Summary

The novel opens with the claim that this is “the Truthful Accounting of the Life of Alex Green – Physicist, Professor, Activist. Still Human. A memoir, of sorts” (1). The first section is titled “Greetings, Mother – .” It is a letter from Marya Tilman, a housewife in Lincoln, Nebraska, on September 18, 1898. In the letter, Marya describes her horrible life with a brutal husband. Marya knows she is going to become a dragon, and she embraces this change. The note at the end of the letter indicates that reports like this have been suppressed, but “the Wyvern Research Collective, an underground association of doctors, scientists, and students” are now studying “spontaneous and intentional dragoning, in order to better understand the phenomenon” (4).

The next section is the opening statement of Dr. H.N. Gantz speaking to the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1957. Dr. Gantz says he...