Category: Science Fiction

Book Review: A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

I’ve long been a fan of mystery writer Elizabeth Peters’ series chronicling the fictional adventures of Victorian-era Egyptologist Amelia Peabody. So when a friend recommended this first book in Marie Brennan’s fantasy series as reminding her of that series, but with dragons, I didn’t resist for very long.

I opted for the audio version of the book, figuring it would keep me company while I worked on some home improvement projects (including long commutes to and from Home Depot) over the weekend. I accomplished much more than originally planned, simply because I didn’t want to put the book down!

The fictional memoir is told by an aged Lady Trent, who has made a name for herself as a dragon researcher, overcoming everything from societal disapproval to wide-spread misunderstanding of dragon science to do so.

This first part of this memoir paints a quick picture of Isabella’s privileged and overprotected upbringing, complete with its family expectations and societal presumptions. These are very much in opposition to her natural curiosity and sense of adventure, which are painfully curtailed during the years of her adolescence, leading up to her “coming out” season.

Isabella does her best to suppress her natural inclinations during the all-important hunt for a suitable husband. Just when she thinks her hopes have been dashed by a momentary lapse in lady-like-ness, she is rewarded with a suitable match. Their relationship grows as he allows her to borrow natural history books from his library and even funds her amateur researches on “sparklings,” an insect-sized version of dragonkind.

Eventually Isabella and her husband join an expedition to a far-off country to capture and study a type of cave-dwelling dragon. Author Marie Brennan does a wonderful job of capturing the flavor of a Victorian-era natural history expedition, augmented with marvelous imaginary beings, languages, and places. Isabella survives everything from professional jealousy to dragon attack to kidnapping and beyond in this first, fast-paced adventure.

But it’s not all swashbuckling and feats of derring-do. Isabella also grows as a natural historian and as a human being, enjoying moments of blazing happiness and periods of tremendous loss, forging emotional connections with beautifully rendered supporting characters, gaining insight into her own weaknesses, and tapping into her deepest strengths.

I can’t wait to read her next adventure.

Book Review: Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine

One of the pleasures I take from attending scifi conventions is finding new-to-me authors whose works I want to try out. David D. Levine was one of the finds I made at NorWesCon 40 in SeaTac this March.

I just finished reading his steampunk regency adventure, Arabella of Mars, the first of a projected series. In 1812, Arabella Ashby is an upper-class young lady of sixteen living on English-colonized Mars with an uptight mother and liberal-minded but distracted father.

Arabella and her older brother Michael are cared for by a native Martian nanny who trains them in survival and Martian customs. Like other Martians, Khema is a strong land-dwelling crustacean-like being approximately seven feet tall, toiling as a servant for the colonizing English. The planet is harsh but habitable with an atmosphere, rivers, and native plants and animals — the setup reminds me of stories set in 1800s African colonies. There’s regular trade between Mars and Earth via airships that use a combination of sails and hot-air bags to traverse a route that can take anywhere from a few months when the planets are at perigee to years when they are at apogee. Soon after the book begins, an extremely unwilling Arabella is dragged “home” to England by her mother.

Within weeks of their arrival, sad news from Mars combined with the male-only entailment system of inheritance provokes Arabella to return to Mars. To do so she must pose as a boy and crew on a merchant ship run by an Indian captain. Arabella shared her father’s passion for automatons, and Captain Singh hires “Arthur Ashby” to help him with his mysterious clockwork navigator.

Most of the story is a compelling tale of Arabella learning the ropes, and Levine does a fabulous job painting the imaginative details of life aboard a regency spaceship. The reader cheers as Arabella masters everything from serving tea in zero gravity to repelling pirates and understanding the workings of the clockwork navigator. Every new adventure brings with it both increasing camaraderie with her crew mates, and greater fear of exposure as a female.

Sometimes it seems like Arabella overcomes one obstacle after another a little too easily; I would have liked a few more “fails” in the try-fail sequences Levine sets up. And the schoolgirl romance is rather predictable…but then, this is a regency! These are small and forgivable shortcomings in an otherwise enjoyable adventure, and I look forward to the next in the series.

Review of The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher

Steampunk meets sorcery in this action-packed story. I zipped through this 630-page book in less than a week, its characters and their intertwining adventures were all so compelling. The first in a new series, it introduces us to a mist-shrouded world where humans have lived for generations in Spires, miles-high towers built by unknown beings in the distant past. Rare crystals focus magic to power weapons and fleets of airships. In this narrative, an unlikely band of misfits from Spire Albion find themselves caught up in intrigue that seems to be leading to war with a rival Spire.
 
The Aeronaut of the title is Captain Grimm, a former Navy captain who has fallen from grace with the corps and has reluctantly become captain of a merchant ship turned privateer. His ship sustains tremendous damage in an enemy engagement early in the book. His limited funds and crippled social standing soon have him in the position of providing transport to a rag-tag band of agents on a secret mission.
 
Three of these unlikely heroes are very young aristocrats serving their time in the Spire’s security service. 
 
Gwendolyn Tagwynn has the regal bearing, commanding manner, and sense of entitlement of one born to a high house, which leads to both humorous and dangerous episodes. Her cousin Benedict has already served a couple years in the security service, which has given him a dose of reality. Each of them is a compelling character, but I especially liked Bridget, daughter of a high house that has fallen on hard times. A social misfit who would rather stay home and tend her father’s butcher business than serve, she has a wonderful relationship with a very heroic cat, Rowl. Rowl and his feline counterparts from other levels of the Spire play a key role in unraveling a major military conspiracy and saving the day.
 
The remaining two main characters are the sorcerers they guard. One is an elderly, absent-minded mage who insists on carting around a magpie’s pile of seemingly useless objects he has accumulated over his long life. The other is his scatterbrained apprentice, who cannot make eye contact with people and can only converse with a jar of discarded magical crystals.
 
The reading experience is rounded out with a wonderful cast of supporting characters and an unending series of calamities that force the likable protagonists to change and grow.
 
Highly recommended!

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