Tooth and Claw
Books | Fiction / Fantasy / Dragons & Mythical Creatures
4.1
Jo Walton
A tale of contention over love and money—among dragonsJo Walton burst onto the fantasy scene with The King's Peace, acclaimed by writers as diverse as Poul Anderson, Robin Hobb, and Ken MacLeod. In 2002, she was voted the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.Now Walton returns with Tooth and Claw, a very different kind of fantasy story: the tale of a family dealing with the death of their father, of a son who goes to law for his inheritance, a son who agonizes over his father's deathbed confession, a daughter who falls in love, a daughter who becomes involved in the abolition movement, and a daughter sacrificing herself for her husband.Except that everyone in the story is a dragon, red in tooth and claw.Here is a world of politics and train stations, of churchmen and family retainers, of courtship and country houses...in which, on the death of an elder, family members gather to eat the body of the deceased. In which society's high-and-mighty members avail themselves of the privilege of killing and eating the weaker children, which they do with ceremony and relish, growing stronger thereby.You have never read a novel like Tooth and Claw.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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Author
Jo Walton
Pages
256
Publisher
Tor Publishing Group
Published Date
2003-11-01
ISBN
142995468X 9781429954686
Community ReviewsSee all
"Walton richly reimagines the 19th century family melodrama : the burdens of class, thwarted young love, social upheaval…in a world where drawing room cuts and social death translate to literal dismemberment. Like the Dashwood sisters in Sense and Sensibility, Selendra and Hanem have been left with meager dowries on the death of their father, defrauded out of their due portion by an officious brother-in-law. (Did I mention that part of their inheritance was the right to consume dear old Dad’s body? I digress.) This leads to familial strife, terminating in an unpleasantly messy court case (you have no idea) brought by their brother. <br/><br/>In many ways this resembles, say Middlemarch.<br/>You have the ardent couple separated by class, the overbearing snobbish mother-in-law, the persecuted “old church” believers, the radicals advocating for servants rights, the independent young woman making her way despite a traumatic past. You can almost forget that you’re reading about dragons…until someone gets eaten."