Steal the Book Title

[tuftears]

Maybe I've posted about this before... But Steal the Dragon is too good a title for the book it's on.

Seriously, what's up with that?

A. Nothing gets stolen in the book description.
B. No dragon is involved.

Every time I see this book title, I imagine the book it should have been.

Point the first. Something has to get stolen... I don't mean breaking in to free captive or enslaved dragons. That's 'Free the Dragon', still a good idea but very different. I mean that it should fit the 'caper' model: a thief or other scruffian is presented with a problem, we as the readers are informed of the various difficulties, the thief assembles his or her resources, and proceeds with the heist. Nothing ever goes entirely as planned of course...

Point the second. There has to be a dragon. Don't just nickname an aircraft or spaceship 'Dragon'. It doesn't have to be an intelligent dragon; in fact making it intelligent raises completely legitimate questions of ethics and morality, legal status of monsters notwithstanding. It does have to be big, winged, scaled, and possessed of enormous destructive force and a temperament to suit. In other words, not the most cooperative thing in the world to steal.

I can even imagine the opening line of the book.

"I don't do livestock," the greatest thief in the world said. She ignored the aide's nervous tittering. "Artwork, bullion, documents, artifacts historical, magical, and religious, if it's portable and worth something to someone, I'll steal it. But I don't do people and I don't do beasts."

Comments

[cjthomas.livejournal.com]

MLP Time Loops had an interesting variant on that };>.

(The core premise is a groundhog-day loop that lets the main cast get ridiculously powerful, and bored. There are occasional "fused loops" as a crossover excuse, and the entire set-up is a justification to put together a nominally-consistent anthology of entertaining short stories. It worked quite well.)

So, we wind up in another Tolkein fused loop, with various female ponies and other non-human or non-male characters staring down the Nazgul. The result:

Half an hour of what could only be called nazgul volleyball tore up the Pellenor Fields more than an entire week of occupation by an orcish army.

Amazingly, in all the fight the lizard-like flying creature wasn't harmed. A yellow pony of Rohan led it meekly away from the field of battle, telling the creature, "You're not really a bad wyvern, are you? You're very sorry about the trouble you've caused, aren't you? That's all right, you don't have to go back to that nasty Mordor place..."

=^.^=

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Must be Fluttershy. >_>

[cjthomas.livejournal.com]

Yes. It's derived from a similar line in-show ("Dragon Shy"). It was along the lines of "You're not a bad dragon, you just made a bad decision."... Delivered after scolding a dragon the size of a mid-rise apartment building until it broke down and cried. Fluttershy is timid and weak... right up until her Mama Bear reflex is triggered.

Don't mess with Fluttershy =^.^=.