Dragon Springs & Other Things - Raven Oak - ★★★.½

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AUTHOR: Raven Oak
GENRE: SFF Anthology
RATING: 3.6 stars.

In a Nutshell: An eclectic collection of tales rooted in the SFF genre. Unusual protagonists and interesting storylines.


This indie anthology of eleven stories (or possibly, ten stories and what looked like a novellette) is a compilation of stories written by the author over a period of ten years. The stories have been divided across two collections; this is the first volume.

Of the eleven stories, five stories have been a part of other multi-author anthologies. The remaining six make their first public appearance through this book. Of these six, two are stories featuring a character named Ida from the author’s Boahim Trilogy, which I haven’t read. So when I read the first story having Ida and some other characters from the Boahim universe, I felt like I was missing out on some information and couldn’t connect with the story at all, because of which I skipped the second Ida story. My review and rating is thus based on ten stories and not eleven.

As always, I first looked for the introductory note by the author and was disappointed at not finding any. But the author had a surprise up her sleeve. Instead of having a foreword for her stories, she provided a brief insight about each story, talking about where it first appeared and what provided her the inspiration for the plot or the character. This little personal note appears at the end of each tale. I liked this idea much better, because right after we are done with a story, we get to see how it came into being. (This is going to be my new expectation from all future anthologies I read. Writers, take note! 😉)

The anthology covers a delightful range of SFF genres such as dark gothic fantasy, paranormal, steampunk, post-apocalyptic and urban. The diversity in the stories is the highlight of this book, as each tale feels fresh in approach. The author’s writing is beautiful. Her method of writing descriptions is apt for short fiction, providing just enough lyrical details to help us visualise the scene but without going so overboard on the details as to drag the story.

The endings in most cases are satisfactory. Nothing cut off abruptly or leaving us hanging. At the same time, nothing that blew me away with a stunning climax. I’m not saying the endings were bad, but they felt quite tame compared to the creativity of the plots. A couple of the stories (especially the Snark one) would have benefited with more development.

The tales vary in length as well, with one of the stories – ‘The Ringers’ – feeling almost like a novelette. I usually prefer a more consistent length across a collection, especially if it is by a single author who has greater control over the inclusions in a collection. But in this case, the length didn’t matter much as no story felt dragged. In fact, ‘The Ringers’ ended up as one of my favourites in this book.

As always, I rated the stories individually. Of the ten stories I read, only one (the first Ida story, where I understood hardly anything of what was going on) was stuck with a 2-star rating. The rest were all 3.5 stars and above, which is a great hit rate if you know me and my ratings. Here are my top favourites:

🐉 Water the Fire – The title will make perfect sense once you read the story. More than the plot, I loved how imaginative this was. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟

🐉 Learning to Fly – Didn’t expect the direction this story about a girl looking for the perfect wedding gown would take. Sweet! – 🌟🌟🌟🌟

🐉 The Drive to Work – I could guess the twist but that doesn’t take away from the beauty of this story. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

🐉 The Ringers – The kind of story that had the potential to give me nightmares. Not scary in the paranormal sense, but in terms of atmosphere and off-page events. Loved it! - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

🐉 Dragon Springs and Other Things – When I had picked up this book, I simply couldn’t figure out the relevance of the strange title. But after the title story, it made so much sense. Enjoyed this unusual dragon story, though I wanted more of the dragon. - 🌟🌟🌟🌟


All in all, if you like SFF and enjoy short stories, this is a nice collection to check out. I will definitely be reading the second volume as well.

3.6 stars, based on the average of my ratings for the ten stories read.

My thanks to Grey Sun Press and NetGalley for the DRC of “Dragon Springs & Other Things”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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