Tooth and Claw Audiobook By Jo Walton cover art

Tooth and Claw

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Tooth and Claw

By: Jo Walton
Narrated by: John Lee
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A tale of contention over love and money - among dragons.

Jo 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 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.

©2003 Jo Walton (P)2014 Audible Inc. Classics Fantasy Fiction Dragons Marriage
Victorian-style Storytelling • Unique Dragon World • Excellent Narration • Clever Social Satire • Entertaining Plot
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I can’t tell you how much this audio book pleases me, I love the humor and satire of British authors like Oscar Wilde. Throw in the fantasy setting similar to regency England and dragons as the main characters ? I loved this book. Great narration.
My only disappointment came when I found this was not a new novel by Jo Walton and we are not likely to get an encore.

Oscar Wilde with Dragons

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Walton makes it seem effortless to recreate the social manners novel made famous by Jane Austen. Insert a bit of the alt-history world of the Temeraire books (by Naomi Novik) where dragons talk and have personalities just like people, and you have the general idea behind this light romp. Everything from the chapter headings to the ridiculous hats to the fixation on who is going to marry whom is handled with aplomb and a wink, making me laugh out loud—always a sign of a good book.

[I listened to this as an audio book narrated by John Lee, who did an absolutely amazing job of adding just the right amount of smirk to his performance to assure the listener that he knows that we know that the story is just one huge confectionary, but one that we will gladly consume in one sitting even though we know too much sugar is not good for us.]

Pride & Prejudice meets Temeraire

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This is a story right out of Austen, Trollope, or Dickens, all about social class, money, property, marriages, and society. But all the characters are dragons. It's really charming to read about the dragons putting on hats, attending church, riding on trains (when flying isn't socially acceptable), and then sitting down to a few raw cows for dinner. And if tensions between them get too high, they just eat each other! A tour de force and very well narrated.

19th Century Novel - with Dragons

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Not the most complex of stories but a entertaining different world, left me only wishing this world would have more books.

Well crafted story with a nice ending

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This book was reccomended in the body of Stephanie Meyer's Midnight Sun. I had never heard of the author before. Now I have wealth of material to read that is new to me. This book reminds me somewhat of Jane Austin in the characterisation. The canabalism for a start appears far fetched, but in fact was still much practised in many countries in Victorian times. The reader was skilled and the different voices were easy to follow. This was a delicious peek into another world.

Red in Tooth and Claw

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I’m not sure what I expected for a book described as regency with dragons, but….that is accurate. It certainly captures the Austen-esque way of building a story on the largely mundane life. No heroes or heroines. No great evils. No world ending drama or saviors. Just a slice of a brief window into a group of largely average “people’s” (dragon’s) lives. I’m not sure I loved it, but I certainly didn’t dislike it. It was interestingly both very familiar while being simultaneously unexpected.

Interesting

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Such an interesting view of this fantastical world of dragon society! Characters are well developed. The reader does an excellent job!

Loved it!!

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Wonderful story and the narrator was superb. Such a fascinating look at dragons and their society. I wish there was more!

Take a bite!

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What other book might you compare Tooth and Claw to and why?

There's been a trend lately to write imitative re-tellings of Victorian authors and for the most part I have avoided them. But I love Trollope and I did enjoy Naomi Novik's tales of the Napoleonic Wars with dragons. So I thought I'd try this and was delighted.

Trollope pastiche with dragons.

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While some of the names and ranks are hard to keep track of, this is a Great story. The society of dragons is fantasticly build and a wonder to hear.

High Society with Dragons!

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