Thank you, Anthony Trollope, for inspiring such wonder. They are dragons but it feels impossible to doubt the authenticity of their humanity. Not even once did I stop to think, oh, now she tells us, isn’t that convenient or yes, yes, now get on with the story.Ĭompanion to this accomplishment: the dragons are not humans.

All the details necessary to the characters’ interactions in their world - and all the details necessary to the readers interaction with their world and the characters - are invisibly presented. Walton clearly took Victorian England, but her world is distinct and lives completely on its own.

Consistently one of Tooth and Claw‘s impressive traits is its depiction of a society of dragons. Wrede’s The Enchanted Forest books - minus every character who wasn’t a dragon and scraping a good dose of the humor into a wastebasket to make the whole thing more serious.įrom the very first pages, I knew I was wrong. On the other end of the spectrum, I thought that Tooth and Claw might read like Patricia C. Do you not think of a shadow of Zelazny’s Amber family, where they’re all dragons and trapped together in one place? I do. Furthermore, upon reading down on the dust-jacket the words “family” and “political” both jumped out at me. Dragons have never greatly appealed, and really, how many variations on talking dragons could there be? I’m not particularly a fan of the talking animal variety of novel at all, to tell the truth. This is the short catch-phrase inside the jacket: “A tale of love and contention - among dragons.” Skeptical? I was. It is due to the matter of tastes.Īt first look, I was pretty sure I’d just been saddled (and take a moment to consider how exquisitely painful a saddle would be on a human back) with a book that I not only wouldn’t have glanced at the store, but that was most decidedly not my style. The reasoning there is in no part due to a flaw in the book - indeed, there were none, except for a few minor typos. So, I’ll try to be fair and balanced in this review, but you’ve been fairly warned about my leanings toward “gush.” That out of the way, I’ll attempt to restore confidence in the “balance” goal this reviewer has by stating clearly that this book is not for everybody. If there was a fire and I could only save twenty of my books, Jo Walton’s Tooth and Claw would probably make the cut. I love this book. Usually in a review I attempt to be both fair and balanced, but you, dear reader, should know beforehand that Tooth and Claw is a book of the kind I want to buy all my friends who might enjoy it their very own copy, so they can experience the complete joy of reading it (straight to a gossip session about the characters), and because I don’t want to risk losing my own copy.

Jo walton's tooth and claw