If you need to transport yourself to a world of spice, heat, and massive mining equipment, you'll want to visit Project Sand, and check out all the designers there. I've chosen a sampling of worm-oriented images because obviously worms are the coolest things ever.

By Jordan Lamarre

By AJ Trahan

By Jordan Lamarre

By AJ Trahan

By Wo"Dzgn

Probably O'Bannon's biggest contribution to science-fiction movies is his work on the screenplay of Alien, which started life as his script Star Beast. According to Empire Magazine, O'Bannon's script was the movie's first draft, although others later worked on the screenplay. And Empire says he brought over several of his colleagues from Alejandro Jodorowsky's abortive film Dune to Alien.

But prior to Alien, O'Bannon was co-writer and visual effects supervisor on John Carpenter's loopy Dark Star. And he also played Sgt. Pinback, as seen in the clip above. And O'Bannon worked on the original Star Wars, helping to craft those great computer graphics of the Death Star plans and the attack run — and according to this poster at IMDB, he's also in the movie, as one of the technicians in the Rebel Base during the Battle of Yavin.

After Alien, he wrote the great helicopter movie Blue Thunder plus two episodes of the spin-off TV series, and he wrote Lifeforce, "one of the movies that I still make people sit down and watch against their will," according to novelist Richard Kadrey on Twitter. O'Bannon also wrote two Philip K. Dick adaptations, Screamers and Total Recall. He wrote and directed the Romero-inspired zombie comedy, Return Of The Living Dead. And he worked on both the Heavy Metal comic as well as the movie, writing the "Soft Landing" and "B17" segments of the film. Some claim his work on the Heavy Metal comic influenced the visual style of Blade Runner.

O'Bannon changed science-fiction on film forever, and he'll be missed. [Empire via Ain't It Cool News]

Artist Chris Foss is known for his visionary presentation of future technology and weird vistas. He illustrated many book covers in the 70s, 80s and 90s including the Lensman series, Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, and Jack Vance's Demon Princes novels. His covers frequently feature spaceships that are sturdier and chunkier than the usual sleek space rockets you see on many other book covers of the time.

His cool vision of the future led him to be asked to work on production designs for Alejandro Jodorowsky's uncompleted Dune movie, in the mid 1970s, and later on Ridley Scott's Alien and Superman: The Movie.

As Alejandro Jodorowsky said in 1977:

And thus were born the mimetic spaceships, the leather and dagger-studded machines of the fascist Sardaukers;- the pachydermatous geometry of Emperor Padishah's golden planet; the delicate butterfly plane and so many other incredible machines, which I am sure will one day populate interstellar space. Chris Foss knows that today's technical reality is tomorrow's falsehood. Chris also knows that today's pure art is tomorrow's reality. Man will conquer space mounted on Foss' spaceships, never in NASA's concentration camps of the spirit. I was grateful for the existence of my friend. He brought the colours of the apocalypse to the sad machines of a future without imagination.

He has a website, ChrisFossArt.com, where you can see more of his work and buy signed prints of all of these images. And he has a group on Facebook, where you can keep up with his projects.

Pirate Ship, From Jodorowsky's Dune.
Harkonnen's flagship, From Jodorowsky's Dune.
Spice transport, from Dune.
Emperor's palace, from Dune.
Guild Tug, from Dune.
Breaking the Light Barrier
Awesome space image.
Awesome spaceship.
Image for ConceptShips blog.
Awesome spaceship.
Amazing space image.

According to entertainment site Pajiba, not only is original director Peter Berg exiting the large Dune remake, but he was also secretly meeting up with Robert Patinson to discuss lead roles in the film.

Now that Pattinson is no longer interested in the project, Berg is looking to leave and Paramount is desperate for a new director and hoping to entice Neil Marshall, director of The Descent, or Neill Blomkamp, director of District 9, into taking over. Marshall is their number-one pick.

While we're taking this report with a giant heaping of salt, we have to say it makes sense and is getting us a little excited.

I think we're all in agreement that Neill Blomkamp would be gangbusters for this film, that's obvious. His passionate love of science fiction alone would at least mean he'd give his all at recreating a successful scifi film. But since Neil Marshall is the studio favorite, probably because he's cheaper, and Blomkamp has a lot of his own work he wants accomplished, let's talk Marshall.

First off Marshall can do more with less: he proved that with the tiny budget film The Descent. Since Paramount wants to make this film for an alleged $175 million, he probably has a few ideas. Also, Marshall is a fan of the genre. He loves aliens, plagues, Mad Max, monsters and conspiracies, and he will take care of the subject material or at least attempt to respect it. Even though Peter Berg's films are pretty to look at and very flashy, they're usually empty or devoid of feelings (witness Hancock). And finally, no matter how crazy and ridiculous Marshall's cult gem Doomsday got, it still wasn't Hitch or Hancock, sorry I hate both those movies equally.

[Via Cinematical]

[image via deviant art]

Actually, my absolute favorite of all time has to be this weird sequence from Futureworld, with the red ninjas, and the bondage, and the sexy, sexy gunslinger action:

If you can explain to me exactly what that dream about Yul Brynner symbolizes, I'll buy you your own lifesize Yul Brynner gunslinger robot.

Even though science fiction often strives to portray bizarre or other-worldly things happening in our "real" world, it often reaches for the most jagged tool in a film-maker's kit: the dream sequence, in which things are practically required to get loopy and unreal. Some creators — like, say, David Lynch and Joss Whedon — love the dream sequence more than others. But it pops up surprisingly often. With the melty faces, and the people falling in space, and the weird animal costumes, among other things...

Here are 40 or so dream sequences that we love, divided up by era...

1920s through 1970s (Or if you want to view it in a non-gallery format, click here.)

1980s. (Or if you prefer a non-gallery format, click here.)

1990s. (Or, for non-gallery format, click here.)

2000s. (And it's available as a non-gallery page, here.)

I wouldn't dream of claiming that we included every amazing SF dream sequence, ever. So what are your favorites? What did we miss?

Sources: UGO, Wikipedia, FinestFive and IMDB, among others.

The influence of Herbert's secret muse - environmentalist Rachel Carson, whose Silent Spring appeared shortly before Analog began serializing Dune - distinguishes his own from these other entertainments. Inspired by Carson's defense of the balance of nature, her criticism of man's despoliation of the planet in the name of progress, the desert ecosystem portrayed in Herbert's Dune is far more than a setting: it's a mise en scène, a worldview.

via Hilobrow

They Come Back, But Not Quite Alive

Torchwood: When Jack Harkness is understandably upset when Owen Harper is shot and killed. But at least he's got the Resurrection Gauntlet to bring him back to life, right? Well, sort of. Owen still walks and talks, but he's not precisely alive. His heart doesn't beat, his flesh doesn't heal, and his reflexes are gone. And, if that wasn't bad enough, he can't even enjoy food or sex anymore, and Weevils follow him everywhere.

Caprica: Granted, the consequences of bringing Zoe Graystone back from the dead are pretty far-reaching. After all, it results in the creation of the Cylons and the eventual decimation of humanity. But when Joseph Adama encounters a computerized copy of his dead daughter, her concerns with being back from the dead are more immediate. Without a living body, she has no pulse and just generally feels wrong, to the extent that she can't stand being semi-alive this way.

"Playback" Arthur C. Clarke: Caprica's borrowed a page from Clarke here, who wrote a tale of aliens who try to bring a pilot back to life after his ship explodes. They manage to restore all of his memories, but have no idea what kind of body he had, and he's a bit depressed to find that he's just a non-corporeal simulation.

"The River Styx Runs Upstream" by Dan Simmons: When a young boy's mother dies, his father has her body resurrected. Although her body has returned, her mind simply isn't there, and she wanders through life as an automaton. The boy's distraught father and older brother eventually kill themselves in their grief, horror, and shame, but the boy doesn't think resurrection's so terrible. He himself goes to work for the Resurrectionists, spending his free time with his resurrected family.

You Bring Them Back Wrong

Doctor Who "The Empty Child:" Well-meaning nanobots attempt to reconstruct a child killed during the London Blitz. But not knowing what a human child looks like, they bring him back as a mindless abomination, with a gas mask for a face and ever searching for his mother. Even worse, the bots decide that this is what all humans must look like, and proceed to transmute healthy children as well.

"The Monkey's Paw" by WW Jacobs: The mystical monkey's paw grants wishes, but never in the way you hoped. After the first wish Mr. White makes results in the death of his son Herbert, his second wish is for Herbert to return. Mr. White never sees his son, but he knows after a horrible accident and a week on the slab, Herbert probably isn't the same. His third wish takes Herbert away.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Forever:" Following the same vein as "The Monkey's Paw," Dawn tries to resurrect her dead mother via magic. She also never sees her mother, realizing that what comes back won't quite be her, and breaks the spell before her mother reaches their front door.

They'll Try to Kill You Afterward

30 Days of Night: Dark Days: After Eben Olemaun becomes a vampire to save the remaining citizens of Barrow, he turns to ash when the polar sun finally rises. This sets Stella Olemaun on a quest to bring her husband back to life. But when she succeeds, Eben is still a vampire — and a hungry one at that.

"Herbert West — Reanimator" by HP Lovecraft: Medical student Herbert West is fascinated by life and death, and develops a serum he believes will restart the machinery of the human body. The serum works, but turns the corpses into cannibalistic zombies. West is unrepentant , focused on new ways to find dead subjects for his experiments. Of course, eventually his zombie experiments turn on him.

Practical Magic: After Sally Owens' boyfriend Jimmy turns out to be abusive, she drugs him and accidentally kills him. Fearing prison, Sally and her sister Gillian cast a spell to revive him, but Jimmy's immediate reaction isn't exactly gratitude. He tries to kill Gillian, forcing Sally to murder him once again.

Pet Sematary: Any dead creature buried in the ancient Micmac burial ground comes back to life, just not quite the way you put it in. After losing his young son Gage, Louis buries his son in the graveyard. Sure enough, Gage comes back — and promptly murders his mother.

Lexx: You would think that, given the prophecy that the last of the Brunnen-G would kill His Divine Shadow, the last thing His Divine Shadow would do is resurrect a Brunnen-G corpse. But he did exactly that to Kai, making him one of the living dead as a Divine Assassin. It takes over 2000 years, but eventually Kai does get around to killing him.

Supernatural "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things:" College students and necromancy are always a recipe for trouble. When a broken-hearted boy tries to bring his dead crush back, she's of course got to go zombie and start chomping down on her loved ones.

God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert: For thousands of years, Leto Atreides has ruled over humanity, and always has a ghola — a copy — of his father's faithful friend Duncan Idaho to serve him. But the Duncan ghola's almost inevitably rebel against Leto and try to kill him, forcing Leto to kill all but 19 gholas. Still, Leto keeps bringing in a fresh Duncan ghola after each attempt on his life.

They Bring Death With Them

Pushing Daisies: When pie maker Ned touches dead bodies, they become reanimated, without regard for mutilation or decay. But if he fails to deanimate them after more than a minute, a random person in close proximity dies, taking their place. And for Ned, bringing the dead back to life is further complicated by not being able to touch them, lest they fall dead once again.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer "After Life:" Actually, bringing a body-stealing demon into the world of the living was probably the least of the disastrous consequences of resurrecting the Slayer. Still, when a demon gets loose in Sunnydale, the Scoobies have to kill it before it kills Buffy.

Carnivale: Ben Hawkins has the power to bring people back from the dead, but it comes with a price: one person of Hawkins' choosing must die in exchange for the life. And, try though he might, he can't choose himself.

Torchwood "Dead Man Walking:" Another fun consequence of Owen's walking death is that Death himself comes along for the ride. He's looking for 13 souls to consume so he can remain in the world of the living and slake his thirst for destruction.

It Will Come at Great Personal Cost

The Dresden Files: The sorcerer Hrothbert of Bainbridge committed a crime against his order by bringing his beloved Winifred back from the dead, prompting the High Council to hand down a severe and lasting punishment: they imprison his spirit inside his skull for all eternity. Hrothbert, now "Bob," has been around over a thousand years, but he can't interact with the physical world.

Torchwood "They Keep Killing Suzie:" The other Resurrection Gauntlet actually does bring the dead back to full-fledged life. But naturally there's still a catch: the resurrected person draws life energy from the living wearer, and permanent resurrection means the death of the living wearer.

Full Metal Alchemist: After their mother dies, Edward and Alphonse try to revive her through alchemy. Not only do they fail to bring her back from the dead, they lose physical pieces of themselves in the process, with Edward losing his left leg and Alphonse losing his entire body.

Supernatural: The Winchesters thrive on death and resurrection. When Sam is shot and killed, Dean trades his soul for Sam's life, with the bartering demon collecting in just a year. Sure enough, after a year, Dean dies and head off to Hell.

It Will Attract Unwanted Attention

The Outer Limits "Josh:" When reclusive Josh Butler resurrects a young girl through a strange electromagnetic pulse, it attracts the attention of a tabloid TV reporter looking for a scoop. Unfortunately, it also attracts the attention of the US Air Force, who promptly seize Josh and start performing medical tests.

The 4400: Shawn Farrell manages to bring a bird back from the dead, just one example of his amazing healing abilities. But not everyone is thrilled about his strange new powers, and they bring him to the attention of Jordan Collier, which is a bit of a double-edged sword.

It's Only Temporary

AI: Artificial Intelligence: The evolved mechas who find David frozen beneath the water are able to give the robotic boy his greatest wish: time with his long-dead adoptive mother Monica. The resurrection only lasts a day and can never be repeated. David's okay with the arrangement, since that one day is perfect, but it's a clear audience tearjerker.

They Were Actually Okay With Being Dead

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow assumed that Buffy's death by interdimensional portal had sent the Slayer to a hell dimension, and conjured up some ill-advised magic to bring her back. Unfortunately, Willow never considered that Buffy might actually be in Heaven, leaving her in a major season-long depression as she adjusts to inferior life back on Earth.

Supernatural: Okay, so Dean didn't exactly enjoy his stay in Hell, but he's dealing with some very Buffy-like issues on his return to Earth. He clearly remembers his agonizing time in Hell and got a real taste for torture. And God might have pulled him out of Hell, but his plans for Dean on Earth involve more havoc and torture.

Green Lantern: Maura Rayner is infected with a sentient virus sent by Sinestro and her son Kyle failed to get back in time to save her. He uses his powers to revive her, but she won't have any of it. She senses that, once dead, there's something wrong with being alive and begs him to let her be dead once again.

You Never Really Liked Them in the First Place

The Venture Bros.: Dean and Hank Venture are a tad on the death-prone side, so their father always keeps a few clone slugs around to imprint with their memories. But once they're alive again, he generally treats them as nuisances — or ignores them entirely. But he does find it handy to have a spare organ donor (or two) around.

Red Dwarf: Nearly the entire complement of the Red Dwarf is killed off in the first episode, only to be resurrected in the eighth season thanks to a little nanobot magic. Lister is no longer the only human in the universe, but he and his cohorts immediately run afoul of the newly reconstructed crew.

It Makes for Unnecessary Sequels

And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer: We said goodbye to several major characters from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (as well as the entire planet Earth) at the end of Mostly Harmless. Presumably Eoin Colfer's sequel will see Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and Trillian ride again, and Arthur's none too pleased about it.

Pope explained what was behind the page:

I wanted to try applying the lessons learned from the Wednesday Comics experience to a different subject, here finding a source which would be difficult to illustrate as a page of comics, given that there is very little suggested action. I find that with the format of Wednesday Comics (which is really the traditional Sunday Comics page), one must condense the plot and action to the briefest yet most vivd bursts of information available— there is a lot of space on the page for the illustrations to really overwhelm the reader/viewer, but there isn't a lot of space for story development in the sense of how we'd develop a plot or work up dialogue for a typical comic book page. In a comic book, one page may be well drawn or well written, but it is still just a single facet of a larger whole. One page can be preceded or followed by another, but no one page carries the entire weight of the sustained narrative. The Wednesday Comics single page format forces the artist to create a story unit which may well be part of a larger storyline, however it still must be able to stand alone.

A one-off page (with colors by Lovern Kindzierski, who colored the last half of Pope's Wednesday Comics strip), we can't help but wish that a full-scale Dune adaptation makes an appearance on Pope's to-do list at some point in the future.

M'Uad Dib [PulpHope]

Kudless, an architect with Matsys Design, created the Sietch Nevada concept with Dune in mind, analogizing the arid planet with the American Southwest:

Although this science fiction novel sounded alien in 1965, the concept of a water-poor world is quickly becoming a reality, especially in the American Southwest. Lured by cheap land and the promise of endless water via the powerful Colorado River, millions have made this area their home. However, the Colorado River has been desiccated by both heavy agricultural use and global warming to the point that it now ends in an intermittent trickle in Baja California. Towns that once relied on the river for water have increasingly begun to create underground water banks for use in emergency drought conditions. However, as droughts are becoming more frequent and severe, these water banks will become more than simply emergency precautions.

To that end, Sietch Nevada is based on the Fremen sietches, a city consisting of man-made caverns beneath the desert. Openings in the desert floor allow water to drain into underground canals, creating a water reserve for the city. But Kudless also imagines other desert cities might be envious of the Sietch's superior water conservation:

However, the Sietch is also a bunker-like fortress preparing for the inevitable wars over water in the region.

Sietch Nevada [Mastys Design via Building Blog]

A user on LibraryThing posting under the name bookmonkey00k has set forth the theory that Dune ruined science fiction novels. It's not that Dune is a bad book — quite the contrary, the poster admits he quite enjoyed Dune and the rich universe it portrayed. His issue is that he suspects Dune's success is behind the increasing girth of science fiction novels after 1965:

Basically, people looked at it and instead of saying, "Wow – you can have this kind of massive family drama/economic intrigue/war story/mystical journey all in the context of SF", they said, "Dune must be awesome because it's really long."

So after 1965 all SF started to get really, REALLY, BIG. I mean, when I've lined up my copy of Dune with three SF books that had been written in the previous decade (Double Star and Starship Troopers by Heinlein, and Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement), all of them award winners, all of them critically acclaimed, and all of them barely adding up to the page count that is DUNE.

Gone are the days of the 200 page book, which could be devoured in a couple of days. Instead, he says science fiction novels are less interested in telling interesting stories with novel ideas than in cramming in every detail until the book is better as a doorstop than a form of entertainment. Moreover, reading these tomes can take weeks, turning what should be a simple pleasure into an onerous commitment. The poster implores Herbert-loving science fiction writers to take their cue from William Faulkner (when rewriting, "kill your darlings"), and trim the fat from their books, leaving a trimmer, more engaging story behind.

But other posters in the forum suggest some other reasons why novels started getting longer after 1965: Like, for example, the fact that novels were no longer being serialized in magazines before coming out in book form (and magazines had tended to have less space for longer books). Or the fact that fantasy books, influenced by Lord Of The Rings, were going longer and more epic, and this bled over into SF. And then there's the simplest explanation: "People like thick books. It makes them feel like they get more for their money."

Things I've noticed: Dune really wrecked Science Fiction [LibraryThing]

At least two Lego enthusiasts have used the multicolored blocks to visit Frank Herbert's Dune. The gray sandworm popping out of the dune with the detailed Fremen comes from Brickshelf member RebelRock, while the blue sandworm is the work of Flickr user - 2x4 -, whose science fiction-themed Lego constructions include the Tron lightcycles and a bevy of ships from Battlestar Galactica.

[Brickshelf via MAKE]
[- 2x4 -'s Flickr via The Brothers Brick]

In an interview with SciFi Wire, Berg explained that te script isn't finished yet because they're working on making it much more epic than ever before. At least, that's what I take from this quote...

"[The book] was much more muscular and adventurous, more violent and possibly even a little bit more fun... I think those are all elements of my experience of the book that can be brought in without offending the die-hard fans of the Bene Gesserit and Kwisatz Haderach. There's a more dynamic film to be made."

Well, Lynch did have a half naked Sting. That was pretty muscular for me, but I think I understand what he's saying. Dune is one of those books where everyone has their version of the spice planet, and we're looking forward to Berg's.

In this detail from the image, you can see where Baghdad is supposed to be. But the city is entirely obscured by dust. So are most of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Dust storms are not uncommon for the hotter months in Iraq. A recent drought has made the land drier than usual, giving the seasonal summer winds more fuel for violent and dramatic storms like these.

NASA has also provided a short animation showing how the storm developed over a huge area. Now all the middle east needs to fully resemble Dune are giant sand-worms and complex politics. Or maybe just the worms.

Dust Storm over Iraq [NASA Earth Observatory]

Pollitt told The Australian newspaper that his new fashions included a limited edition psychedelic alien print, plus a whole line of clothes designed to be reminiscent of Lynch's Dune:

David Lynch's 1984 science fiction film Dune was the inspiration for the range Pollitt presented last night in the atrium of the University of Technology in Sydney.

He enlivened his signature blacks with saturated film colours including green, yellow, orange and red, along with deep silvers and dove greys to capture the essence of deep space and its surrounding galaxies as portrayed in Dune.

Garments in Pollitt's favoured washed and treated leathers, silk georgettes and jersey fabrics had intricate panels and zippers in homage to the "second skin" space suits worn by characters in the film.

"The suits were a second skin to protect them from the elements," Pollitt said. "They felt like extensions of their muscles and ribcages and I've applied those ideas to modern garments without making them too costumey."

I really only have one question. I get how it's a tribute to Dune, as well as an edgy, post-apocalyptic, androgynous look worn by people who would not survive five minutes in an actual post-apocalyptic world. But why does nobody have any eyebrows?

Images from Sonny Photos, The Vine and A New Muse.

I hear you are working on Dune with director Peter Berg, why did you want to get involved with that?

It's one of my favorite books of all time, and I made a movie with Pete called The Rundown, which people seemed to like a little bit, so we decided to get back together. Pete had loved the book as well. It's a great opportunity for us.

So is this a reboot with better FX, or a remake? Or what?

Reboot, let's call it a reboot.

Are they still going to have the blue spice-eye?

Yes, of course. Spice is part of the book.

Where are you guys right now in the process?

We're working on the script right now. We're going to turn it in shortly. The script is coming in, we're hoping to get a green light shortly.

So it sounds like all systems are still go on Dune, and the producers may be ready to start talking about locations, cast and budget in the near future. I have extremely high hopes for Peter Berg, and feel like this could be the epic tale that'll set him apart. Or it could be a cult classic but critically panned Chronicles of Riddick disaster. Fingers crossed for the former.

Until then you'll have to check out Misher's Fighting, in theaters this Friday.

According to This Is The West Country:

Staff eventually lured it out with fish scraps – but not before it bit through 20lb fishing line.

Curator Matt Slater said: "As part of our tropical marine displays we have been painstakingly propagating a variety of corals. They are extremely slow-growing and every one we have lost to these attacks was a major blow.

"In the end it got so bad that I decided to literally take the display apart to find out who was responsible. I could hardly believe my eyes when I finally caught sight of the culprit.

"It really does look like something out of a horror movie! It's over four feet long with these bizarre-looking jaws. Having done some research we also discovered that it is covered with thousands of bristles which are capable of inflicting a sting resulting in permanent numbness'."

The worm has been taken into protective custody, placed in its own tank. No word yet on whether it is pooping out spice, or whether it's going to be used to create the water of life.

via This Is The West Country and Neatorama

Star Wars
It seems that galaxies far, far away are the best places to go for horse alternatives. Whether they be the gualamas or Obi-Wan's varactyl, Boga, in Episodes I-III, or the more old-school tauntauns on Hoth or the Tusken Raiders' Banthas, there doesn't seem to be much of a shortage of rideable animals.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Although the immortal Mrs. Whatsit first appears to be an elderly woman at the beginning of the novel, she eventually transforms into a centaur-like creature with rainbows for wings, able to be ridden by the children.

Dune (series) by Frank Herbert
The desert-dwelling sandworms are very large, not particularly attractive, many-toothed, omnivorous, and somehow entirely capable of being ridden, although it really isn't a prospect for the faint-hearted.

"Rider at the Gate" and "Cloud's Rider" by C. J. Cherryh
The colonists of a hostile planet tame its indigenous horses, called nighthorses. They're intelligent, telepathic, and have a yen for bacon. (You'd think I was making that last bit up. You'd be wrong.)

Nightmare (Casper the Friendly Ghost)
Not a nighthorse this time, but an delightful ghost horse named Nightmare, friend and companion of Casper.

Comet (DC Comics)
Comet is the horse addition that rounds out all the superfluous super animals that had their heyday in the 1960's. Sort of Supergirl's pet, Comet was once a centaur in Ancient Greece, but due to an unfortunate potion, was turned wholly horse. Sucks to be him. (Although it seems he also gets to spend time as a human too, so there's a plus of sorts.)

Sleipnir
Speaking of horses and ancient, nobody does a mythological horse better than Sleipnir, steed of Odin, king of the gods. This eight-legged creature was fathered by a stallion named Svaðilfari and birthed by Loki, the trickster god. And if you think about that too long, your brain hurts. (You can read a summary of the myth here.)

Dragonriders of Pern (series) by Anne and Todd McCaffrey
As the title suggests, the novels revolve around people who ride dragons on the planet of Pern. The riders have forged telepathic bonds with their dragons and use them to fight Thread, which is described as a deadly phenomenon that consumes all organic material in its path.

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (and subsequent films)
Falkor the luckdragon, with his strangely serpentine, doglike appearance, flies the characters around, despite his lack of wings. (His unrelenting good luck is also a definite plus.)

My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
To continue with the dragon theme, this young adult novel tells the fanciful tale of a boy (the narrator's father) journeying across an island to rescue a young dragon that had been captured by the island animals to ferry them back and forth across the river. (Find the full text of the novel here.)

Dinotopia by James Gurney (and TV series)
The sentient dinosaurs on the island work together with the people (who were shipwrecked there) to form a sort of utopian society, where all the inhabitants work together and the dinosaurs provide transportation for the people.