In honor of Jo Walton's new book, Among Others
I talked our book club into reading her old book, Tooth and Claw
. (We are a library using book club, so we often check wait lists before selecting new books. We were contemplating the Henrietta Lacks book until we saw the triple digit wait list, for example.)Most people enjoyed it, except for my sister, who is blind to the charms of Walton. I don't think she's ever forgiven Suzien's rape in the first pages of The King's War, so all other books are treated with suspicion. I hadn't read it in years, and my copy has disappeared so I bought a new one, which had a disappointing white cover instead of the elegant red dragons on the paperback I remembered.
I mostly remembered the lawsuit, but forgot all the gender politics, which this time were my favorite parts of the book. I loved the parallels between dragon society and ours, both present time and in the England the book recalled. Tying wings, cannibalism (and not just of Irish children), women's reputations being ruined by a man's momentary carelessness or aggressiveness, train travel, it was all good. A
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