Two dragons walk in to a bar.
One dragon says, "It's hot in here."
The other says, "Shut your mouth." ( )

Most great books start with a great theme. A so-so theme produces -- well, you can probably guess.

The idea of studying British dragons is fascinating, but the raw materials few. Saint George, England's patron saint, supposedly fought a dragon -- but it wasn't in England and he probably didn't exist anyway. Beowulf fought a dragon, but not in England. True English dragons are as often as not large serpents rather than actual fire-breathing reptiles. It's just not the stuff of high adventure.

Given that constraint, Simpson does a good job of documenting worm sign and faint traces of dragon folklore. The scholarship is good. But the book is thin because the evidence is thin. ( )