 | Last Dragon
J.M. McDermottA tale of revenge that grows into something more, Last Dragon is a literary fantasy novel in the tradition of Gene Wolfe and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. My fingers are like spiders drifting over memories in my webbed brain. The husks of the dead gaze up at me, and my teeth sink in and I speak their ghosts. But it’s all mixed up in my head. I can’t separate lines from lines, or people from people. Everything is in this web, Esumi. Even you. Even me. Slowly the meat falls from the bones until only sunken cheeks and empty space between the filaments remind me that a person was there, in my head. The ghosts all fade the same way. They fade together. Your face fades into the face of my husband and the dying screams of my daughter. Esumi, your face is Seth’s face, and the face of the golem. So begins the most startlingly original fantasy novel in decades. | On sale February 2008 | MSRP: $14.95 US; $19.95 CAN | | 400 pages | SKU: 217257400 | | Trade Paperback | ISBN: 978-0-7869-4857-4 |
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"J.M. McDermott's first novel, Last Dragon, is one of the books chosen by Wizards to debut the new line, and it is a daring and intelligent pick. In Last Dragon, McDermott takes everything readers have come to expect from the fantasy genre and turns it brilliantly on its head." --Jacquelyn Benson, Foster's Daily Democrat
"Like Gabriel García Marquez's Autumn of the Patriarch, this extraordinary first novel traces the labyrinthine history of a dying ruler whose patchy memories of the past swerve from the vivid to the unreliable in a hypnotic tangle of stark realism and impressionistic fantasy that has the visionary power of a fever dream. McDermott is not writing magic realism but robust fantasy, investing the traditional subject matter of the genre--magic, dragons, golems and more--with high literary craftsmanship . . ." --Paul Whitcover, Sci Fi Weekly
"Last Dragon by J.M. McDermott: Best First Novel of the Year, or Just One of the Best, Period?" --Jeff Vandermeer, Ecstatic Days
"(Last Dragon) is an enjoyable read that has unique sensibilities and a very original cosmology. If you're tired of your typical fantasy and want something different, check out Last Dragon. This is one of those books that's multi-layered and one gets to appreciate more with multiple re-readings." --Bilbliophile Stalker
"Last Dragon is a uniquely written fantasy story, almost dreamlike in its telling . . . a very poignant and character driven tale." --Monster Librarian
"A rare kind of clarity inhabits McDermott's prose through the character of Zhan and the entire novel is a breath of fresh air in the sometimes moldy room that is traditional fantasy fiction . . . comparisons to Gene Wolfe, in particular, are well-earned and I would not be surprised to see this novel on finalist lists come awards time." --Jeff VanderMeer, Realms of Fantasy
"McDermott's debut novel requires careful reading to piece together a story told in nonlinear form, as mercurial as memories and as visceral as death. This fantasy adventure belongs in libraries where literary fantasy in the tradition of Gene Wolf, A.A. Attanasio, and Gabriel García Márquez is popular." --Library Journal
“The style is what makes Last Dragon. The compact, page-long sections of parsed text, the narrator's voice which stays relentlessly contained within the context of the universe it inhabits, the asides that rip away from the history-style narrative like cold water and the unreliability of the voice all hark to Calvino’s Invisible Cities.” —Synchrocandy
