Mini-Review: A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

In order to add context to this review, I feel I must begin by explaining that I am a trained scientist, a lover of the outdoors, and rather fond of traveling. I often look back to a world where large parts truly were ‘undiscovered’ and the adventures of discovery was ever present, and wish that I were there.* Surprising for one with my background, I don’t read much nonfiction, but when I do, it’s often of the scientific discovery sort of variety, and they are often biographies of prominent scientists of the 19^th Century. So, given all this, I can say that it’s really no surprise at all that I really, really enjoyed A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan (Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon).

The story is narrated by an aged woman of some notoriety and fame (Lady Trent) – fame for being a scientist no less, and a women scientist at that. She is looking back to the time of her youth and coming of age, when she went on her first big adventure. A time before the world had moved on to a more developed, smaller world – a world where adventures and discoveries were out there to be had and a society where women did not take part in such disgraceful activities.

It is a secondary world, though it absolutely invokes Victorian England and the aristocracy exploring colonial, ‘lesser’ lands. It’s also told in the journalistic style of the times (or at least how we like to think of the times). We could easily be reading about a trek into Africa, or perhaps the far reaches of Central Asia, but in this book there be dragons.

All I can really add is that this story was a pure joy to read. Yes, at times it gets self-indulgent and the pace slows to a crawl, but what journal doesn’t do this? However bad at times things get during the expedition, I can’t help but want to be there myself. To have been one of these early scientists making such groundbreaking discoveries – did I mention there are dragons. That just makes it all so much cooler, because it would be a childhood dream come true to search out and study dragons.

A Natural History of Dragons has been out for a while, and so has its sequel (The Tropic of Serpents) and Voyage of the Basilisk is forthcoming in 2015. It managed to get itself nominated for the World Fantasy Award (not a winner though), and all I can say is that I should have read it sooner. And I can’t read the sequel soon enough.

A Natural History of Dragons (Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon)

The Tropic of Serpents (Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon)

Voyage of the Basilisk (Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon)

*I’m aware that this is a horribly privileged, Western perspective, but I am a product of my society.

Review: The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas

Dragons – where would epic fantasy be without dragons? Portrayals run from cute and cuddly to ferocious and evil to mysterious and metaphorical. In The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) dragons are beasts of burden and weapons of mass destruction upon which the entire civilization is built. But these dragons are enslaved with alchemical potions and far too dangerous to allow freedom.

The Adamantine Palace follows two story arcs with only a bit of overlap. First is the predictable – a dragon is attacked, looses its rider and ends up out of the control of the alchemical drugs used to enslave it. This dragon slowly ‘awakes’ to its true self and sets out to free other dragons as it unleashes vengeance on the humans who enslaved it – of course there are a couple of humans helping the dragon out. The other main story arc is political – the Dragon Kings and Queens play a deadly power game using proxies and pawns with allegiances gained and betrayed.

Words to explain how I felt about The Adamantine Palace include pretty good, OK, adequate, decent and the like. Damning with faint praise – maybe. But in a time when on-line outlets like message boards and blogs (awkwardly peers into the camera) stand up and shout out about the next great thing, where debut novels often gain buzz, even hype, where we can’t wait compare this year’s greatest to last year’s, The Adamantine Palace fails to stand-out. It is a quick, fun political thriller on the same level as a Hollywood blockbuster or modern video game that uses dragons cleverly enough to feel somewhat original. The chapters are short, the pace fast, and the page-count moderate for epic fantasy. But ultimately, it remains unremarkable, in spite of my attempts at the opposite.

Being somewhat fast and furious, The Adamantine Palace suffers a bit in the details. Deas is light on the worldbuilding – which is not (necessarily) a criticism. Much is hinted at, yet little shown – and in the world of epic fantasy, some fans may want more. Unfortunately, the same goes for characterization, which is a criticism. The best are the dragon Snow, who seems like any other talking dragon in fantasy and Prince Jehal, who for all his witty, clever evilness comes across too cartoon-ish. The other characters feel like they were designed to be three dimensional, but can’t hide the fact they are two-dimensional paper reproductions. And the hapless sell-sword Solo, leaves me wishing that Deas hadn’t killed off the interesting one.

Another minor annoyance really has little to do with the book itself. The Adamantine Palace is the first book in a planned trilogy, yet nowhere on the book’s cover, jacket, or description is it even hinted to be part of a series (at least the version I have published by Roc). Now sure, it is epic fantasy with dragons, and therefore must be part of a series, but it feels dishonest that it isn’t mentioned anywhere. Hell, I can’t even find a name for the series. The name of the series is Memory of Flames. While the story arcs of The Adamantine Palace do come to a conclusion, it is clearly an ending within a greater story, an ending not terribly satisfying. The second book, The King of Crags (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound), is already out in the UK and will be coming to the US soon and last book of the trilogy, The Order of Scales, is expected sometime in 2011.

One aspect of The Adamantine Palace that I enjoyed is how the enslavement of dragons is portrayed. Dragons are somewhat akin to weapons of mass destruction and the entire society is built on the power of controlling dragons. Yet it is also society’s greatest sin – the enslavement of sentient beings – of course they are sentient beings that would hunt you down, burn you, and then eat you for a snack if they were free. This control of dragons has subtle parallels to aspects of our own world culture and leads to some interesting and troubling questions. As I said, Deas keeps this subtle and does not attempt answers or justifications in The Adamantine Palace, yet I anticipate this thread will continue and increase in the volumes to come.

Stephen Deas’ debut novel, The Adamantine Palace, provides a fast, fun escape into a world with just enough political intrigue and some pretty nasty dragons. However, it’s far from perfect and simply fails to stand-out in the crowded epic fantasy genre. Fans of dragons and the like will love it, younger (and mostly male) fans will also probably enjoy this one quite a bit, the more discerning fantasy fan may want to pass it by. 6.5-7/10