Tooth and Claw

This book is a lot of fun! The humor, wit, and fantastical elements would be right up your alley if your someone who enjoys Jane Austen's novels and dragons.

Great fun - This has to be the best of Walton's creations - a civilization of intelligent dragons, for which she has created a complex social structure with a detailed and entirely believable set of mores and conventions. Let down by the ending, but lots for fun to read.

It's rare that a writer has the foresight and skill to take a seemingly outlandish premise — an aristocratic society of dragons reminiscent of mid/late 19th century, in this case — and follow its logic and implications to their full extent. Walton does just that, filtering our own societal structures and conventions (and problems plaguing them) through a fantastic lens, so as to examine them with greater clarity. She explores the predatory nature of hierarchies, women's liberation, rape culture, familial dynamics, capitalism and exploitation — all under the guise of "what if society but everyone is a dragon." Despite not shying away from hard hitting topics, this is an awfully cozy book. The main characters are lovely and sympathetic, the central conflict is cleverly set up and exquisitely developed through the plot, and the narrator voice is kindly and witty and likeable. Definitely my favorite book with/about dragons.

Tooth and Claw owes a lot to Jane Austen since it is basically Pride and Prejudice, combined with Sense and Sensibility, with dragons. The Regency Period social standards are firmly in place. Even if you aren't familiar with Jane Austen, this is a delightful book. Walton's descriptions of the dragons make them very life-like. You actually have the sense of what it would be like to live the life of a dragon, to be inside a body that could fly, slept on gold, and produced its young through laying eggs. Make a cup of tea, put some of your favorite treats on a tray, and sit down to enjoy this unique take on the Regency Period.

Jane Austen reimagined with... dragons? I'm not incredibly fond of Austen, but the concept was too delicious to pass by. Walton takes some of the social mores of the time and translates them with bloodthirsty literalness. With storylines aplenty, all tangled up together, there's a lot to sink your teeth into with glee. The book is generally smart and fast-paced, but my attention wandered. I usually have no trouble with suspension of disbelief, but I constantly found myself wondering at the size of rooms and buildings that would accommodate 20-70 foot dragons, and how many dragons could live in a "city" or even a village. A hat store, for instance: how large would that be to accommodate the hat maker and several clients? Okay, that tidbit aside, I had two real complaints: first, I didn't feel much for the characters. Perhaps if there weren't so many; two sisters, their brothers, a sister-in-law who's practical but has a genuinely good heart, and a mistress. If one of them had been eaten up, I'm not sure I would've done more than raise an eyebrow and turn the page. Second, I could see the ending from halfway through the book, and I am not the most clever at figuring things out in novels. Everybody but me knew that Snape was on the side of good. ;) Having said that, this is light reading, and usually light-hearted. Walton sprinkles humor throughout, and if I do say so, that Sher is a sexy beast of a dragon. If you're new to Walton, may I recommend you read "Among Others"--as her earliest novel, "Tooth and Claw" has a roughness, and "Among Others" benefits from her experience as a writer. Her style is readable and unpretentious, but "Among Others" has far more subtlety, cleverness, and... dare I say... humanity.

This is literally a Jane Austen novel -- with a cast of characters who are all dragons. This is not done for whimsy -- it's not a whimsical book. I had the feeling that Walton may have been pondering the rigid code of the English upper classes that Austen's world wears like a corset, and have had the sudden flash of inspiration that it would make more sense if the species living by it were not human. Imagine a society where a young woman's "purity" was the prime requirement for respectability, and therefore young women are sheltered and cloistered and hedged about with restrictions -- and now imagine that a maiden's loss of purity is a matter of emotions, not physicality, a biochemical process that shows up in a dramatic change to the color of her skin. Imagine a society where male aggression is carefully channeled into legal forms, but treated as inevitable -- and now imagine that males are actually carnivorous predators built for lethal combat. Imagine a society where the greatest desire of a man's life is to leave his children and estate well-provided for -- and now imagine a society where sleep and healing are dramatically improved by sleeping upon gold, where the only way for a member of society to grow into their full size and strength is by consuming the flesh of other members of society, and where droit de seigneur is not ravishing maidens, but culling and eating the weak of one's demesne. Inheritance and greed suddenly take on a whole new meaning! Walton has produced such an impeccable dragon justification, such a perfect dragon fit, for the norms of Regency society, it's almost as if the human version of them had been blindly copied from dragons. If you enjoy Austen and the more substantial Regency novels, if you enjoy dragons, or steampunk, or just good SF world-building... you'll enjoy this unforgettable novel.

Walton has created a credible and consistent world populated by dragons that observe many of the Regency mores, even as they devour their nearest and dearest.

Not what I was expecting but enjoyed it just the same.

Even if far from being perfect, this book manages to capture anyone's attention from the first chapter and never loose the grip enough to let such attention escape. The sometimes dark, sometimes overly frank sense of humor adds to the Game of Thrones blended with Pride and Prejudice vibes, and the story benefits from the strangeness of a society both medieval-like and post-industrial-revolution-like. It's a universe hard to come by, to say the least.

This is unlike anything I've ever read in fantasy. If Jane Austen, or maybe Charles Dickens, felt the sudden urge to write a fantasy book about dragons, this is probably what they would have written. It has everything: daughters who need to marry, a lost inheritance, etiquette, romance, a greedy family member, a confession, and charming characters. Only...they're all dragons. And they also eat each other. If any of that sounds at all intriguing to you, please pick this up. It's short, charming, witty and heartwarming. Jo Walton takes dragon lore and mythology and makes it work with the customs in Victorian society. The world building is delightful. The characters are charming. The society is, frankly, amusing. We've got lords and ladies, only they're all dragons (did I mention everyone in this book is a dragon? But they sit at tables, drink tea and travel in carriages. Just making sure, I definitely mentioned that.) and they all attempt to thrive in society either via their profession or the partner they choose to marry. They go to church, they have servants, oh and, they eat the weak and the ill to better their race. Dragon meat helps smaller dragons grow, only to eat, you must already be big and strong...and please don't forget to wear the proper hat. I've enjoyed this read a lot and recommend it to fans of the Classics just as much as I recommend it to fantasy fans.

J'ai eu beaucoup de mal avec ce roman, traînant depuis des mois dans ma pile virtuelle. Le début du roman m'avait complètement déstabilisée et j'avais laissé la lecture de côté. La qualité de "Among Others", du même auteur, m'a encouragée à tenter une nouvelle lecture. Le début est très étonnant car l'auteur décrit une société de dragons qui portent des chapeaux, ont des avocats et prennent le train. Et on ne semble pas voir d'humain. J'ai trouvé le tout tellement saugrenu pour ne pas dire plus, que j'avais calé. J'ai persévéré. Les premiers 20% sont durs (il faut s'habituer à l'univers, et l'histoire n'est alors par très passionnante, un père qui décède en laissant ses enfants sans ressources ou presque). Les 20% suivants sont un peu plus intéressants (on voit comment chacune des 3 sœurs et comment chacun des 2 frères s'inscrit dans la société, quelles sont ses aspirations, ses rejets etc.). Les 20% suivants sont encore mieux pour la guimauve que je suis (il y a des débuts d'histoires d'amour, contrariées par le manque d'argent/de statut/la partialité de la potentielle belle mère/etc.). Et le final est en fanfare, à un rythme soutenu. L'auteur a eu l'excellente idée de faire reposer son univers sur une idée clé: les dragons ne peuvent se développer (en taille et force) qu'en mangeant de la chair de dragon. Cela a été inscrit dans la société, et les morts sont mangés (plus le dragon mort est gros, plus ceux qui mangent une part de lui grossiront) ainsi que ceux jugés trop faibles pour survivre, "affaiblissant la race". Les nobles, veillant sur leurs serviteurs, ont donc le devoir (et surtout le privilège!) de dévorer tout dragon qu'il juge trop faible pour vivre correctement. La religion est censée définir dans quelles circonstances ceci est possible, mais le récit prouvera que c'est très sujet à l'interprétation personnelle... Au final on se retrouve avec une population clairsemée, des serviteurs de petite taille (2 mètres de long ...) et des nobles engloutissant toutes les ressources vitales (nobles pouvant dépasser les 20 mètres de long). Quelques points de première importance sont donnés comme des détails, ainsi on comprend que les dragons vivent dans un espace où le gibier est rare lui aussi, limitant d'autant plus les ressources de développement des dragons. L'histoire est donc simple: c'est celle d'une famille dragon, petits nobles de province, qui se sont élevés dans la société. La mère est morte en couches (enfin, en cours de pondaison ^^), sort que redoutent toutes les dragonnes (c'est quasi inéluctable si les femelles sont enceintes trop régulièrement, plus de 2 pontes et c'est le désastre quasi assuré). Le père est mort à un âge vénérable, sans laisser beaucoup de ressources derrière lui (il en avait laissé la plus grande partie dans la dot liée au mariage de sa fille aînée). La sœur aînée a réalisé un mariage très avantageux avec un dragon quasi aussi imposant que son père, sachant que plus gros est le dragon, plus puissant il est. Le beau-fils semble au début être un dragon avide et arrogant, rien de plus. Il y a aussi deux sœurs quasi jumelles (de la même ponte), l'une très extravertie, l'autre beaucoup moins. Elles vont être séparées, accueillies dans des foyers très différents de ce qu'elles connaissaient. Il y a aussi un frère, religieux. Et un autre qui occupe un petit poste de cadre dans l'administration. Ce roman parle de société (de la place des femmes, des serviteurs etc.), de la famille, de l'amour. C'est finalement très universel et j'ai fini par (presque) oublier la représentation des dragons avec chapeaux sur la tête. L'humour manié avec malice par l'auteur (surtout concernant les titres de chapitre) a aussi eu raison de mes dernières réticences, ainsi que le beau final un peu surprise pour moi (les invités...).