“Voyage of the Basilisk” by Marie Brennan

Main Index / Reviews Index / Fiction Reviews Index / 2017 Reviews Index

Rating: 4/5 Stars

This is the third book in the memoirs of Isabella, the dragon naturalist, and it is finally starting to pay off. The first and second books in the series did not really feature must about the natural history of dragons but concentrated more on who Isabella was, her relationships with the people around her who, in a fantasy version of Victorian times, think she should ‘stay in her place’ (but of course, she doesn’t) and the troubles she causes in her quest to understand dragons and to protect them from being hunted, possibly to extinction: for their bodies contains a secret that would greatly benefit the nation that takes advantage of it.

The third book skips directly to her observations with dragons, since the first two books have helped established the world she inhabits. Here, she is on a sea voyage to study sea dragons to understand their evolution and how the various types of sea dragons are related to each other. Along the way, she meets an archaeologist who is interested in a long dead civilization that had a mysterious relationship with dragons (alluded to in the previous two books).

When the ship suffers damage during a storm and she and her companions are asked to stay on an island while repairs are made, things start to turn hilarious; for she is compelled to enter an uncomfortable relationship to appease the native inhabitants. But when she attempts to perform a feat with sea dragons, she enters a forbidden area and makes a discovery that could change the world.

This is the most interesting and exciting book in the series so far and raises expectations for what can be resolved in the next two books.

Book read from 2017/08/26 to 2017/08/31