Title:	Tooth and Claw
Author:	Jo Walton
Category:	Science Fiction / Fantasy
Rating:
Date Reviewed:	October 17, 2004

o Walton won the John Campbell award for best new writer for her book The King's Peace. I must assume that book was orders of magnitude better than this unimpressive offering. The idea behind Tooth and Claw is clever - imagine a Victorian society, but one populated with dragons instead of people. How would it be different? As Walton describes it, things wouldn't be much different at all. Dragons would write letters, go on picnics, wear wigs, build railroads (why would dragons, who can fly, ever ride on a railroad?), etc. The sense of "dragon-ness" is completely missing from these characters - they act like people in dragon suits. Remember how Watership Down was completely convincing that its characters were rabbits? Tooth and Claw failed to convince me that it was about dragons at all (no matter how many times they whirled their eyes in distress - what the heck? What creature is going to spin their eyes in their head when threatened?)

I think one of the big flaws with Tooth and Claw, is its length. It is much too short for the number of plot lines introduced. The hardcover edition I read is a mere 253 pages. Thus, we are given the plot thread that Avan has the job of city planning for a large rundown part of the capital - his beautiful aide (whom he befriended when she was a female on the street, but secretly she is a wealthy heiress) gives this information to a priest of the old religon - but thread is dropped entirely. At the end of the novel, the human ambassador meets with the dragons, exploring the history between the two species, or describing more of their interaction would be interesting, but that's not allowed with only 253 pages. Haner is going to join a movement to free the servant dragons from having their wings bound - but nothing comes of that either. (Wouldn't Haner be better served trying to prevent the lord dragons from eating the lesser dragons, rather than just getting their wings untied?) The climax of the story passes in two sentences - "Fights rarely last long, even fights to the death. It seemed endless, but it was less than five minutes before the whirling flaming clawing heap of dragon sorted itself out, with Daverak dead underneath and Sher, scorched and bleeding, standing triumphantly above" How about that for passive, dull story telling? Could a battle between dragons be described with any less enthusiasm? Is this writing style mimicing Victorian novels?