Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton. A Victorian sentimental novel, with dragons as the main characters.
At Albacon, Jo explained that this book grew out of the realization that many Victorian novels (she specifically cites Trollope's Framley Parsonage) would make a whole lot more sense if they were written about a different species. As with Trent's review of Quicksilver, this comment really nails the source of my dislike for Victorian novels. It's nice to know smart people who can figure these things out for me.
Happily, while I don't really care for most Victorian fiction that I've read (not a great amount of it, to be fair), I found this book utterly charming. The plot is fairly standard stuff-- issues of money and matrimony, mixed with worries about social class-- but the species change puts a new spin on everything. Weak dragons are in constant danger of being devoured by stronger ones (though civilized custom keeps things somewhat in check), which gives new meaning to the class struggle, while dragon betrothal involves visible physical changes in the female (dragon maidens have their scales turn from gold to pink on getting engaged), which makes many Victorian conventions make considerably more sense.
The dragon-culture is fascinating, and there are hints about the world that suggest real depth. And the writing does a marvelous job of playing off the conventions of the source material:
It has been baldly stated in this narrative that Penn and Sher were friends at school and later at the Circle, and being gentle readers and not cruel and hungry readers who would visit a publisher's offices with the intention of rending and eating an author who had displeased them, you have taken this matter on trust.
The only problem with the book is that the happy ending (you didn't think it would end in tears, did you?) arrives perhaps a bit too abruptly. But that's a minor complaint, as the process of getting there is delightful. This is another terrific book-- Jo's four-for-four at this point.
(Originally posted on The Library of Babel.)
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