Kate Murray, Staff Reporter
September 30, 2014
Marie Brennan begins a thrilling new fantasy series in A Natural History of Dragons,combining adventure with the inquisitive spirit of the Victorian Age. You, dear reader, continue at your own risk.
- $11.99 Ebook Marie Brennan begins a thrilling new fantasy series in A Natural History of Dragons, combining adventure with the inquisitive spirit of the Victorian Age. You, dear reader, continue at.
- A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent, by Marie Brennan, is a superb novel in every regard. It's a classic, first-person adventure full of travel, science, and of course, dragons. The writing is clean, concise, and well-assured. The characters are interesting—especially the main one, Isabella.
- The same with the dragons, an obvious big part of the story. Since this is a 'natural history', Brennan balances both the study of them as wild animals (in the same sense that bears and wolves still plagued Europe) while keeping the sense of wonder. One certainly wishes they could stuy the dragons with Isabella!. What to be aware of.
- Rating: 🐲🐲🐲.5/5 Review: 'A Natural History of Dragons' is the first in a series of mock-memoirs written by a Lady Isabella Trent. Upon the publishing of this first volume, Lady Trent is already a world-renown dragon naturalist, who has decided to illustrate her childhood and foray/fascination into the world of natural science and dragons (something about after the/upon/due to) the.
Ahem. Dragons. This book contains dragons, and if I didn’t have to write a full length article, I would leave my review at that. However, since I do, there are a few other things I would like to say.
A Natural History of Dragons, by Marie Brennan, is the fictional biography of Lady Trent, a woman who has been described as “the Jane Goodall of dragonkind.” Unlike Goodall, however, this book is set in a Victorian era world, where women working in science is an even rarer occurrence than seeing a dragon, and as such, there is a heavy emphasis on the many ways in which Lady Trent overcomes sexism and follows her passions. A good example would be the time a wolf-drake was spotted in her area. Her father wouldn’t let her come on a hunt for it, so she blackmailed a servant into giving her his clothes and went along disguised as a man.
The wolf-drake was not what sparked her interest in dragons, however. In the beginning of the book Brennan talks about the tiny, six-legged dragons known as sparklings that fascinated Trent as a young girl. Trent at this point was less enthusiastic about dragons, and more about flight in general, which led to the messy, and frowned upon, impromptu dissection of a dead pigeon. Disgusted by this her father gave her access to his library so she wouldn’t have to use such an unladylike way of gathering information again, and this is where she found A Natural History of Dragons, the books’ namesake and the starting point for her adventures.
As I mentioned, however, her adventures are more than just playing with dragons. There is a very heartening message of overcoming boundaries set by others and learning new things through trial and error. There is a prominent subplot of Trent adjusting to a new culture and learning that just because she thinks the people are savage doesn’t mean they truly are, an important theme in today’s America. Though the culture Trent visits is based off Russia, the idea of it can also be applied to many Middle Eastern and African cultures, which are not all poor and/or full of terrorists, whatever politicians may say.
First Dragon In History
Overcoming the sexism of the day is not a topic lost on me, either. There is still sexism in the world, and a story where the main character overcomes this is definitely to be appreciated.
This relevance to the real world and the detailed writing style combined to give an impression that the book wasn’t from another world at all. Yes, there were dragons and continents that don’t exist on Earth, but the wool was pulled right over my eyes by the people and settings. It felt less like fantasy and more like historical fiction, and an entertaining fiction at that.
The sequel is “Tropic of Serpents” and both of them are available at your wonderful local library.
A Natural History Of Dragons Pdf
The Natural History Of Dragons Series
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