Reading: A Natural History of Dragons
Dec. 16th, 2018 06:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartSomeone recommended Marie Brennan's A Natural History of Dragons to me a while ago, so I bought a copy of the Kindle edition and then mostly forgot about it until I found volumes 2-4 in the series in the Oxfam bookshop recently, bought them and then thought I probably ought to read the first one.
A Natural History of Dragons is presented as the first volume of a series of memoirs written by Isabella, Lady Trent, a Victorian Lady Explorer* in a fantasy world whose politics and social structures closely mirror 19th-century Earth (although I think that the dominant religion is possibly closer to Judaism than Christianity), but where the range of fauna available for scientifically-minded members of the Western elite to study includes several species of dragons. Fascinated by dragons from an early age, at the age of nineteen Isabella manages to defy the constraints placed on women of her age and class and join an expedition to study dragons in the mountains of Vystrana (a country which seems to be more or less analagous to Hungary or Romania).
I found it a fun read, if fairly lightweight and sometimes a bit thin on characterisation, and I did like the way the device of the older Lady Trent looking back on her younger self allows her to reflect on some of the more egregious manifestations of colonialist supremacy in her attitudes to the Vystranan villagers she meets, as well as on some of her more foolish and reckless decisions.
*I can't help feeling that her name must be a nod to Isabella Bird.
A Natural History of Dragons is presented as the first volume of a series of memoirs written by Isabella, Lady Trent, a Victorian Lady Explorer* in a fantasy world whose politics and social structures closely mirror 19th-century Earth (although I think that the dominant religion is possibly closer to Judaism than Christianity), but where the range of fauna available for scientifically-minded members of the Western elite to study includes several species of dragons. Fascinated by dragons from an early age, at the age of nineteen Isabella manages to defy the constraints placed on women of her age and class and join an expedition to study dragons in the mountains of Vystrana (a country which seems to be more or less analagous to Hungary or Romania).
I found it a fun read, if fairly lightweight and sometimes a bit thin on characterisation, and I did like the way the device of the older Lady Trent looking back on her younger self allows her to reflect on some of the more egregious manifestations of colonialist supremacy in her attitudes to the Vystranan villagers she meets, as well as on some of her more foolish and reckless decisions.
*I can't help feeling that her name must be a nod to Isabella Bird.
