You’ll be pleased to know that there are just about enough dragons in this book for me!

In I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle, Gaius Aurelius Constantine Heliogabalus Thrax (please just call him Robert) has inherited his late father’s job as dragon exterminator for the kingdom. He doesn’t like the job, as he’s secretly rather fond of dragons, but his mother and siblings need the money. So when the king summons him to clean out the palace, he begrudgingly goes, only to run into Princess Cerise, whom he used to run into when they were kids and he tagged along with his father on jobs. Cerise vaguely remembers him, but she’s distracted by her infatuation with the valiant Prince Reginald, who secretly isn’t all that heroic. Unexpectedly, the three of them are forced to work together when a simple dragon extermination job takes a strange turn.

I’ve yet to read Beagle’s best-known work, The Last Unicorn, so I was excited to read this one and see how I like his writing! And luckily, I had a good time!

Robert (of the hilarious birth name) is a decent protagonist. He’s a bit like lots of fantasy heroes, a young man in a world he’s perhaps not best suited for, only to discover he’s powerful. But it’s fun here, because there are dragons. I like the idea that instead of being strong in combat, his strength lies in the way he empathizes with and bonds with creatures that most people view as pests. Also, the little dragons he’s adopted are absolutely delightful, and I kind of wish they’d had more to do with the plot. But that’s a personal problem. I’ll be fine.

As for Princess Cerise, I liked her character development. She starts out a tiny bit annoying, so enamored with Reginald as to be nearly two-dimensional. But there’s more to her than that, and that becomes clearer and clearer. She is teaching herself to read, despite typical royal conventions, and doesn’t take anyone’s nonsense. She’s a tough enough character by the end, and I appreciated it. And I also enjoyed Prince Reginald being a bit cowardly and weak, as opposed to most fairytale princes. Overall, lots of those usual tropes are twisted about.

I think the main villain of the story was fine, but nothing special or distinctive of other evil characters in other stories. I also wish we’d had more time with Reginald’s father, who does impact the plot but who seemed to me to slightly lack development. He is mentioned, then randomly shows up to be very important for a couple of chapters, and then the story moves on. It was a little odd.

But the action scenes involving the main bad guy, and the evil dragons, made up for that. There are some genuine stakes, lives lost, villages destroyed. The violence isn’t totally out of nowhere, against the usual tropes of the genre, but it does set this book apart from being just another fairytale-inspired story. And the magic was pretty cool, though I wish we’d spent a little more time getting to learn its intricacies.

In the end, I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons is a fun time. Good characters, especially the little dragons, and a clever twist on a fairytale. It feels a little bit Princess Bride, which is always a good thing. The audiobook, narrated by Shaun Taylor-Corbett, is a great production. I’ll have to read more by Beagle now!

I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons is available now!