Beyond Reality discussion

Please let us know what you thought about Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton.

Spoilers Allowed and Likely!

I was absolutely delighted by this book. I haven't read that much Victorian literature, but I've enjoyed what I've read, and this was a perfect re-creation. I loved the way that the weird little quirks of Victorian society were given perfectly logical explanations with dragon physiology - a maiden can be "ruined" by being too close to a male dragon and her scales change color. Talk about a scarlet letter! A lawsuit over inheritance...but they're fighting over the actual body of the deceased patriarch. The last line about "gentle hypocrisy" was PERFECT.

I don't know that it was especially thought-provoking, but as entertainment, it was top-notch.

I'll have to agree with you, Shel, it was greatly entertaining. It took a bit for me to warm up to the story. Starting with a family fight over the father's body was somewhat horrifying, although perfectly at home in a book titled "tooth and claw". The way that dragons and Victorian society fit together was creative and somehow natural. Although the fascination with hats is beyond me; I still can't picture it. A fun read!

Yeah, I REALLY wanted some illustrations of dragons wearing hats because I just couldn’t picture it!

I wish this book had been illustrated! That would have been wonderful.

I found the book entertaining, but I wish it had leaned harder into some of the unsettling parts. It felt as though the tone shifted a lot over the course of the book - there were some parts that were really dark, but then everything got tied up so neatly at the end. I wanted to be left with more of a feeling of the creepiness of the world-building and less of the generic happy romantic ending feeling. But I still enjoyed it a lot, and I thought the author did a fantastic job of playing around with the tropes of Victorian literature.