A Natural History of Dragons

Due to my short attention span, I was hesitant to read this book at first, due to the words “History” and “Memoir” in the title; however, “Dragons” sold me, and I’m very glad it did.

This book reads like a classic Victorian travel narrative, following an intelligent and likable protagonist in her quest to learn more about the natural life around her—namely, dragons. The way this genre-bending novel treats dragons, showing them in scientific diagrams and field drawings, makes for an interesting semi-fantasy world that’s exciting to step into and so much fun to… show more.

This is the first of a series of novels subtitled The memoirs of Lady Trent – an ongoing account of a lady scientist in a pseudo-Victorian setting, steampunk-ish but also full of sailing ships and monsters and voyages of breathtaking scientific research into massively improbable things, with a heroine who is implacably determined to prove that she is every bit as good a scientist as the sniffy male contingent who refuse to accept her natural abilities and fierce intelligence and keep circling the wagons against her – because – oh my god – a WOMAN!!! Marie Brennan is always a… show more.