8 /10 1 Votes
Country United States Publication date 1983 ISBN 0-553-23205-3 Publisher Bantam Books | 4/5 Goodreads Language English Pages 166 Originally published May 1983 Page count 166 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback) Genres Novel, Fiction, Fantasy, Speculative fiction Awards Locus Award for Best First Novel Similar R A MacAvoy books, Locus Award for Best First Novel winners, Fantasy books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tea with the Black Dragon is a 1983 fantasy novel by R. A. MacAvoy. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1983, the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1984, and won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1983 and the Locus Award for best first novel in 1984. It also found a place in David Pringle's Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels (1988).
Plot introduction
Tea with the Black Dragon is about Martha MacNamara, called west to San Francisco by a message from her daughter, Elizabeth, a computer programmer. When she arrives, however, Elizabeth has disappeared. Mayland Long, an Asian gentleman, who is skilled in languages, including those used for computer programming (he settles down to read Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming with a “contented sigh”) and who may be a transformed 2,000-year-old Chinese dragon, aids Martha in her search for her daughter. As they search for clues to Elizabeth's disappearance, they discover hints that Elizabeth is involved in a dangerous crime.