WithA Natural chronicle of Dragons , Marie Brennan has done something that I did n’t call back was possible . She ’s write an adventure about firedrake in an alternate Victorian world , while also realistically capturing what it ’s like to be a young woman who wants to shoot down convention and devote her biography to scientific discipline .
Illustration by Todd Lockwood
The book is spell as the memoir of Isabella , Lady Trent , who has settle to deal her scientific adventures with the cosmos as an old adult female . Thought the novel is localise on an alternate Earth whose continents have dissimilar name calling , and where firedrake encompass a range of dinosaur - like species , history itself seems largely unaltered . Isabella seems to have lead off her calling during a inhibitory 19th century where women are expected to be wives and mother , not scientist . And she is depend back on that era from what seems to be a twentieth century perspective , where women have the vote and her own discoveries have advanced the place of women in the sciences .
We lark with new Isabella through the fields of her bucolic childhood , tail insect - alike creature that she ’ll rise up to classify as dragon . And we have her growing hunger for scientific cognition as she sneaks playscript on flying lizard physical body and natural chronicle out of her father ’s rich library — only to encounter crushing disappointment when she realizes that she will never be permitted to become a scientist like the writers she admires .
Brennan has create a Jane Austen - style bildungsroman about the life of a young scientist . With her teller Isabella , she marries the practical romanticism of Austen ’s expert case with the geeky adventurousness of golden geezerhood science fabrication . Isabella is favorable enough to get an eligible bachelor-at-arms with a unspoiled library , who is as enthusiastic about naturalism as she is . And eventually , he allows her to link up him on an expedition to a Russia - like country where wild dragons roam free — and she can study them up close .
What make this novel a true pleasure is Brennan ’s attention to sociological details like how a man and woman would actually pilot such an improper relationship . They are under examination from high society , where both of them are go to suffer rebound when Isabella ’s husband bring her along on his inquiry excursion . Brennan is careful to alarm us to the fact that her husband will be as cast out and judged as Isabella — this is n’t simply a issue of the plucky heroine stand up to the world . Her husband ’s bravery is as authoritative to the storey as hers .
We also meet another man on the military expedition who is from the humiliated class , and his struggle for realisation as a scientist is a kind of foil for Isabella ’s own . Both must struggle , for different reasons , to be take in earnest by the aristocratic , male scientist nightclub .
But at long last this is n’t just a tale of science and societal class . It ’s an adventure in which Isabella distinguish her own bravery — and the mankind come to swear on her scientific acumen . At first , Isabella is just there to organize the men ’s notes and draw picture ( the Good Book is attractively exemplify with Isabella ’s pictures , make by fantasy artist Todd Lockwood ) . But over time , she becomes the scientist ’ most important asset . She crawls around mountainsides looking for dragon den , and rescues her husband from the deadly glass breath of the dragons .
But the grouping ’s dispatch becomes bog down in both research black eye and ethnical trouble with the locals . Ultimately , only Isabella is able to make the breakthroughs that bear the researchers ahead , and help them strike the arcanum of why dragon have suddenly start round humans . Along the way , they also make crucial discovery about the tremendous anatomy of dragons , and solve a political mystery .
Though the novel startle a bit slowly , the adventure heats up once our characters arrive in dragon country and Isabella start up to come into her own . This is the first book in a trilogy , and Brennan is n’t afraid to take major risks with dear characters you might be hop to have around for a while — and that is a good sign .
What ’s truly great about this novel is the seamless merging of fantasy themes and incredibly naturalistic scientific and societal details . Come for the dragon risky venture — because there ’s a lot of it . But stay for characters whose story feel as real as Marie Curie ’s .
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