A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan is what happens when you take a curious minded scientific woman in a time when women weren’t supposed to be scientific or curious, like Marie Curie for example, and drop her in a world where dragons exist. It’s awesome. Set in a faux Victorian England this is the autobiography of the world famous dragon expert Lady Isabella Trent, or it’s the first part of her autobiography. I loved every second of this book. One of the things […]
A satisfying conclusion to an interesting series
I’m sufficiently depressed that several of my favorite new series (Jennifer Donnelly’s Waterfire saga, Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories, now this) are coming to an end. I thought the aforementioned two ended on a great note, and I was really hoping that Marie Brennan would do the same. With the last volume, In the Labyrinth of Drakes, Brennan was great on the intrigue and very light on the dragons, which is what we came for. I was really, really hoping that she would give us […]
Too much dry travel writing, not enough DRAGONS for my taste
3.5 stars Purported to be the first of Lady Isabella Trent’s journals, chronicling her life-long exploration of the world and its dragons, this book is a historical novel set in an alternate universe, where dragons obviously exist. I’m unsure of whether the time period in these books would be the Regency or more like Victorian times in our history, but the fictional country that our protagonist, Lady Isabella is from, is clearly modelled on historical England. We follow our heroine from childhood, where we learn […]
More dragons, please.
Hey, guys. I’m only a few reviews behind. Ahem. Maybe, I’m like 8-9 behind. I’m also trying frantically to finish The Doomsday Book, so I’m going to be succinct, so I can finish. I’ve also got an enormous library stack and NOT ENOUGH TIME TO READ. You know, first world problems. Last summer, while vacationing at my parents’ house, I read a big pile of library books (because there is NO WAY I am going without reading on vacation), including Marie Brennan’s Lady Trent Memoirs. […]
Dances with Dragons, Vols. 1, 2, and 3
First, a disclaimer: I typically do not care to review an entire series at a stretch. Yet when a series flows into each other and there are enough similarities that warrant talking about a series as a unit, then it makes sense to complete a joint review. I’m a picky fantasy reader, as you all know by now. But my sister had reviewed A Natural History of Dragons and called it a novel of manners. Um, yes please. If something warrants a novel of manners […]