Tooth and Claw

As a fan of both Jane Austen's classics and the fantasy genre at large, I adored this book. The story and characters and world-building are very well done.

Tooth and Claw is something quite different to Jo Walton's first three novels -- it is a fantasy set in a world in which dragons are real. Its plot is based on Anthony Trollope -- specifically Framley Parsonage. With the details of dragon physiology and culture cleverly molded to fit the Trollopian view of Victorian England. One lack in Walton's first novels is wit, and any sense of lightness. To be sure the novels are all to an extent tragic in outlook. At the same time, though, Walton seems so immersed in her imagined world that she doesn't want to play with it at all -- the books are quite earnest in tone, often a bit too earnest, or even ponderous. But Tooth and Claw, happily, is abundantly witty. The novel opens as the old dragon Bon Agornin is dying. His son Penn, a clergydragon, hears his confession -- which is controversial according to Penn's religion. (It harks of the Old Religion -- setting up a conflict analogous to Victorian Era attitudes of Anglicanism towards Catholicism (and possibly a bit towards Methodism and other dissenting sects).) Bon's confession includes a shameful secret about his rise from a poor dragon to wealth and relative social standing. Then Bon dies, and his body is divided according to tradition, with his heirs each eating a portion. It seems that dragon meat is magically useful to dragons, allowing them to grow and thrive. However, against Bon's apparent wishes, his son-in-law, the Illustrious Daverak (equivalent to perhaps an Earl?), takes a large portion for himself and for his dragonets. This enrages Penn and his younger sisters and brother, and sets in play the main motivating force of the plot -- a lawsuit that Penn's brother will bring against Daverak. Bon Agornin's children are the already mentioned Penn, Daverak's wife Berend, another son, Avan, who is establishing himself a position in the Civil Service, and two maiden daughters, Selendra and Haner. Penn has a living with a very high ranking dragon family, the Benandis. He is able to take in one sister, Selendra; but Haner must go live with the unpleasant Daverak. Daverak's bad nature consists of such things as abusing his traditional right to cull weaker dragons (for their meat), forcing his wife to get pregnant too often -- which can fatally weaken a female dragon, and mistreating his servants. This then is Haner's problem. Selendra's conflict is that her virtue is compromised by an oily clergydragon -- leaving it possible that she will not be able to get pregnant. Then it seems that the young Exalted Benandi (a Marquis?) is falling for her -- very much against the wishes of his stuck-up dowager mother. And Avan, back in the capitol city, has a live-in lover who has a couple of important and dangerous secrets of her own. It all works out with the precise unwinding of the plot of a Victorian novel -- and in quite satisfying fashion. The real delights of the novel are the affectionately portrayed characters, the great fun Walton has mapping dragon

Scheming clergymen. Heartfelt do-gooders. Social-climbing petty nobility. And they're all scaly, semi-bipedal, twenty-plus-foot-long dragons. I ordinarily despise fantasy tropes such as dragons, the Good/Wee/Seelie folk and the like. I'm not even sure what led me to pick up this book in the first place--maybe the fact that Ms. Walton won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, maybe the Jane Yolen blurb on the back. But good heavens, I'm certainly glad I did. Walton's spot-on narrative style captures the things I love best about comedies of manners, whether penned by Jane Austen or Lois McMaster Bujold. Without once becoming mired in exposition, she deftly portrays a society at once wholly alien and wholly familiar. The customs may be different, the players reptilian, but the drives and conflicts and personalities ring wonderfully true. The plot is deliciously complex, every strand woven skilfully into a lip-smackingly satisfying denouement. Thank you, Ms. Walton, for this incredibly enjoyable read! And thank you for not ending on a cliffhanger and signaling the beginning of an interminable series... though I would, very much, like to read some more about the dragons of Agornin and their friends and foes someday. Please?

I hadn't planned on reading this book, I was actually looking for something by Elizabeth Moon, and due to the fact that my local bookstore employees have a terrible time properly alphabetizing the books they sell, I came across Tooth and Claw. I am delighted I did, another reviewer has mentioned the fact that on the surface the story seems rather dull, but Ms Walton has done a wonderful job blending the Victorian novel with fantastical elements, primarily dragons. Dragons who are as conceited, egotistical cruel, kind, loving, caring beings, who just happen to eat their dead and the weak.

This book was a delight. I love Austen, Trollope, and Heyer, and I also love good fantasy novels. I've never read Walton before, but will now hunt up everything of hers that I can find -- On a basic level, Tooth and Claw works much the same way that Watership Down worked. It doesn't matter that the characters are dragons, not humans. They are perfectly believable. Walton's writing is sharp, funny, and addictive. The Austen-like mores & social politics make a perfect kind of sense for the dragons in Walton's book. Social rituals and courtesies are crucial in a society where larger dragons might otherwise eat smaller, weaker dragons. This is definitely one of the strangest books that I've read this year, but it's also one of my favorites. Highly recommended for anyone who loved the books of Austen, or Heyer (or Laurie Colwin's more contemporary novels, for that matter), and wishes that someone was still writing social comedies that were just as sharp and just as pleasurable.

Some fantasy novels are epic, with rich plot lines, multiple characters on a quest to save the world from some hidden magic or powerful being. These books can be a lot of fun and very interesting, though often the plot overshadows the characters. Other fantasy novels are light and fluffy comedies where nothing much happens but they make you laugh your tail off.Finally, there are those fantasy novels that really defy description. Tooth and Claw, by Jo Walton. As the dust jacket says, this is a novel that is based on the Victorian novels of Anthony Trollope. Walton takes the Victorian setting, and gives it huge twist: all of the characters are dragons. Yes, that's right. Fire-breathing (though not all of them do) lizards that can fly (though not all of them can). And, most importantly, proper fire-breathing dragons who have formed a society based on class structure, money (especially gold and treasure) and arranged marriage. Walton takes this concept and writes an intriguing story of family honour and love. It's a real treat to read.The plot description doesn't sound very interesting. I think that's because this sort of plot usually does nothing for me. It does sound rather dull, doesn't it? I would not have read this book if I hadn't both received this as a review copy and been a big fan of Jo Walton. However, I'm glad I did, because I think it transcends the genre and becomes a nifty little (256 pages) novel in its own right. When I say "transcends the genre," I'm speaking as somebody who has not read any Victorian fiction, so Walton may be way off in her homage. However, Walton is good enough that I trust she hit it pretty good.The conceit that dragons are living in a Victorian-style society is simply a wonderful concept that Walton does a lot with. She adds the proper-sounding customs and traditions (dowries, arranged marriages, family honour and the like), and then mixes that with touches of her own (the eating of the dead to make the rest of the family stronger, the binding of servants' wings so that they can't fly away and the ritual binding of the wings for religious figures) that simply add to the fantasy element but still blends favourably with the Victorian style. Every once in a while, you forget that you're reading a book about dragons, and then Walton will mention something about wings, flying, or the size of the dragons and you'll remember that she's talking about beasts that can reach up to 40 feet long.Walton tells the tale with the gentleness and humour that, I imagine, most Victorian novels have. Her prose is again wonderful, making the genre conventions her own and putting her own spin on them. At times, the narrator of the piece intercedes to speak directly to the reader (something else that may be a genre technique, though I don't know), bringing a humour aside or clarifying a point that the reader may have missed. I thought this would be distracting, but it doesn't turn out to be. I would call the whole