The Dragon and the George

What would it be like to become a dragon? Jim Eckert finds out when his consciousness is projected into a medieval fantasy world, and his mind ends up in a dragon. I loved him working out how to convince people like his girlfriend, Angie, who he is and how others join him on his quest to free Angie after she’s been captured.

The dragon rescuing the lady inverts the normal trope and makes the novel great fun to read. 

Twisting things around, The Dragon and the George throws the main character into the body of a dragon. I highly enjoyed the view of a human being thrown into an unknown type of body. The confusion and the discovery of strength and weaknesses made it fun to read. The tale has a small cast, and the story might remain a bit flat in ways, nevertheless, I found myself entertained by the setup and the unlikely band that the adventure brings together.

This is the first portal fantasy I remember reading where the people going through the portal were ordinary, believable adults. I first read it when I was in college, and the graduate student protagonists were facing challenges that I knew were coming up for me, which made them all the more appealing. The non-human “outsider” perspective thrust upon Jim Eckert when he suddenly finds himself in a dragon’s body also appealed to me far more than those portal fantasies where the protagonists are automatically hailed as heroes and saviors.