Gordon R. Dickson (1923–2001)

Charming and droll tale of a young couple who are transported to a parallel universe version of merrie England complete with dragons and wolves that talk and other stranger creatures. The hero of the tale, James, winds up in the body of a dragon and the story focuses on his misadventures while trying to rescue his girlfriend who has been taken prisoner by the baddies. Nothing profound, but a good and lighthearted read, which is a nice change from some of the angst ridden fantasy tomes I have been reading lately. Didn't realise till now that 8 sequels were produced much later - don't know if I'll bother, but I've decided to keep this one anyway.… (mais)

This story was an easy read and I'm not angry that I read it, it was okay. The premise of a mind-enhancing drug that increases the problem-solving potential of a human brain with the potential side-effect of rendering a few of the dosed either geniuses or rapidly disintegrating seniles is what hooked me. The story having a plot that was emphatically anti-establishment also pleased me although that was happening out of vengeance.
The story did have a few shocks, well two. The discovery of legally gray death games and the existence of pitting sharks and dolphins against each other in death matches of which the dolphins always get the worst in an undersea tenement were somewhat rattling. They almost didn't really seem to fit the banal story even though the former played into the plot.
I wouldn't really recommend this book to anyone but I did find a passage that I think is very relevant to the current zeitgeist on page 127. It's probably the only part of the tale worth taking with you.
...A system - a bureaucracy - is nonphysical. Weapons won't work against it. Riots won't work against it. Even laws won't work. It's a thought, a way of thinking. Even a bloodbath - if you killed off all the bureaucrats, they'd start to appear again the next generation as some people slid back into the old pattern. The only thing that smashes one pattern is a new pattern.… (mais)