10 Fantasy Books To Get Your Fill Of Dragons After Reading Onyx Storm

Rebecca Yarros' Onyx Storm and its cliffhanger ending, which left readers wondering what happened to the missing dragon eggs and what happened during Violet's memory gap, has left romantasy fans hungry for more, but unfortunately it'll be some time yet until the next Empyrean novel releases. Thankfully, there are plenty of romantic fantasy books like Onyx Storm to read in the meantime – and better yet, there are options for readers who are more interested in dragons than romance.

Empyrean dragons are categorized by color and tail type, and have a wide variety of skills and abilities they can use in battle, whether alongside their riders or battling alone. Yet Yarros' approach to dragons and dragon-riding is far from the only one in fantasy literature, and these other books and series are equally brilliant stories about these massive, scaly creatures of myth and legend.

10 His Majesty’s Dragon

Naomi Novik, 2006

Naomi Novik's fantastical alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars is a bizarrely familiar and yet unique take on what was a seriously chaotic and violent part of European history. In the real world, the series of seven wars lasted from 1803, when the British Empire declared war on France, until 1815, when Napoleon was defeated for the last time at the Battle of Waterloo. His Majesty's Dragon, the first in Novik's series, is set in 1804, during the first major conflict of the Napoleonic era.

Captain William Laurence is a British naval officer happily commanding the HMS Reliant, yet after his ship seizes a French frigate and discovers a dragon egg onboard that's about to hatch, he finds himself in the unexpected position of having to bond with the young dragon so it can be utilized by the British Air Corps. Empyrean fans will feel right at home as Laurence and his new dragonet, which he names Temeraire, learn to work together and discover the incredible powers the young dragon hides beneath his jet-black scales.

9 Dragon Keeper

Robin Hobb, 2009

The first book of Robin Hobb's Rain Wild Chronicles follows a group of newly-hatched dragons, as well as their keepers, as they try and reestablish themselves in the swampy and inhospitable Rain Wilds. The Dragon Queen Tintaglia has apparently abandoned the region, leaving the people of the Rain Wilds to care for the new hatchlings, all of which are unable to care for themselves.

Dragon Keeper's cast of misfits – both the malformed young dragons and their keepers, natives of the Rain Wilds who have draconic mutations like claws and scales – are a far cry from Violet and the other soldiers of the Empyrean, but the depth of their compassion for each other is unmistakable. As the book ends, the group are preparing an expedition up the Rain Wild River to take the dragons to their ancestral home: the ancient city of Kelsingra, where mystical secrets will ensure that no one will survive the expedition unchanged.

8 A Natural History of Dragons

Marie Brennan, 2013

A Natural History of Dragons is the first in Marie Brennan's The Memoirs of Lady Trent series, and follows the exploits of the titular Isabella, Lady Trent, as she bucks the gender norms of her home nation of Scirland and become not only her nation's first female naturalist of renown, but to also catalog the fascinating attributes of the wild dragons that live throughout the world. She and her new husband, on their first scientific expedition together, must not only deal with the dreaded Vystrani Rock-Wyrms, but also a conspiracy of international proportions.

Brennan's juggling of Isabella's predominantly privileged and academic perspective on the world – which is broadly based on the real world in the mid-19th century, right down to Scirland being nearly a carbon copy of Victorian England – with how she is repeatedly thrust into uncomfortable or even socially taboo situations is masterful, creating a compelling and sympathetic protagonist. And while the relationship between Isabella and her husband Jacob isn't always the most passionate, prospective leaders will enjoy carrying further on in the series to see Isabella discover where to find that passion.

7 Dragonflight

Anne McCaffrey, 1968

Dragonflight is the first book in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series, which has been thrilling and delighting draconic aficionados for over 50 years. The book is a combination of two novellas, "Weyr Search" and "Dragonrider," which take place on the planet Pern in the far, far future, after human colonists were stranded on the planet by the appearance of the dreaded Thread, strings of red spores that fall from the sky and consume all organic material. Thankfully, the colonists were able to tame the planet's indigenous dragons, whose flight and flaming breath became their best weapon against the Thread.

The people of Pern have since fallen into a feudal system, valuing dragonriders above all, and Dragonflight follows a young woman named Lessa, who has been chosen to bond a queen dragon and to help rebuild the Weyrs, five settlements that have lain empty for years. Lessa's drive to succeed, and her connection to her dragon, Ramoth, will be familiar to Empyrean fans, and may well have even inspired Yarros when she created Violet's character.

6 The Legend of Huma

Richard A. Knaak, 1988

The first of the Dragonlance series of tie-in Dungeons & Dragons novels to not feature the original group of heroes, The Legend of Huma is a glimpse back into the past of the world of Krynn long before the War of the Lance. It's also a chance to see how Huma, the greatest Knight of Solamnia – familiar to readers of the Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends series as a near-messianic figure – went from man to myth while riding on the back of a silver dragon.

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Empyrean fans will appreciate the martial nature of the dragon-riding Knights as they battle against their evil counterparts, the followers of the Dark Queen Takhisis, Dragon of Many Colors and None. While Huma is no spellcaster, his friend Magius – another name Dragonlance readers will recognize – provides a magical punch that would make Xaden or other channelers look like a child having a tantrum.

5 Dragon Champion

E. E. Knight, 2005

The first book of E. E. Knight's Age of Fire series follows AuRon, a gray dragon hatchling taken from his sisters after an attack on their home and sold to humans. After escaping captivity, he goes seeking the ancient black dragon NooMoahk and the secrets he guards, and from there finds himself in conflict with the self-styled Wyrmmaster, a human supremacist with genocidal ambitions.

Dragon Champion and the two other initial books in the series, Dragon Avenger and Dragon Outcast, each follow one of the surviving dragons of AuRon's clutch, and work as standalone novels. The second sequence of books is a trilogy that follows all three of the dragons as they find themselves embroiled in world politics and massive power struggles.

4 Sword of Destiny

Andrzej Sapkowski, 1992

Sword of Destiny, the second collection of short stories by Andrzej Sapkowski that start off his WitcherSaga, admittedly only has one story featuring dragons, which are known to be exceptionally rare on the Continent where the White Wolf Geralt of Rivia plies his trade as a monster-hunter for hire. That story, "The Bounds of Reason," sees Geralt and his companion, the delightfully petulant bard Jaskier, hired by the eccentric knight Borch Three Jackdaws to join his party of adventurers and sellswords, who are hunting a green dragon.

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"The Bounds of Reason" – adapted by Netflix as the sixth episode of The Witcher's first season, "Rare Species" – is a fascinating look into how dragons work in the world of The Witcher, where they're so rare as to barely be believed in, yet far more horrifying monsters are commonplace. Even more rare than everyday green dragons, though, are the gold ones that even a seasoned monster-hunter like Geralt thinks are only a myth – much like the gold dragons in Empyrean.

3 Into the Darkness

Harry Turtledove, 1999

Harry Turtledove is renowned for his work writing alternate history, such as his Worldwar books which sees aliens invade Earth during World War II, or his Southern Victory series, which hypothesizes a timeline where the Confederacy didn't lose the American Civil War. Into the Darkness is the beginning of his Darkness series (also known as World at War), which is a fantastical parallel of the real World War II.

Into the Darkness and its fantastical reimagining of 20th-century conflict tells of a world overflowing with magic, where mages do the work of engineers and where dragons and other mighty monsters take the place of mechanical weapons of war. Characters like Sabrino, the noble dragon-flying ace who grows to resent the cruel leadership of his home nation of Algarve, will feel especially familiar to fans of Onyx Storm and how Violet and the other members of the Fourth Wing are repeatedly torn in their allegiances.

2 The Dragon and the George

Gordon R. Dickson, 1976

Gordon Dickson's Dragon Knight books tell of how medieval history professor Jim Eckert finds himself in a strange world and, stranger still, inhabiting the body of the great dragon Gorbash. There to rescue his fiancé Angie, a doctoral student who disappeared during an experiment in astral projection, Jim must first free her from the clutches of two other dragons, and then seek the wizard Carolinus, who he hopes can help them both return home.

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The Flight Of Dragons

Passed

Animation

Adventure

Family

Release Date

August 17, 1982

Runtime

95 Minutes

Director

Jules Bass, Arthur Rankin Jr.

Writers

Romeo Muller, Peter Dickinson, Wayne Anderson

Cast

See All

• 
  John Ritter
• 
  Victor Buono
• 
  James Earl Jones
• 
  James Gregory

Writer Peter Dickinson is transported from 20th-century Boston to a mystical realm where magic is losing its power. Alongside the Green Wizard Carolinus and a team of fantastical allies, Peter must thwart the evil Red Wizard Ommadon. Utilizing his knowledge of science, Peter battles to restore balance between magic and logic.

Main Genre

Animation

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The world of The Dragon and the George is a strange one, but oddly endearing. Dragons in this world call all humans "georges," in reference to the real-world legend of St. George fighting a dragon. The book was also loosely adapted as the 1982 animated film The Flight of Dragons, produced by the same Rankin/Bass studios that previously produced the animated Hobbit and Return of the King adaptations.

1 Guards! Guards!

Terry Pratchett, 1989

While Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels delve deep into all manner of fantasy tropes, there surprisingly aren't all that many dragons running around on the Disc; that's because dragons, or rather the extremely large and powerful ones we generally associate with the word, require so much magic to live that they have a hard time existing in the real world. Instead, draco nobilis are all crammed into a little pocket dimension full of magic, where they can contentedly slumber the millennia away – at least, until some short-sighted human tries to summon one.

And that's the crux of Guards! Guards! A cabal of ambitious men summon a dragon to the city of Ankh-Morpork, hoping to stage a revolution against the city's government that will let them install a king on the throne; the dragon in question, however, has some unique ideas about who deserves to wear the crown. Thankfully, Night Watch Captain Samuel Vimes, one of Discworld's greatest characters and most miserable heroes, is on the job to save the day and return the city of Ankh-Morpork to its usual, dysfunctional status quo.