Review: A Natural History of Dragons

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A Natural History of Dragons has all the hallmarks of a book that I should love, an interesting main character, an interesting world, dragons, however, I just couldn't seem to get into it.

There is a lot of world building, and its not necessarily all that clear, It would have been good to have some sort of map to refer to in order to get a better sense of things. The idea of a sort-of Victorian world but with dragons is really something I am totally down for, however the society, etc., it's really clearly explained, much less how the main character's country fits into the wider world's society. I got the feeling that the reader is supposed to equate it to Britain during the 1880s, however there isn't any explanation about the government and only little bits about the society structure where is acts as plot motivation.

I'm not sure why I just couldn't seem to connect with the story. I don't know if it was the lack of grounding in the world, the clipped first-person narration, or the pacing. I didn't feel like the story got moving until over 60% in, and that is just too long to have to deal with a main character that one just can't seem to get into.

The overall story is somewhat predictable, although I really liked how some of the concepts that are introduced are deal with. But all together, its not enough to get me to read the next in the series. Which is a bummer as I really wanted to like this book.

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