Comment on The Mermaid Problem by XNinjaRed
It usually depends on how dragons are depicted in the work, and how much science is put into it. I'd have to say they make the most sense in the Dragonology books.
Well I beg to differ. In the Pern books they are actual creatures...they are in fact genetically bred off of indigenous species on a colony world. Almost everything about them is described. McCaffrey wanted to write a Sci-Fi story. The science is in there, it works...I even roughed out a working process for converting P2H4 to PH3 (phosphine) in the "fire stomach."
BUT...that is SF. As far as fantasy goes, my scope is limited, and I have seen novelists run the gamut from feasible to "WTF?!".
I'm a big fan of Carl Sagan's ideas on exobiology, where the idea is to figure out "how does it work," rather than simply "does it work at all."
BUT...that is SF. As far as fantasy goes, my scope is limited, and I have seen novelists run the gamut from feasible to "WTF?!".
I'm a big fan of Carl Sagan's ideas on exobiology, where the idea is to figure out "how does it work," rather than simply "does it work at all."