I read “St. George and the Dragon” by Michael Lotti, and you should read it, too. It is excellent.

Among the fallout from Tolkein, in his genius, is that ever since him, dragons have to be suitably epic. The little green dragon which fits under hoof in a medieval painting is no longer sufficient to satisfy a reader, as a threat, as a character, as a feature, since the Tolkein redefined dragons for us with Smaug.

But the imagery of St. George is well-established. So what’s an author to do who has a mind novelize that beast, which is unnamed and undescribed in lore and was really ever little more than a critter and a prop for the legend of the man, until Tolkein showed us how dragons could be the most interesting of all monsters.

First, apparently, said writer steeps himself in the culture of the late Roman Empire under which any historical George would have lived, in the early morning of Christianity, specifically in this case just prior to the Diocletianic Persecution, which is referenced here only as a footnote and a looming potentiality.

Next, you study Tolkein and recognize that what made Smaug great was not that he had wings and breathed fire, but that he was a diabolical intellect with supernatural persuasive power and an all-consuming, ravenous ego. In short, a demonic person, but in flesh, not spirit.

Finally, you realize George’s dragon is, while perhaps of the same species, not Smaug. It is necessarily a good bit smaller, because we are bound to honor the illustrations which form so much of our cultural sense of the story, and also because this dragon lives in the real world, or next door to the real world, in historical Galatia about AD 303. It also must have its own personality and interests. What would be the lust of a dragon at the dawn of the fourth century, in the waning years of the pagan empire? Particularly a dragon which ancient lore has already established canonically as having an appetite for area livestock. What does it really want, why does it want it, and how does it go about getting it?

Lotti wisely avoids explicit answers to these questions, leaving its motivations mysterious and maybe a bit incomprehensible to human minds, yet hinted at in the coherence of its behavior. Lotti gives a dragon which, while still of appropriate scale for this story, is nonetheless engaging, mysterious, and malevolent, while also being a unique personality. You have not met this dragon before.

Meanwhile, our hero Marcellus, is an engaging portrayal of a Roman officer with all the ambitions appropriate to a young military tribune: advancement in the army, a profitable marriage, and a successful plantation with obedient slaves.

And this brings me to one of my chief complaints about Christian fiction (both movies and novels): it’s usually terrible, and it’s usually terrible because it’s about not-very-realistic Christians struggling with things Christians shouldn’t struggle with. And that’s because it’s built from the wrong direction. The author wants to tell some dumb story about a crisis of faith and invents some cardboard Christians to serve his plot.

Lotti evades all this agenda-driven nonsense and simply tells the truth of his story and its characters. Christian writers take note: this is how you write Christian fiction. If you start with some lesson, and write the characters around that, your work is going to be terrible. If you start with people, real people, and tell their stories, and let the audience discern the lessons, you will do much better. The
thing you have to offer, as a Christian writer, is not lessons. Leave the sermons to your pastor or priest. The one thing you have to offer, the only thing which the non-Christian writer cannot offer, is the possibility of including any Christian characters who are not parodies and stereotypes, so focus on that. Write real people.

This novel also comports with my theory on the correct way to write YA fiction: Where one author I heard said, “Write the story you would write anyway, but make the protagonists young,” I say this is a terrible idea, a sure way to write stories inappropriate for youth with protagonists from whom they can learn nothing. Better to write a story appropriate to the audience, but with adult protagonists that can demonstrate for them how to consider and solve problems maturely. This novel perfectly illustrates that superior approach. The other thing I will say about Lotti is that he is a real writer, writing professional prose. No amateur composition, no internet speech, here to knock you out of the story. Often we must wade through amateur writing to find good content which befits Christian or Conservative mores, so it is refreshing to find a professional author of prose providing for that market. Keep an eye on Mr. Lotti. Hopefully he will give us more novels in the future. Remember, long-form written fiction is the capstone of the arch of western civilization. It holds everything else up. If your teenagers and young adults are not reading good novels, then neither conservative cinema nor conservative non-fiction books will save your culture, because those forms don’t shape your children like good novels do. I can wholeheartedly recommend “St. George and the Dragon” for both you and your youth. I am also prepared to call it the definitive novelization of the St. George legend. Also, I would totally watch the movie. Michael Lotti does not seem to have a presence on X, but his work is on Amazon.

@davidpdeavel has also reviewed this novel, linked here: https://x.com/davidpdeavel/status/1782964391412941248