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Tag: Dragons

Gung Hay Fat Choy

by Natalia
Events + Fiction + Science Fiction and Fantasy / January 23, 2012

Happy Chinese New Year!  Festivities began for the new year yesterday: we are leaving the year of the rabbit and entering the year of the dragon, one of the mightiest and most auspicious symbols in the zodiac.  I'm looking forward to Vancouver's Chinese New Year parade this Sunday — always a great event for families.

In honour of the new year, here are a few books featuring the finest, scaliest, most terrifying firebreathers around!

Dragonships of Vindras series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman:

Dragon Age series by David Gaider:

Of course, the Wheel of Time series.  Tor is giving away 50 copies of The Eye of the World in celebration of the new year!

And let's take a moment to acknowledge the very first (Western) dragon of them all — a thousand years later still unmatchable for its bloodcurling ferocity:

Then the baleful fiend its fire belched out,
and bright homes burned. The blaze stood high
all landsfolk frighting. No living thing
would that loathly one leave as aloft it flew.
Wide was the dragon’s warring seen,
its fiendish fury far and near,
as the grim destroyer those Geatish people
hated and hounded. To hidden lair,
to its hoard it hastened at hint of dawn.
Folk of the land it had lapped in flame,
with bale and brand.                                                         —Beowulf XXXI

Remember to clean your house from top to bottom for good luck in the coming year.