WORLD WEAVER PRESS
  • Home
    • Start Something New
  • Books
    • All Books >
      • Beyond the Glass Slipper
      • Bite Somebody
      • Bite Somebody Else
      • Black Pearl Dreaming
      • Cassandra Complex
      • Causality Loop
      • Clockwork, Curses, and Coal
      • Continuum
      • Corvidae
      • Cursed: Wickedly Fun Stories
      • Dream Eater
      • Equus
      • Fae
      • Falling of the Moon
      • Far Orbit
      • Far Orbit Apogee
      • Fractured Days
      • Frozen Fairy Tales
      • Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers
      • Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters
      • Grandmother Paradox
      • Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline
      • Haunted Housewives
      • Heir to the Lamp
      • He Sees You When He's Creepin': Tales of Krampus
      • Into the Moonless Night
      • Jack Jetstark's Intergalactic Freakshow
      • King of Ash and Bones (ebook)
      • Krampusnacht
      • Last Dream of Her Mortal Soul
      • Meddlers of Moonshine
      • Mothers of Enchantment
      • Mrs Claus
      • Multispecies Cities
      • Murder in the Generative Kitchen
      • Recognize Fascism
      • Scarecrow
      • Sirens
      • Shards of History
      • Shattered Fates
      • Skull and Pestle
      • Solarpunk (Translation)
      • Solomon's Bell
      • SonofaWitch!
      • Speculative Story Bites
      • Trenchcoats, Towers, and Trolls
      • Weredog Whisperer
      • Wolves and Witches
    • Anthologies and Collections
    • Novels
    • Novellas
    • Fairy Tale
    • Fantasy
    • Romance
    • Science Fiction
    • Urban/Contemporary Fantasy
    • Young Adult SFF
  • Blog
  • About
    • Anthologists
    • Authors
    • Editors
    • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Submit: Anthologies
    • Free Review Copies
  • Press / Publicity
  • Newsletter Signup
  • Privacy Policy
  • Store

WORLD WEAVER PRESS

Who Needs Horses When You Can Ride a Dragon?

6/9/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Rebecca Roland discusses some of the mechanics of the mainstay of fantasy aerial warfare: fighting from dragonback. From Pern to the invading Maddion of her own Shards of History series.

When I came up with the Maddion, I kept thinking of a militaristic society devoted to their dragons. As readers can see in Fractured Days, the Maddion live in mountains in an area that can only be reached by air. Dragons are crucial to their way of life for transportation, warfare, and hunting. They are as ingrained in the Maddion culture as horses are in many real-world cultures.

How does a person fight from dragonback?

First, a warrior would need a special saddle that would hold him firmly in place and be comfortable for rider/dragon at the same time. The last thing a person needs when he's hundreds of feet in the air doing complicated maneuvers is to fear falling. The saddle also has to be comfortable for the dragon (they have nasty ways of letting you know they disapprove), and it has to hold a warrior's weapons (the Maddion favor automatic crossbows and axes).

Second, the Maddion end up spread out when they're on dragons, even when flying in formation. They need a way to communicate so they can coordinate attacks, change plans, or glean information from scouts. I attended a Texas A&M bonfire/practice yell a few years ago when they came to play the UNM Lobos in football. It was an… enlightening experience, to say the least. But one of the things the Aggie yell-leaders do is make signals before a cheer to let the crowd know what's coming up. I thought something like that would work well for the Maddion, and so they use a variety of large arm and hand gestures to communicate, passing the message back from the group's leader to the very last man in the formation.

As for imagining the actual fight scenes, I admit that I borrowed an idea from George Lucas. As far as I know, World War II aerial dog fights inspired his own space-based fight scenes, and so I watched some footage to get an idea of what a large, human-guided, airborne creature could be capable of. I also utilized what I know of large birds of prey and how they maneuver while hunting. After I wrote the battle scene, I went back over it several times to make sure it was consistent and that the angles worked.

Other authors have tackled the logistics of humans fighting from dragonback. In Anne McCaffrey's Pern series, humans communicate with their dragons telepathically, and their queen is able to communicate with any dragon anywhere on the planet. This makes passing orders instantaneous and convenient.

Another series that utilizes fighting from dragonback is Naomi Novik's alternate history series beginning with His Majesty's Dragon. In this version of the Napoleonic Wars, the European forces have dragons. The dragons are large enough in some cases that they can support entire crews, complete with tents and supplies. For this, the dragons are outfitted with elaborate harnesses that the crew members attach themselves to using carabiners. Dragons are able to speak aloud, and are quite intelligent. They are so huge, however, that it's nearly impossible to speak from one beast to the other, especially when engaged in battle. So the aviators use flags as well as speaking trumpets to make their wishes understood. By the way, the battle scenes in this book are absolutely some of the coolest I've read in a while. And yes, I am an action junkie when it comes to both novels and movies.

It's fascinating to see how some of the same things crop up in stories about dragon riding, and yet there's room enough for plenty of originality as well. I can see how Novik's dragons and riders were influenced, in part, by McCaffrey's. Although it had been a while since I'd read McCaffrey, my own dragon riders were influenced by her as well, along with my long-standing interest in Genghis Khan.

Picture
Rebecca Roland is the author of the Shards of History series, The Necromancer's Inheritance series, and The King of Ash and Bones, and Other Stories. Her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Nature, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Stupefying Stories, Plasma Frequency, and Every Day Fiction, and she is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. You can find out more about her and her work at rebeccaroland.net, her blog Spice of Life, or follow her on Twitter @rebecca_roland. Read all the high flying details of the Maddion invasion by dragonback in her debut novel Shards of History, and its sequel Fractured Days.

Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    World Weaver Press

    Publishing fantasy, paranormal, and science fiction.

    About WWP
    Books
    Authors
    Contact

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013
    October 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012

    Tweets by @WorldWeaver_wwp
World Weaver Press | Books | About | Contact | Blog | Press

© 2012-2022 World Weaver Press
  • Home
    • Start Something New
  • Books
    • All Books >
      • Beyond the Glass Slipper
      • Bite Somebody
      • Bite Somebody Else
      • Black Pearl Dreaming
      • Cassandra Complex
      • Causality Loop
      • Clockwork, Curses, and Coal
      • Continuum
      • Corvidae
      • Cursed: Wickedly Fun Stories
      • Dream Eater
      • Equus
      • Fae
      • Falling of the Moon
      • Far Orbit
      • Far Orbit Apogee
      • Fractured Days
      • Frozen Fairy Tales
      • Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers
      • Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters
      • Grandmother Paradox
      • Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline
      • Haunted Housewives
      • Heir to the Lamp
      • He Sees You When He's Creepin': Tales of Krampus
      • Into the Moonless Night
      • Jack Jetstark's Intergalactic Freakshow
      • King of Ash and Bones (ebook)
      • Krampusnacht
      • Last Dream of Her Mortal Soul
      • Meddlers of Moonshine
      • Mothers of Enchantment
      • Mrs Claus
      • Multispecies Cities
      • Murder in the Generative Kitchen
      • Recognize Fascism
      • Scarecrow
      • Sirens
      • Shards of History
      • Shattered Fates
      • Skull and Pestle
      • Solarpunk (Translation)
      • Solomon's Bell
      • SonofaWitch!
      • Speculative Story Bites
      • Trenchcoats, Towers, and Trolls
      • Weredog Whisperer
      • Wolves and Witches
    • Anthologies and Collections
    • Novels
    • Novellas
    • Fairy Tale
    • Fantasy
    • Romance
    • Science Fiction
    • Urban/Contemporary Fantasy
    • Young Adult SFF
  • Blog
  • About
    • Anthologists
    • Authors
    • Editors
    • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Submit: Anthologies
    • Free Review Copies
  • Press / Publicity
  • Newsletter Signup
  • Privacy Policy
  • Store