legends of great doings, among them the battle to stop the malevolent ice dragons in their war of conquest.
Told though a fusion of magnificent art and singing prose, these tales are by turns deeply affecting and poignantly observant of foibles we may recognize in ourselves.
A unique collaboration, born from the interplay of ideas between two multiple award-winning creators, Dragonhenge is a feast of visual and lyrical splendour.
The Stardragons
Following on from the huge success of Dragonhenge, also published by Paper Tiger, this beautifully illustrated new fantasy reunites the award-winning creators, artist Bob Eggleton and write John Grant, to take you on a magical journey through the cosmos with those mysterious creatures, the stardragons. Filled with specially commissioned artowkr from one of the world's leading dragon artists, this is a wonderful book to appeal to readers of all ages, fantasy art connoiseurs, and dragon enthusiasts!
I bought these books years ago and had such high expectations for them that I was afraid to open them an be disappointed. But we don't live forever and if I keep these kinds of books on their pedastles I'll never end up reading them!
Dragonhenge started beautifully. Eggleton's art is truly magical and mythical. Grant's prose is also appropriate to the nature of the book, however, while I enjoyed the lyrical prose at the start, the fact that this kind of prose if very repetitive too got a bit on my nerves as I went along. Given this is an oral history of legends, one would expect a travelling draconic bard to stop by every few weeks at the family lair and tell a tale or two in exchange for dinner, which would work, but reading them all at once I got a little bored in fact.
The Stardragons is quite different, told from the point of view of probes sent out by various sentient species across the universe. Self-replicating and with a communal sentience, these are mechanical things, not dragons, but they feel they are the children of the ancient Earth dragons, soaring in the vast voids between the stars. I thought this book both in art and prose to be one of the most beautiful things I had ever read, encompassing the vastness of the universe and the seemingly eternity of time (but as the star dragons know, will not last forever). Even just the thought that every sentient race, though two such civilizations may never exist at the same time* all eventually build something to explore the universe in a way they never could, something that will outlast them by years uncountable. The artwork and prose combine here magically, filling one's mind with the vistas of the galaxies, with flaming maw and glittering metallic bodies, and a wonder that can't be described.
While the first book is purely fantasy, and the second is purely science fiction, they clearly belong together. These are books I will hold onto for many years to come.
*this is one argument why we haven't found any signs of life out there yet, sentient life may be common in fact, but the vast reaches of time, and the briefness of our civilizations before something (or ourselves) destroys us, may mean no two civilizations exist at the same time. Quite the thought to ponder.
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