All the manners and social rules just serve to highlight the savagery of other dragonish practices, such as that of eating the dead, the weak and the elderly, or binding the wings of servants and the clergy so that flight is impossible for them. So, yes, ha ha, it’s a book about dragons living like Victorian ladies and gentlemen – what larks! But this is just so well done. Well, maybe a bit less gently in Daverak’s case because he’s such an arse.Īnyway, let’s talk about what I really loved about this book. The worst of tradition is represented by the rich, elderly Exalt Benandi’s snobbery and the greedy self-importance of the Illustrious Daverak, and is gently poked fun at. As children of a self-made man … ahem … dragon, Dignified Bon Agornin’s children represent the new order and most of the drama of the book comes from their finding places for themselves in an old and well-established society.
On top of all this there’s a fascinating look at a society experiencing change as industrialisation takes hold (trains are in evidence and there is talk of factory workers and warehouses in the city of Irieth), the practice of keeping servants and the conditions in which they are kept is beginning to be questioned, and beliefs both about class and religion are challenged. In terms of action there are two brief fights and a hunt for a lost dragonette in a mountain cavern. It’s only odd now that I step back from it and realise that I’ve been completely taken up with the romantic lives of a small handful of dragons, without once batting an eyelid.Īs the wonderfully arch narrator keeps count, this story comprises eight proposals, seven confessions, three dinner parties and three deathbed scenes, two court hearings and one ball.
I’ve finished this in a matter of days (something extraordinary for me), reading late in bed and at every other opportunity because it was just so much fun. There’s no slip or falter in the consistency of her vision and while it took me a handful of pages to get a grip on things, once I did I was hooked. Walton manages to capture perfectly the everyday details of her dragons’ lives and flawlessly imagines the workings of their world. Yet it’s partly a comedy of manners (Austen-ish), partly a humanitarian novel (Dickens-ish), and it both echoes and parallels Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage, which Walton quotes at the beginning of the book and mentions in her ‘Dedication, Thanks, and Notes’. It’s a story of a world with many of the priorities and interests of Victorian Britain, but in which all players are dragons. Utterly engrossing and absolutely brilliant (definitely a keeper), but … yeah … odd. This has got to be the oddest thing I’ve read in a while.
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