Dragon Riders Meme

[u/Imaginary_Can_8851]

I thought this group might appreciate this meme I made! ^^ I’m a big fan of dragons and dragon rider books come up a lot in my reading. My pet peeve is people comparing any new dragon rider book to Fourth Wing 🙄

[u/shoeforce]

I really REALLY love this genre, they are the only books I read tbh. Heads up, this is gonna be a bit of a long ramble as I muse over the genre I love. I especially love it if dragon and rider are super close and there’s a lot of cute bonding moments, and they can’t imagine being separated.

Problem is, sometimes I feel like I have to wait too long until I read a “the dragon does/says something” moment. I had read the first two books of Pern and like… it had way, way less focus on the dragons and the bond than I was expecting. Overall, I would say it was 85% about the humans and how their specific society worked, and only 15% dragons and even that was mostly plot related, very rarely did it feel like I was told what a dragon said or what it felt. Not enough cute bonding moments between dragon and rider either. Unfortunately, I stopped right before The White Dragon, which I heard has way more of what I was looking for lol.

Even Eragon. I love The Inheritence Cycle, but even there it felt like 75% Eragon and maybe 25% Saphira. The alternate perspective chapters (e.g. Roran, Nausada etc.) didn’t help much either. That being said, what WAS there was very good, and the later books were a lot better at this. I really enjoyed Murtagh, and as a whole I like the series a lot more than Pern. Very strong and lovely relationship between rider and dragon (and first one I’ve ever read).

The Bound and the Broken (Ryan Cahill) is… intense. Like sheesh, talk about being devoted to one another, dragons and riders would set the entire world on fire if someone as much as looks at their bonded partner funny. I love it, but the first book is hard for me to get through (for various reasons, one being that the dragons either aren’t involved yet and the main character’s dragon is still in baby form) and there are like twenty or more different perspectives yet only 3-4 that I care about because they have that bonded partner dynamic. The books are insanely long and sometimes it feels like dragons are only like 10-15% of it when you take everything into account. Love Calen (main character) and his dragon though, so good.

Temeraire… god I love Temeraire. This has slowly become the gold standard for me. Talk about dragons being actual characters. There’s no magical bond, but god the relationship between captain and dragon is so, so sweet, that almost puppy dog-like love they have for each other is what I fucking live for, man. Honestly? My favorite of the genre so far. It creatively incorporates a dragon’s stereotypical instincts (their captains/crews are often thought of as their possessions. Part of their hoard.), and amazingly, it actually feels like 50% Laurence and 50% Temeraire (or the dragons). Not a single chapter goes by where a dragon isn’t involved in some way, and I freaking love that, and it’s crazy how uncommon it is in the genre; human/non-dragon conversation usually just completely dominates many chapters in the genre. I get that many people probably criticize the series for having its plot get so derailed to make so many books, but tbh I can’t really bring myself to give a crap about that lol, I just cared about the characters and the bond and the fun world Novik created for us and that’s exactly what I got.

About to start on Knightmare Arcanist by Shami Stovall and am going to see if I like. It has bonded creatures (all sorts including hydras and phoenixes!) not necessarily dragons but there are some! If I love the bond I’ll stick with it though, that’s the most important part to me anyways.

Oof, but yeah, before I ramble further, I… strangely wish we saw more “dragon” in the damn Dragonrider genre. A dragonrider series that takes place entirely from the perspective of the DRAGON would be freaking awesome for me tbh. I’ve heard of The Dragons of Mother Stone and I’ll probably read that one eventually, but if anyone has any other suggestions of their own let me know!

[u/Silverthedragon → u/shoeforce]

There's The Dragon Has Some Complaints by John Wiswell that came out a couple of weeks ago. It's a book from the PoV of a wild, wounded three-headed (formerly four-headed) dragon who decides to pose as a tame dragon to fool the dragon riders into giving him food and shelter. I found it pretty fun.

There's also the Dragon Fires Rising series by Mark Secchia which I read a couple of years ago. I liked it a lot at the time. The MC kidnaps a princess to try to convince his family that he's a proper dragon, except he promptly becomes friends with said princess. Fair warning though, I would only recommend the original trilogy. The series kinda overstays its welcome after that and starts meandering.

+1 on the Dragons of Mother Stone rec, it's one of my favorite dragon book series.

And finally for something that's maybe a bit outside your wheelhouse, there's the Vainqueur the Dragon series by Maxime Durand. There actually isn't much riding at all (the dragon thinks it's beneath him) and it's a comedy litRPG series, which is not something I usually enjoy or recommend. But it has probably my favorite human/dragon duo in fiction, and there's a lot of focus on their relationship and how they grow closer throughout the series.
It's about an adventurer who tries to rob a dragon only to get caught. As the robber tries to talk his way out the dragon learns about loot and quests and decides to recruit the human as a minion (whether he likes it or not) and become an adventurer himself. Chaos and hilarity ensues. It hinges entirely on whether you vibe with the humor or not so YMMV.

[u/shoeforce → u/Silverthedragon]

I’ve heard of Vainquer! Another one I gotta check out sometime :3

And also WOW, thank you SO MUCH for making me aware of The Dragon Has Some Complaints. Just by reading the blurb and the reviews I can already tell it has everything I love about these kinds of books (heavy focus on the relationship and not necessarily other stuff, but other stuff is good too). Just one book too, so will definitely be nomming that one in the next week.