Book Review: Dragons of Babel

[gracedpalmer]

Reviewing because I just read it, and I have something like a three book backlog on reviews. Argh. Clearly I need to do this right after I finish em.

What It's All About

Title:The Dragons of Babel

Author: Michael Swanwick

Genre:They're calling it steampunk, but it's really more like far-future anachrotech urban fantasy

One sentence summary:Blonde farm boy journeys to capital city, becomes king (this is theworst thing about the book)


Structural Concerns

Plot: The plot to this book careens around, wandering through several genres and archetypes. Plus: I had no idea what was coming next, even once I realized that we were doing Farmboy Turns Out To Be King. Minus: It can make you a little motionsick.

Worldbuilding: Oh, wow. Wordbuilding made me happy. Please excuse me while I roll around in satirical juxtopositions of the urban 19^th and 20^thcentury and fairy tales. Mind you, I do still have a hard time managing to hold an idea of it in my head, so that could be a problem. The basic assumed religious stuff for the characters that they won't spell out for me please one of my personal literary kinks.

Characters: I do want to slap Our Hero (Will)from time to time, but the need to slap is age appropriate (he's a teenager) rather than because he ate the stupid pills to make the plot work. I'm enjoying a sort of aesthetic mourning for some of the side characters – Nat the con artist, Will's grandma the standing stone, and some people who turn out to be completely imaginary.

Writing quality and style: I'm fond of the writing, but its definitely odd. Both the description and dialogue veer from being archaic and complicated to an assortment of modern(and historic) slang. It all seems deliberate and planned, though –Swanwick's not just throwing verbiage and seeing what sticks. It can be really weird at times, though.


ZeIssues

Racial/Diversity: I'm still trying to puzzle this one out. There are analogues of non-white races in the book, and they feel sympathetic. I quite like every one of the haint characters. On the other hand, analogueing fantasy races to black people, Asian people, etc. is one of fantasy's bad habits, and it erases real people who don't happen to be white. There's some stuff that points out crappy things that the majority in power does to minorities (ethnic, racial, and gender), but in the end, the book's still about the white guy and he still wins. They do come out and call him white, which feels really deliberate, but kinda odd.

Gender Issues: Feels pretty balanced, actually.There's a pretty good representation of both sexes in pretty much every role. Females embarrass the main character regularly, and women have strong personalities and are aggressive without being Hot Babes in Leather Pants.

GBLT + Poly: There seem to be a few bisexual characters, or at least folks who are trisexual (try anything once). They're not terribly savory, but also not evil. Poly doesn't really come up much, nor do GLBT issues.

Bechdel Test?: Yes – Several times, and it doesn't have anything to do with him. More if we count off screen conversations that get reported back to us.

Sex: Yes,there is sex, and it is uncomfortable. I'm not sure that this is bad,but the author likes to push the boundaries of TMI. This is not a squeamish book, and a lot of the sex is stupid (on the part of the characters) and rather graphic. I can't say that any of it was sexy,and it definitely did serve a narrative purpose, but it's also not expressly required by the story. I recall having much the same response to Iron Dragon's Daughter, but I read that ages ago.


Let Me Explain - No, There Is Too Much - Let Me Sum Up

Overall Impression: I'm pretty pleased with the book, actually. I feel like it subverted the Farmboy trope adequately to make up the points it lost for using it in the first place. It introduced me to a lot of characters I liked, and a world I was really pleased by. On The Issues, the author wasn't quite there in some places, but was tryin ga heck of a lot harder than most fantasy writers, so gets a few points back.

Regret Buying: Well, I didn't buy it.Nghi bought it. But I'm happy she did.

Would Buy A Sequel?I would buy another book by this guy and actually am thinking about rereading Iron Dragon's Daughter.

Would Recommend? I would recommend, with reservations, because the sex is minorly squicky and the genrefuck isn't to everyone's taste. For instance, 15year old me really didn't like it in the other one I read. 30 year old me is pretty happy with it.