Review: Emma’s Dragon: London and Pemberley

Emma’s Dragon: London and Pemberley by M. Verant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the first book in this series, a Pride and Prejudice AU fanfic with OOC Mary Bennet (as the author says in his afterword to this book, she's basically Mary Shelley, although I don't think Mary Shelley was a lesbian). This one doesn't attempt to base itself at all closely on Emma (the book), though Emma (the character) is the same kind of sometimes-oblivious meddler. Both her friend Harriet and her eventual love interest Mr. Knightley are of African descent in this version, which allows the introduction of an overt political note that was much subtler in Austen's novels.

The politics, in fact, are not at all subtle - when you've said that the main antagonist is a right-wing populist, you've conveyed essentially everything the author conveys about him, his followers, his agenda and his attitudes; and all of the main characters on the "good" side, even real people (like Lord Wellington) who were notoriously conservative, have some degree of modern liberal sensibility. Early on in my reading, in fact, I was composing a rant to include in this review about how, these days, the only virtue is orthodoxy and the only sin is heresy, so regardless of when and where your book is set, you have to give your characters the exact views that Western progressives hold this week if you want them to seem like good people... but as I read on, and got caught up in what is actually a well-written, well-told story with some characters that take only some of their depth from their models in Austen, I calmed down a bit, and when I read the author's afterword (which mentions the progressive views held by some historical people in 1812) I calmed down a bit more. I still think the politics tend to the anachronistic side, and less would have been more, but I no longer feel that they spoil the book for me.

The spec-fic element is the presence of "draca" (dragons and related creatures), apparently now only in Britain for some reason yet to be revealed - or maybe I misunderstood, and it's just that it's only in Britain that women (of a certain social status and degree of virtue, and of course that's a plot point) "bind" to draca when they marry. Some of the history of draca comes out in the course of the book, and it's fascinating stuff and makes me want to know more.

Similarly to another dragon-featuring series set in the Napoleonic Wars (I'm referring to Naomi Novik's Temeraire), despite the fact that dragons exist in this world, everything up to the point the story started follows exactly our history, including the existence of Napoleon and Lord Wellington and Mad King George and the Prince Regent; and then almost as soon as the story begins it starts to diverge. It's not fatal to my suspension of disbelief, but it does put a strain on it.

But this is quibbling. Overall, the story worked for me, there's plenty of suspense and drama, it's Austeny but also an adventure story with dragons, and as Regency fantasies go, this went well. The issues I've laid out above keep it out of the Gold tier of my Best of the Year list, but not by a lot; it's solid, enjoyable work.

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