Fantastic collection overall. Its not straight fantasy, the various (very successful) authors involved were given a lot of latitude in interpreting 'dragon' as a theme for the collection, so hopefully there's something here for a variety of fiction readers.
There were, for me, a couple of low points. Not necessarily poorly written stories, but ones that didn't hold my attention as well (as I *was* here for the dragons). Roger Stine's 'Thermals of August' springs to mind, which was primarily about hangliders. "Soldatenmangel" was also on the strange side, and a little goofy, though still entertaining.
Overall, great fantasy read though. ( )

Balancing out a previous collection called Dragons of Light, this collection is, as the name suggests, darker. Dragons here are dangerous, evil or deadly, or just - dragons, with not real moral compass other than their own dark natures.

Stories included are as follows:

Filed Teeth by Glen Cook

Vince's Dragon by Ben Bova

The Thermals of August by Edward Bryant

The Dragon's Clubs by Stephen Kimmel

Negwenya by Janet Gluckman

Middle Woman by Byron Walley

The Storm King by Joan D. Vinge

My Bones Waxed Old by Robert Frazier

Soldatenmangel by Victor Milan

Alas, My Love, You Do Me Wrong by James Tucker

Fear of Fly by Lynn Mims

Though All the Mountains Lie Between by Jeffrey A. Carver

The Lady of the Purple Forest by Allan Bruton

A Dragon in the Man by Kevin Christensen

A Plague of Butterflies by Orson Scott Card

Review: This is a wild collection, all over the place as far as theme, feel, tone, and subject. The only connection is the concept of the Dragon, but even that is loose. For example, the dragon in Middle Woman is more like a genie in a bottle, while the Negwenya is an African spirit who is dangers, while dragon of The Lady of the Purple Forest is the classic treasure-hoarding, princess-stealing sort.

Some of these stories are humorous and amusing, but most are darker and horror-toned; In particular, Filed Teeth and Alas, My Love, You Do Me Wrong. They also span genres. Many are fantasy or dark-fantasy, but at least three were science fiction, and several had the fairy tale or folk tale formula.

This anthology is a fine edition of any collection of Dragon stories. While I did not enjoy all of them, I recognized them for being excellent examples of short stories and fine example of dragon mythos. ( )

A short story collection of Dragon themed stories. An excellent collection of both authors and illustrators. ( )

An interesting collection of fairly dark fantasy stories all illustrated by different artists. In some instances the artwork was better than the stories but they're not bad as a whole. ( )