How to Build a Dragon or Die Trying - Paul Knoepfler and Julie Knoepfler ***

Thanks to its subtitle of 'a satirical look at cutting-edge science', I totally misunderstood what this book was about at first glance. The most speculative aspects of science, notably cosmology and astrophysics, are replete with theories unsubstantiated by experiment or observation, highly reminiscent of the concept of 'the invisible dragon in my garage' which is a theory that can't be disproved, but certainly isn't science.

The title, however, is far more literal. This is a book on what would be faced if we were to attempt to construct a dragon given our best current biological science plus a touch of speculation. It's a fun idea, but the book is something of a curate's (or possibly dragon's) egg. 

Some of the chapters are excellent. I particularly enjoyed one on what would be necessary to have a fire-breathing dragon, which ranges from generating and safely storing the flammable substance to managing to ignite it, drawing on a whole range of existing biological capabilities and extending them. Others are less so - for example there's a lengthy chapter on what a dragon's brain would need to be like. While the basic criteria of intelligent enough to learn stuff while not so intelligent it's too independent is reasonable, it was quite dull - and the obvious solution that it would need a dog-style brain, which would cut the whole thing down to a paragraph, is totally ignored.

The worst aspect is the structure of the whole thing. There's a lot of repetition. For example, there's a three-page preface setting out what it's intended to do. Then a first chapter that does exactly the same thing but at greater length. Then more chapters on features of the dragon which repeat yet again what was said in the introductory chapter before getting onto options and solutions. It's supposed to be a light, fun book - and in places it is - but a lot of it doesn't read that way.

Later chapters take on building unicorns and other mythical creatures and the ethics of dragon engineering, which is fine, but overall it feels like a set of separate long articles strung together without a good structural edit. Another aspect that pulls it down for me is that the satirical aspect was supposed to be taking on the way that science press releases, proposals and such over-hype their subject. But this simply doesn't really come through enough. So, yes, the justification for the dragon, a painful part of any research proposal, is mildly amusing, because there really isn't one... but it's not enough to make the book a satirical device.

Paul and Julie Knopfler give us plenty of interesting factoids and little explorations of biological and physiological science, and, as mentioned, parts of the book are really good. But it would really have benefited from a better structure, more detailed content and a heavy edit.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here