I have something of a dragon fixation, although it isn't really apparent from my own writing.  Part of that has to do with me avoiding the topic of dragons, as I don't currently trust myself to do them justice without invoking a lot of cliches and tired tropes.  I readily admit to being a sucker for those great beasts, though.  I love the use of dragons in Skyrim, dragosn show up with alarming frequency in the Pathfinder game I run, and one of my favorite movies is the much maligned though quietly brilliant Dragonslayer .  Also, one of my earlier exposures to fantasy and science fiction writing was Anne McCaffery's "Dragonriders of Pern" series .

I have an omnibus edition that combines Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon in one volume.  While engaged in the neverending battle to clear out my basement I happened upon it and decided to revisit Pern as I knew it for the first time. It's one of the more unique takes on dragons, framing them less as mythological creatures or forces of nature and instead casting them as the genetically engineered solution to an alien threat.  They are a science fiction notion wearing the trappings of fantasy, stewed up in a gumbo of political, cultural, and sexual drama.

The books don't quite grip me as they did when I was younger.  With age and a lot of my own writing experience under my belt, I notice for the first time that McCaffery employs a number of literary devices that make me frown, and her bewilderingly large casts mean that some chararacters are paper-thin and hard to tell apart from each other.  However, she constructs a world which is fascinating, internally consistent, and truly original.  Her dragons are subtle creatures with a peculiar intelligence and a complicated and relationship to mankind.  I only hope that if and when I tackle my own iteration of these icons of fantasy, I can do so with as much thoughtfulness and originality.