Famous fantasy writer Bruce Coville in his book The Dragonslayers describes a wonderful, fantastic world with furious dragons, beautiful princesses, noble knights, and malicious witches. The setting of the novel takes place mainly in a fantastic kingdom, which is ruled by King Mildred, and partially in the Forest of Doom that is terrorized by a fierce dragon.
The main characters of the book are King Mildred, who rules his kingdom, his daughter Wilhelmina who has a desire to become a knight, and Squire Elizar with his pageboy Brian. The main negative character is malignant witch Grizelda.
The conflict begins when Squire Elizar and his pageboy Brian get underway in order to slayer the dragon. They are unsuspicious of the fact that King Mildreds daughter Princess Wilhelmina disguises herself in a mans dress, and in order to avoid her marriage rushes to kill the dragon herself.
The resolution of the conflict is the confrontment between the dragon and two groups of hunters represented by Squire Elizar with his pageboy Brian and Princess Wilhelmina with her talking bear. As a result, the dragon is bloodlessly conquered, Willie achieves knighthood that is her cherished dream, Elizar gets to know that Grizelda is his former lost wife.
This story has much in common with a fairytale. The general theme of the story is that, like in every fairytale, good always triumphs over evil.
The novel The Dragonslayers, written by Bruce Coville is considered to be a typical example of fantasy. Here we can see the typical plot and the specifications for this genre characters such as the dragon, who terrorizes the kingdom, the heroes who are trying to resist the evil, beautiful princesses, and speaking animals. At the same time, the specific sense of humor, which can be found on the pages of this book and the matchless language of the main characters, make this book unique in its own way. Apart from the typical peculiarities of fantasy, this book also has typical folkloric features such as the king, who proposes half of his kingdom and the hand of his daughter, or the speaking bear. In spite of the fact that the book is predetermined for children, it will also be useful for adults.