Employment with a dragon offers many opportunities; guaranteed survival is not one of them.

"If you're not a thief or an adventurer, you needn't accept the position. There are always other alternatives. For instance, I could eat you." Naturally, I took the job, and if the dragon hadn't stolen my magic book of maps, I would have come right home. Well, probably. And if the wizards hadn't sent me to look for phoenix feathers, I wouldn't have been on that ship when it sank. And now the Sea King thinks I stole his pearl!

Within its picaresque plot, the novel recalls classic tales such as J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit," Neil Gaiman's "Stardust," and Lord Dunsany's "The King of Elfland's Daughter," while meditating playfully on paradoxes of identity, attraction, and trust, and the pleasures-and potential hazards-of reading itself.