A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
Cover art by Todd Lockwood
Published by Tor Books
Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel
I originally heard about this novel on the Book View Cafe blog, where the author runs a weekly world building post series. And this novel is most definitely one with some truly fascinating world building: although much of the geography clearly has Primary World analogs, the author has clearly thought through the biology and ecology of her dragons in a way that almost makes it read like science fiction (much like Walter Jon Williams' Metropolitan and City on Fire).
The first-person protagonist belongs to a culture that is pretty clearly a fantasy analog to Regency or early Victorian England, although its name suggests Scotland. In the very first page she tells about how her interest in dragons began with the discovery of a sparkling, a tiny relative of dragons, in the gardens of her family's country house. Fascinated with this lovely creature, she picked it up and carried it inside, hoping to keep it as a treasure. Instead, it dissolved into ash in her hands, earning her the reproof of her mother.
However, her failure does not daunt her, and she becomes determined to find a way to preserve these tiny creatures. It's interesting that, when I first read this book, I was under the impression that sparklings were roughly the size of a Pernese fire lizard, which made me wonder why people would think them to be insects that just resembled dragons. The picture a few pages later clearly showed a vertebrate, with obvious evidence of an endoskeleton rather than an arthropod's exoskeleton, wings that were obviously modified limbs rather than extensions of the thoracic exoskeleton, and vertebrate eyes rather than the compound eyes of an insect.
However, looking back at the beginning, I see the mention of it being only a few inches long -- closer to a mouse in size, or perhaps one of the little anole lizards you see all over trees down in Florida. And I'd either missed or forgotten that the drawing of a sparkling at the beginning of the novel is shown at actual size, which makes it clear that a sparkling is much smaller than a Pernese fire lizard. And given that their bodies must contain some biochemical factors that become unstable as soon as they die, resulting in their rapid dissolution if specific action is not taken quickly, it would be very difficult to dissect one, or even get a sufficiently good look at one to recognize the morphological evidence that they are in fact vertebrates.
Once our protagonist experiences success in preserving a sparkling, she becomes an avid naturalist, collecting a great number of specimens. And she becomes ever increasingly interested in their larger cousins the dragons, to the point that she finds a way to obtain access to her father's library, and in particular to works on what was at that time known about dragons. This leads her to finagle a way to see a flightless wolf-dragon that has been marauding among the livestock, and in the process puts herself in considerable peril.
However, time does not stand still, and the tomboyish interests that are amusing in a young girl soon become problematic in a young woman in a society in which marrying well is important to her family. Being a good and dutiful daughter, she determines to put away those childish things and focus upon interests more appropriate to a well-bred daughter preparing for her season, her debut in society. But that obedience comes with a bitter price, and in retrospect she calls that period of her life her "gray years," colorless, to be endured rather than enjoyed.And then she's at the royal zoo, observing a collection of dwarf dragons, and ends up revealing more of her knowledge than she had intended. But the young man is not put off by her show of knowledge. Far from it, he finds her all the more fascinating for it, and they soon are courting.
Thus she meets and marries Jacob, the love of her life. He too is fascinated by dragons, and when he becomes part of an expedition to a distant land, trying to find out why dragons are attacking and killing people, she becomes determined that she will join them. At first Jacob resists, not wishing to place her in harm's way. Nevertheless, she persists, and finally she wins him over with the assertion that surely he didn't marry her for her spirit only to decide to break it.
The bulk of the novel is occupied with their trip to this distant land which is so clearly an analog to Russia. It is interesting to see how using a completely Secondary World setting, albeit with analogs to the Primary World, allows the author to do things that she could not have done had she gone Naomi Novik's route of dragons in a fantasy version of the Primary World, with recognizable historical places and personages. Using a Secondary World setting enables her to give her protagonist's native land the feel of Regency or early Victorian England, but have her Russia-analog feel much more like Russia before the reforms of Peter the Great forcibly turned the nation (or at least its elites) toward the West. In addition to being able to mix and match historical models without obvious anachronism, she can also portray these distant lands as terra incognita, where wonders can be discovered over every hill, without fear of being accused of exoticism and Orientalism.
They've hardly arrived before our protagonist has a most awkward encounter with some local smugglers. Then one of her local informants offers to take her to the ruins of a city built by an ancient and mysterious civilization known as the Draconeans. As she looks in awe at the cyclopean stonework and giant statues of anthropomorphic dragons, she also discovers a bit of highly-prized firestone, which she decides to keep for herself.
She's no more than returned to the village when strange and terrible things begin to happen: sounds like a monster clawing at the walls of the village huts, giant footprints burned into the grass. The superstitious locals believe that it is the work of Zhagrit Mat, a monster half-human and half-dragon who was awakened by their intrusion into the ruins, which are regarded as taboo. In order to lay this creature to rest, they must undergo a purification ceremony at the local Temple.
Amidst the discussion of the differences between the Temple faith as practiced by the locals and the Magisterial faith practiced by her own people, I realize that we are dealing with something quite unusual: a fantasy version of Judaism. We often see one or another version of Crystal Dragon Christianity, and I've also seen a few faiths that could be called Crystal Dragon Islam, but until now the closest I've seen to a Crystal Dragon Judaism has been the faith of the Grenye in Harry Turtledove's After the Downfall, which was all about a German soldier repenting of Naziism.
However, the purification ritual fails to stop the nightly incursions, which leads our protagonist to conclude that her removal of the firestone from the ruins is the actual source of the offense. As she is making her way back to the ruins to return it, she stumbles upon a cave filled with dragon bones, preserved by mineralization where they would normally dissolve overnight once defleshed and exposed to air. It soon becomes obvious that the dragons are deliberately bringing the remains of their deceased fellows to this place, which completely changes her view of these creatures.
As a result, when she discovers what the local leader and his not-exactly-Italian mad scientist are up to, she finds it particularly horrifying, and determines to put an end to it. However, that justice will come at a terrible price of lifelong grief.
It was in the aftermath of this climactic fight, in which she mentions sitting shiva for the dead, that I knew that their faith was indeed a Crystal Dragon Judaism, with the Temple form being modeled upon the Levitical Judaism that existed until the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the latter part of the First Century, and the Magisterial form being modeled on modern Talmudic Judaism, in which study of the Torah substitutes for the sacrifices that can no longer be offered.
Although the novel ends on a decidedly poignant note, it clearly leaves the door open for more volumes. And yes, they have been published, and I hope that I will be able to get them read before too long.
Buy A Natural History of Dragons from Amazon.com
Review posted March 12, 2021
