Dragon and Thief Review

Warning: this post may contain spoilers for Timothy Zahn’s science fiction novel Dragon and Thief

Though I’ve read Timothy Zahn before, and enjoyed his books, this wasn’t a book that I sought ought to read. In fact, it wasn’t even on my extensive reading list. After finishing Back to Methuselah, nothing on my reading list was really calling out to me to be read, and I happened to see that this piece was in Prime reading on Kindle, which meant I could read it for free. A short, free, light read seemed the perfect thing coming off of a heavier piece like Back to Methuselah, while trying to think of what I actually wanted to read next.

Although technically science fiction, I would put this in a similar sort of category to something like Star Wars, where it’s primarily a fantasy storyline with science fiction set elements. Regardless, it was enjoyable. There was nothing deep or insightful, but the characters are interesting, the adventures they have are fun and engaging, and the writing is sound. Not amazing – there were a few places where the sentences felt a little awkward, which I often find to be the case in books that are advertised as “young adult” or similar – but sound.

I’m honestly not certain what else I have to say about Dragon and Thief. The extra-dimensional draconic symbiote was neat, although I wish that we’d gotten more differentiation, and more frequent switches, between the human and dragon-symbiote viewpoints; that seems like a little bit of a missed opportunity to really delve into a unique alien’s perspective, but that wasn’t really the purpose of this story. There are more books in the series, and while I’m not going to go out of my way to make sure to read those next, I would be more interested in seeking them out than I have been in finishing some other series that I’ve started in the past few years.

Sometimes, something light and quick and fun is all you’re really looking for in a book, especially if you’re between more significant works. If that’s you right now, then I encourage you to give Dragon and Thief a try.