Reading: A Natural History of Dragons

[white_hart]

Someone 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.

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

I think that the dominant religion is possibly closer to Judaism than Christianity

It's definitely based on Judaism, but with the twist that, as well as a denomination based on the Rabbinic form of Judaism that we see today, there's a Temple oriented strand that in the real world was wiped out by the Roman destruction of the Temple but which continues to exist in Isabella's world.

[white_hart]

Thank you. I know very little about Judaism, and had been vaguely assuming something like Roman and Orthodox Christianity, until I came to a mention of sitting shiva which I know is a Jewish thing (and which suddenly made a character name which had pinged me as being too Hebrew for the class and era they were based on make much more sense).

[tree_and_leaf]

I read a very interesting interview with her, or possibly an article by her, on that aspect of the world building, but I can't now find it. There's an Islamic analogue that comes in later, but nothing like Christianity. (I have big questions about what Islam would look like without Christianity which the book has, understandably, no interest in answering, but that's just me!)

I think you're right about the characterisation being thin in places, but I still really enjoyed the series!

[redbird]

The various years that appear in the text are in the Hebrew calendar, not specifically labeled as that (in the same way that the date on this post doesn't say "Gregorian" anywhere).

[white_hart]

Ah, thank you! I had obviously picked up on it being a different calendar, and was aware that the Hebrew calendar has several thousand years on the Christian/CE one, but would not have recognised it as being specifically the Hebrew calendar and not just a fantasy calendar with a base date along the same lines as the base date of the Hebrew calendar, if you see what I mean.