The Dragon's Path Group Read discussion

How do you find the world of "The Dragon's Path"? Are there any particularities you enjoyed the most?

One thing that attracted me towards fantasy fiction from the start was the worldbuilding. And here I am fully satisfied with it. A complex world, but revealed carefully and without beating the reader over the head with long info dumps. History, economics and politics are all elements of the canvas and important ones nonetheless. The dark touch of this world is an attractive one, at least for me. It is true that it feels a bit like another projection of the Medieval Europe but Daniel Abraham manages to pull it out of that cliche with his 13 races and their characteristics and with the sense of space given to this world. I am certain that we will see further development in the next novels.
I liked the economics a lot. Although we see only a small part of it through Cithrin's arc I liked that it gives depth and complexity to the world. For example, I loved when Cithrin goes to the market to buy a new dress and negotiates with the seller. There are plenty of elements there to give us an image of the world, the particularities of a trade and the characteristics of some other parts of the world. The ship tradings offers something of the same and there are important things to be considered there for the good working of more than one city.
The way the cities or little kingdoms are run is also interesting. Vanai, Antea and Porte Oliva have all their own governance rules. And these are those we experience first hand, but there are hints of other places and their own way of running things. It is a very nice touch in world building.

I agree, I think the worldbuilding was top notch. I wouldn't say that this is my favourite ever book, it is quite slow, which is not a bad point, just that it took a while for the main story to get started. In fact I don't think the "main story" started until Geder made his way to the temple, but I enjoyed getting to know the characters so I won't complain too much about that :)

I think that the world building struck a good balance between the familiar and the original. I particularly liked the idea of the different races and the story behind their creation is an interesting read in itself. I also liked the mysterious history of the dragons and their demise. I wonder if we will ever find out more about them, because I would love to discover more detail. They feel a little like the Greeks or Romans in that they are now gone but have left their influence upon our world.

I am very curious to find out more about the spider Goddess and why she was not written about before the fall of the dragons. As someone who has studied History I find this very intriguing and more than a little disturbing.

Oddly enough, I am possibly more curious about the world's past than what happens next. Who wouldn't be interested in an empire of dragons that somehow self destructed?

Of course the thing that stuck out for me on the world building were the different humanoid races. Yes, it did take me most of the book to start picturing certain characters with scales, nictating membranes, or furry ears. But now that I am doing so, it will be easier to do so for Book 2.

I also long the feel of a very ancient history to the world, of knowledge lost, and possibly regained.