SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I need help with this one. My wife was telling me about a book she read part of when she was younger. It was actually an excerpt in a school textbook of hers, and the way she explained it, it was about dragon riders and their search for dragon eggs. The story followed one boy who people didn't think would amount to anything who ends up finding the egg of a king dragon, or something equally as important.

I'd love to surprise her with this book. To be honest, if anyone has ideas I won't know if they're right or not, so hopefully this sounds like an exact match of a book one of you knows. Thanks for any help you can give.

Sounds like His Majesty's Dragon though the main character is grown not a boy. Everything else sounds right.

I appreciate the guess but that says it was published 2006. This would have to be a much older book, 80's the latest and possibly earlier. She's over thirty and this was in one of her schoolbooks.

Sounds like a Pern story. . . maybe "The Smallest Dragonboy" which was originally published in 1973. . . you can see a summary of the story here.

That definitely sounds like it, and even a few of the comments here on Goodreads mention reading it in school. I'll look into it a bit further. Thanks so much for your help. :)

Yeah, sounds like a Pern story. I think I have one called Dragonriders of Pern.

Could be Dragon Blood by Jane Yolen, that was published in 1982. I read it around then and remember a boy stealing a dragon egg which eventually hatched.

I did come across that name also, and it sounded a bit similar. The only thing that makes me think it's not this book is she didn't mention that a) the boy was a slave or b) the story took place on another planet, which from the description sounds to be true for Dragon Blood.

Can't help, don't remember it that well - it was over 20 years ago. I remember liking it though.

Could it be Eragon? That one came out in 2005.

Eragon's way too new, he said 80's at the latest.

Oops, missed that.

Could you buy a few, hopefully, cheaply and surprise her that way. That would be an impressive effort, plus dragons-need I say more!

Could it have been an excerpt from The White Dragon? Just throwing that in as it is a Pern book and an unexpected impressing.

It does sound most like The Smallest Dragonboy to me.

The White Dragon of Pern series seems about right.

Buy her the whole Pern series, you can't go wrong there.

Haha, thanks for all the suggestions, everyone.

From what I can tell The Smallest Dragonboy sounds the closest to what she told me. She said it was an excerpt in a schoolbook which otherwise bored her, but that one story she read and re-read repeatedly. She's a big fan of LOTR, Harry Potter, and other Fantasy works, and I think this was one of those pivotal childhood moments we've all had where you discover something new and realize how much you like it and want more of it.

I think I'm going to buy "A Gift of Dragons", which phoenixfalls linked to, since it has that story plus a few more, that way she can read the original (hopefully) plus some more. Next month is our 6 year anniversary and we'll be spending it on vacation driving from Las Vegas to, ironically, Phoenix. I want to surprise her with the book, so I really appreciate what you guys have done here. Hopefully it's the right one, but if not I know she'll appreciate it anyway.

Congrats, and good luck!

That's nice, I'm sure she'll love it. Congrats.

Just an update, I gave her the book and it turns out "The Smallest Dragonboy" was the right story. She was pretty surprised, and happy, so thanks Phoenixfalls and everyone else who helped out.

Incidentally the Gift of Dragons book is a well-made book, the look of it, the illustrations. If anyone has a young sci-fi/fantasy geek in their lives it would probably be perfect for them.

Great news - thanks for the update Brian!

Brill, massive brownie points to you!

Brian wrote: "Haha, thanks for all the suggestions, everyone.

From what I can tell The Smallest Dragonboy sounds the closest to what she told me. She said it was an excerpt in a schoolbook which otherwise bore..."

I had this same book in school when I was kid.

Glad to hear that, Brian!

Brian wrote: "Just an update, I gave her the book and it turns out "The Smallest Dragonboy" was the right story. She was pretty surprised, and happy, so thanks Phoenixfalls and everyone else who helped out.

Inc..."
Sounds like an excellent set of stories! I'll have to track them down one day.

When I was a kid my parents gave me an anthology of fantasy stories. One of them was the Smallest Dragonboy. Like your wife, I adored this story and would read it over and over again.

Then when I grew up I totally forgot about it.

About ten years ago, I was lent a copy of The White Dragon. I fell in love with the series and bought every single book over the next few years. I adore them and read them avidly, but it was only a couple of years ago that I realised that short story I had loved as a child, was actually part of the same series.

It was a joy to find it again, and read it, knowing its place in the series.

I would highly recommend the Pern series to anyone who loves fantasy and dragons.