Marie Brennan
Tor, 2013
How to describe this book ... It's a (fictional) memoir, of a proper young gentlemwoman with a distinctly improper fascination with science. Specifically: dragons. Thankfully, in a purely accidental (and somewhat mortifying, in terms of being a proper young lady in Society) manner, this fascination resulted in her finding the perfect husband. Not only did he share her interest in the mysterious dragons, but he encouraged her research. Which is how they both ended up joining a dragon search party into the wilds. One part Victorianesque novel, one part tongue-in-cheek memoir, one part natural history text, A Natural History of Dragons is all parts delight.
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| Labratory, by Todd Lockwood |
Book provided by publisher for review.
And now, I was able to do an interview with Marie, which I am happy to share with you!
The first question that
immediately came to my mind is simply: Why dragons?
Because the sources that
inspired me -- the Dragonology calendars and the D&D supplement Draconomicon
-- were about dragons. Had they been talking about some other magical creature,
this might have been A Natural History of Unicorns instead.
Or maybe not; dragons do have
an appeal that nothing else can quite match. Vampires and werewolves and
faeries and so on are all humanoid to one degree or another, but when you look
at the more animal-type creatures, nothing can really compete with dragons.
Was it difficult to create
the 'science' of dragons? Or did the unknowns in the story help your creating process?
The hardest part of it is
convincing myself that I’ve invented enough to pass. I need the science to be
plausible enough that I can talk about what Isabella’s doing and have it hold
together; if my protagonist is going to be a natural historian, I need her
research to be a meaningful part of the story, not a side note that mostly gets
ignored. But at the same time, dragons aren’t biologically plausible. So
I have to trust that readers will accept a few notes about bone structure and
clever wing design and so on, without getting stuck on the fact that nothing
that big could really fly.
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| Sparkling, by Todd Lockwood |
Natural History of
Dragons has a wonderfully Victorian
feel -- do you read a lot of Victorian works?
I had read some when I first
came up with the idea, and read a great deal more in the course of working on With
Fate Conspire, my previous novel. That’s a historical fantasy set in
Victorian London, so it was easy to step sideways from that to a secondary
world modeled on the same period. But a fair amount of credit should also go to
my research for the novel before that, A Star Shall Fall. That one takes
place in the Georgian period -- each of the Onyx Court books is set in a
different century -- but it’s heavily focused on the Enlightenment and the
early development of modern science. It gave me a good sense of whose shoulders
Isabella would be standing on when she sets out to do her fieldwork.
When you write, do you listen
to music or have any other "background/atmosphere" preferences?
Music, always. I make
playlists for each project I’m working on -- usually multiple playlists, to
suit different parts of the story. For this one I assembled a bunch of scores
from pulp adventure and dragon-related movies (How to Train Your Dragon
has a fabulous score), plus Eastern European music to fit the Vystrani setting.
Then I sorted those into “romantic,” “adventurous,” and “creepy” playlists,
plus one for sort of casual village life. And then when I was done, I assembled
a soundtrack out of those playlists, as if making a score for the novel. You
can find the track listing for that here
-- though be warned that it may contain hints of spoilers!
What is your favorite dragon
book or movie?
I have a deep-seated love for
Pern. Telepathic teleporting dragons who let you ride around on them? I would
absolutely sign up for that.
What is your favorite snack
and/or drink to enjoy while reading?
I try not to let myself munch
while reading; I’m liable not to stop. I mostly drink water -- very boring, I
know. But on a cold or rainy day, my hot drink vice of choice is really
high-end hot chocolate.
Books-to-movies are
increasingly popular right now -- do you prefer to read the book or see the
movies first?
No strong preference,
really. For things outside speculative fiction, I’ll often watch the movie when
the book wouldn’t interest me at all; for things inside the genre, it’s not
uncommon for me to have read the book before the movie even comes out. If I had
to choose, though, I’d probably go for the movie first. Books can, by their
nature, include a lot more detail than films can, so the novel is likely to
flesh out my understanding of the story. If I go the other direction, I’m more
likely to be sad about all the things that had to be simplified or cut out to
keep the movie’s run-time down.
Thanks for indulging the somewhat random nature of my questions, Marie!
If you'd like to learn more about Marie or the book, check out these sites:
Thanks for indulging the somewhat random nature of my questions, Marie!
If you'd like to learn more about Marie or the book, check out these sites:
A Tor Hard Cover
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3196-0
On Sale: February 5, 2013
Available here:
Powells,
Walmart,
Overstock
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