Tooth and Claw

Tooth and Claw
Jo Walton, 2003

Premise: A dramedy of manners. But make it dragons.

For both good and ill, this book is precisely what it says on the tin. It's an old-fashioned story of inheritance, marriage arrangements, minor gentry and the fates of their children, and a society where things are changing. Only all the people are dragons. 

The fact that they are dragons both does and doesn't affect the plot. There might be other reasons that a person wouldn't feel that they could challenge their rich brother-in-law, it doesn't have to be that he might be big enough to eat you if provoked. But in this world it is. 

The dark sides of the characters' draconic nature are there to highlight the classism and sexism of old stories in this style. Aristocratic landowners literally have the right to eat sick children, and eating other dragons literally increases their strength and power. How the rich get richer, so to speak. 

Meanwhile, female dragons can be forced into a state where they are "compromised" and must marry just by getting too close to a male dragon. Biological control rather than social, but it definitely put me in mind of the stereotype of the "fallen woman."

This is a happy story in the end, though, as the most worthy characters come out on top...admittedly, mostly through luck. 

There is some interesting background world-building. It's implied at one point that humans (who, it is confirmed very late in the book, live in another part of the world and were once at war with dragons) may have brought their religion and trappings of civilization to dragons. This led them into becoming what they are (and continues to push them toward further "civilized" behavior), but it happened long ago and most people think it's a myth or a heresy to think that their worldview (and particularly their gods) came from anything but a purely draconic source. 

Interesting stuff, and the book tripped along and was fun to read, but it wasn't anything greater than that. 

3 Stars - A Good Book