The Dragon Waiting

[louisedennis]

I went into The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford with precisely zero knowledge of what it was about and was pleasantly surprised by the story. That said, I think if I'd had some idea what it was going to be about I'd have been a little disappointed if only because the concept alone is probably to raise expectations.

Comments

[lil_shepherd]

I love this book, if only because it makes heroes of both Anthony Rivers (who is my personal hero from the period) and Richard himself. It is also a rather clever justification for the murder of the princes, without pretending that Richard wasn't the likeliest culprit.

John M (Mike) Ford didn't write an awful lot of books -- he was a journalist -- but each one is utterly distinctive. His only other semi-historical is a thriller (not a fantasy) which mixes modern day espionage with Christopher Marlowe's, and is one of the few books set in London written by an American that I can stand. (The Scholars of Night.)

Oh, and actually, there is a "turning point", being that Julian the Apostate succeeded in expelling Christianity from the Western Empire, instead of dying before he reasonably got started. (I've used this myself - it's a great moment to use to build a world where Rome didn't fall but evolved into something else.)

Then, of course, there is How Much for Just the Planet, the Star Trek novel for people who don't like Star Trek

[king_pellinor]

I did like How Much for Just the Planet? :-) The Final Reflection, too. I should probably read The Dragon Waiting at some point, then :-)

Bunn's comment about there being a lot of stuff going on in the author's head that isn't necessarily obvious to the reader certainly applies to both the Star Trek books. They both bear re-reading so you can follow the plot properly the second time.

[lil_shepherd]

Mike Ford is also the only person, I think, to have a poem win a major SF award for a short story. (Gaiman, of course, did it with a comic book.)

This one:

Winter Solstice, Camelot Station

[louisedennis]

Oh, and actually, there is a "turning point", being that Julian the Apostate succeeded in expelling Christianity from the Western Empire

*pouts* I do honestly think these things are a lot weaker with an explicit turning point, because it really is highly unlikely the history would have proceeded sufficiently closely to our own to have both the Medicis in Florence and the Wars of the Roses in England still playing out as they did in real life from a divergence point that far back.

[lukadreaming]

I have this in my re-read pile. I read it about 30 years ago and remember little about it. Then lil-shepherd mentioned it a while back and I amazingly enough found it in the chaos that is my book collection ...

[louisedennis]

... and of course LJ suddenly decides it isn't worth notifying me about comments *sigh*

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on it when you get around to it.

[bunn]

By an odd coincidence, I just re-read this book, and therefore remember it well enough to quibble : Peredur isn't Glyn Dwr's son. Glyn Dwy was middle-aged at the time of his revolt, which was 1400-1405, Richard III became king in 1483. Peredur as a child can remember seeing one of Glyn Dwr's sons, Meredydd, and I suppose there might be an implication that he's Meredydd's bastard. It is one of the oddities of the book that Glyn Dwr is mentioned so often, I think, because historically he's a fairly obscure figure outside of Wales. But as I am a huge Glyn Dwr fan, I'm not complaining

[louisedennis]

I wondered as I was writing the above if I was misremembering grandson as son, but I couldn't be bothered to walk upstairs and double-check. I thought it was pretty heavily implied that Peredur was Glyn Dwr's grandson.

I seem to recall that the really bad thing about Byzantium is terrible road side service station food.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought a lot more was going on that was actually being stated.