[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Not a fan of Mercedes Lackey?

While her quality varies from series to series (Valdemar series is highly predictable... look, a magic horse! Guess who's joining up with them! And you can often tell within two paragraphs of meeting who's going to be the love interest) she has a few interesting ones to her name.

Namely, the Halfblood series starting with Elvenbane, and my favorite standalone novel by her, Firebird. Firebird isn't relevenant to this discussion, but the Halfblood puts an interesting twist on the whole fantasy racial sterotypes since Tolkein, what with evil elves enslaving all of humanity and the main character being raised by dragons as a pet rather than out of some draconic nobility. And the the only reason dragons are involved in the world's affairs is the simple fact they like to meddle, not any ambition, vengeance, or purpose.

That novel is rather interesting for having a draconic culture developed, rather than a stereotype.

There is of course, still a place for fearsome monstrous or noble dragons, just as long as they're not typecast the same way in 80% of all books they appear in.