Rating: 
Summary: From a Dragyne's perspective . . It was excellent!
Review: I loved this book. I was first drawn to it by the unusual artwork on the cover. After passing it by on the shelves a few times (I admit I'm not a big fan of Arthurian Legend) I picked it up. I was not disapointed at all.I love the way tha author blends the different legends and myths into one coherrent plot line. I was disapointed there wasn't more of the Dragon and the Unicorn ( I thought the dragon was one of the most innovative "characters" I've seen in a long while). But the rest of the story was so good i didn't mond too much. Highly recomended, even if it does take a little time to get into.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good
Review: I must say that this book has been pretty good. I think the reason I enjoyed it was the fact that it had to do with Arthur and the Norse myths. I wouldn't reccomend reading it unless you didn't like either of those things or the Celtic myths. One of the most intriguing parts was figuring out who had similarities with the Norse gods. Quite obviously, the Furor is a young and brash Odin. All in all, I'd say this book was pretty danged good.
Rating: 
Summary: An amalgam of Germanic folklore...
Review: I started The Dragon and the Unicorn with interest. At the time I read it, I thought it was somewhat overwrought, but fairly well-written. It wasn't until several years later, when I began to study Germanic folklore in many of its forms, that I realized just what a mess Attanasio had made. He "combines," or rather confuses, the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Christian, and Scandinavian folklore with modern-day New Age concepts, never mind his historical inaccuracies. The result is a bizarre Arthurian tale where Christian, Nordic and Celtic otherworlds all exist side-by-side. The truth is, this kind of pan-Germanic fantasy was achieved in 1954 with the release of The Lord of the Rings. In a much more entertaining, interesting and subtle manner, the much more academically knowledgeable Tolkien blended several different traditions, including some Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon aspects in such a way that even the erudite scholar can find the seams. Mr. Attanasio, on the other hand, seems to have poured over a few dozen books on each tradition and then thrown them into a salad bowl. It doesn't work that way - at least, not well. But the book does have some merit - it is an excellent allegory for the state of Arthurian scholarship.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely amazing
Review: I started this book with alot of scepticism, but that was VERY short lived. The story is amazing, the concept is briliant, my only regret was that it had to end!
Rating:
Summary: masterpiece
Review: I think one of the problems is trying to judge this book on the myths it was based on, or on the story of king arthur. This book isn't just a mere retelling, but a complete reworking. To get lost in its accuracy toward Christian or Norse mythology is to miss the greater point, that this book is ultimately about redemption amidst monumental failures. In that respect, it can be just as inspirational as any musty Scripture if not more so.
Rating:
Summary: Mish-mosh
Review: I was really disappointed in this book and almost didn't finish it. The author tried to fit as many mythologies/ theologies/ histories/ etc. as possbile into one supposedly fantasy story. They all ran into each other in a way I did not find illuminating at all. Was it meant to teach a little bit about all these belief systems, or to tell a story? The only part of it that I liked was the story of the dragon and the unicorn, which was about 5% of the book. I thought that part was beautiful and would have much rathered the author expand that into the whole story instead of sticking onto "Arthurian" half-legend with as many religions as he can entangle.
Rating:
Summary: A new cosmology and a great read
Review: I've read at least a dozen tellings of the story of Merlin and Arthur, but this is by far the most original. Attanasio weaves together Norse and Celtic beliefs with elements of Christianity to create a rich and fascinating cosmic struggle. This new mythology, starting at the beginning of time, provides a backdrop for the "birth" and development of Merlin. The writing is exceptional... fluid and magical. The characters are engaging and complex. This book is a great read by itself, as well as a wonderful introduction for Attanasio's later books.
Rating:
Summary: Look beyond ....
Review: If you look beyond the cover, past the pages, past the words and into the souls created, you will find a belief. A belief shared by many imaginations. Or is it really imaginations? Can it be reminants of what really was, resurfaced through the timewinds? I found answers to my own life's puzzles. What did you find?
Rating:
Summary: The best book I've read this century!
Review: If you take vivid imagery from most of the mythologies of Western culture, and step sideways to that fractal dimension where it all can be seen to be scenes on a single, shimmering tapestry, there you find this book. To call it merely a reworking of the Arthurian legend is to call "Romeo and Juliet" a boy-meets-girl story. This tale moves from a Monobloc-spawned daemon, vengefully enraged at being bound in cold, gross matter to a lonely, Earth-entangling dragon, singing pitiably to it's star-bound brethren. Add Thor, aghast at his visions of future nucear devastation, leading barbaric hordes in the destruction of techno-civilization. Arthur ends up being little more than an afterthought, a catalyzing pawn in this clash of titanic forces.
Rating:
Summary: Glorious writing, eccentric plot additions, complex chars.
Review: Nobody writes like A. A. Attanasio. Nobody else comes up with phrases like "Spume from the breakers exploding on the cliffrocks far below
floats upward in goat-feathers" or uses words like "numinous" and "espaliered" (or things that I doubt are actually really words, like "complexifyingly"). So, when he decides to write the story of Camelot, it's not going to be quite like the standard version. Sure enough, _The Dragon and the Unicorn_ is about 80% the story of Ygraine and Uther (with a very different sort of Uther than I'm used to seeing) and about 20% an additional complication of ethereal trees constructed from planetary magnetic fields and universe-spanning
dragon dreamsongs. If you like Attanasio, you'll like this one, and the additional odd bits won't be so out of place. If you're not familiar with him, you might consider starting with something else, like _Last Legends of Earth_.
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