To Shape a Dragon's Breath sync read post
Jan. 3rd, 2026 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunasarielIn conjunction with cyanmnemosyne and hamsterwoman (and whoever else wants to join!), I'm finally! getting around to reading Moniquill Blackgoose's To Shape a Dragon's Breath, which I was gifted by...hamsterwoman , I think? at least 2 years ago. XD It's always been one of those "I'll get around to it one of these days" books, but now that I know the sequel is coming out on Jan. 27, I figured I'd finally better get a move on. And oh man, am I in the mood for "magic school + scrappy underdog protagonist WITH DRAGONS"! :D
Usual rules apply:
cyanmnemosyne and hamsterwoman (and whoever else wants to join!), I'm hamsterwoman , I think? at least 2 years ago. XD It's always been one of those "I'll get around to it one of these days" books, but now that I know the sequel is coming out on Jan. 27, I figured I'd finally better get a move on. And oh man, am I in the mood for "magic school + scrappy underdog protagonist WITH DRAGONS"! :DUsual rules apply:
- Anyone is welcome! The post and comments are both public.
- Spoilers will be unmarked up to the listed chapter(s), but please try to avoid spoilers from beyond that point.
- No schedule/time limit - I'm hoping to have it done by the 27th, when To Ride a Rising Storm comes out, but that's not a hard deadline; the post will remain open pretty much indefinitely.
- Have fun!
Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
Date: 2026-01-03 11:57 pm (UTC)through chapter 7
Date: 2026-01-06 04:43 pm (UTC)So far, I’m really enjoying the “natural world” aspects of the prose – the way Anequs relates everything to wild animals when it comes to metaphors and similes, and how grounded the descriptions are in the sights and sounds and tastes of her surroundings. Obviously it’s thematic given her background, but it’s also just really nice writing. (The descriptions of the humans I’m finding less absorbing, but not to the point where it’s a problem or complaint, just, the other aspects are so vivid.)
The other thing I’m finding neat and unusual is that I’ve read a whole bunch of “dragon imprints on a human rider” narratives – Temeraire, obviously, but Mercedes Lackey had an Egyptian one with dragon riders, ASOIAF has some dragon/human stuff, and I’ve even had some surface exposure to Pern. The thing that struck me as different here is how communal everything surrounding the process is. Like, Anequs is still “special” to some degree as the first person to see a dragon in generations, and to bring the egg into the village, and the person the dragon chooses… but that’s totally secondary to it being the first dragon seen in their area, the first dragon born into their community – and the community gathering to speak to the dragon and speak all of its languages to it in the egg, the feast when it hatches, and the communal decision-making around whether Anequs should apply to the academy really underscores it. I assume this is going to be a contrast to the non-Native ways of interacting with dragons, and I’m looking forward to seeing that, but just on its own it was cool to see, and the fact that it is completely unremarkable in Anequs’s POV, and that her concerns are for the well-being of her people, and the dragon, and not some sort of yearning or ambition. It’s refreshingly different!
I like the way languages have been brought into it so far – that Anequs and most of her peers are bilingual, but there’s at least one person of her generation who speaks only the dominant out-group language, and her father does too, and there are elders who only speak the in-group one, and it mostly doesn’t seem to be a big deal (at least to Anequs), but is a fact of life to be accommodated.
I’m also intrigued by what appear to be the loanwords from “Anglish” – which appears to be more Germanic than real-world English, so I’m kind of wondering what the alt-history of Europe is in this world – was there just no Norman Conquest? But, like, “folkscoring” for census is a great word, and I was trying to parse the names of ~sciences that are mentioned, like “anglereckoning” for geometry, and I’m thinking “minglelore” is probably chemistry or materials science or something like that, although I’m drawing a blank on “skilta”, which has shown up a couple of times in noun clusters. Anyway, I love worldbuilding stuff like this, and appreciate the way it’s not explained here.
I’m also appreciative of the fact that different “good” characters are allowed to disagree. Anequs’s brother and her Grandmother have very different views on the correct course of action, but I don’t get the sense that either of them is meant to be entirely wrong or entirely right. Like, I can totally understand why Grandmother doesn’t want Anequs and the first dragon in generations to go off to, well, a colonial school and put themselves on the registry… but also it’s true that Anequs has no-one other than that to teach her where she is – which is a tragedy, but also the reality she finds herself in.
I don’t have much sense of this dragon yet, or what they can really do, but looking forward to seeing more and meeting other dragons and understanding what variety there is to them.
Re: through chapter 7
Date: 2026-01-07 03:07 am (UTC)The linguistics are a lot of fun! I also noticed the bilingual-leaning-out-group thing among the younger generation, which afaik mirrors real-life situations pretty closely. No Norman Conquest would make a lot of sense, and is now my headcanon until proven otherwise - there seems to be very little Romance influence in any of the non-Masquisit languages. And I think you're right about the ~science names; I was having trouble parsing them, but "anglereckoning" = geometry and "minglelore" = chemistry makes sense. I think "skilta" might be magic, given how often "skill" or "knowledge" words come up in conjunction with magic in Germanic languages.
Oh, and speaking of ~science! I'm eager to hear what you think of the ~periodic table of ~elements. :D
The sympathetic characters being allowed to disagree is a refreshing change, agreed! I'm also not getting a terrible lot of differentiation among her siblings, but I really like Niquiat (who, of course, we've seen the most of). In particular, I like how Anequs' POV provides a bridge between the two extremes of her Grandmother (who has Extremely Fucking Good Reasons to be both proud and devastated) and Niquiat (who wants to be an ~engineer!). She's got a good blend of respect and self-confidence that I imagine will stand her in good stead as the story moves into a primarily Anglish milieu.
P.S. I hope TSaDB isn't eating too much into your Elis & John time! ;)
Re: through chapter 7
From:Re: through chapter 7
From:Re: through chapter 7
From:Re: through chapter 7
From:Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
Date: 2026-01-07 03:34 am (UTC)It was a little slow to get started, but now that it's properly built up some steam, I'm loving it!
This is an excellent A Girl and Her Dragon story. Kasaqua doesn't have much personality yet, but I'm sure she'll grow into it. (For now, though: pinfeathers! Skritches! And apparently she's already perfected the
catdragon expression of "reserved disapproval," lol.) I really like Anequs as a protagonist/narrative voice. At first I found her a little too reserved/not terribly engaging, but now that I've settled into the story a bit, she really does feel like an unusually self-possessed, bright teenager. Moniquill Blackgoose does an excellent job of writing the bond between Anequs and Kasaqua (which a lot of dragonrider stories live or die by), where they are clearly each other's Person.I'm looking forward to seeing more cool dragons (the other thing by which dragonrider stories live or die), too. We've already seen one, and the differences between indigenous North American dragons and European ones (which have presumably been deliberately bred for certain traits) is interesting. It's not 100% clear yet how sentient dragons are, or how bonding with a human affects their sentience (if at all) - Kasaqua clearly derived some benefit from being sung to/told stories while in the egg, and I think it's implied that she understands spoken human languages? But she doesn't speak herself, which could either be a general dragon thing, or be just the result of her only being a couple of weeks(?) old. I mean, she did kind of tell Anequs her name, but that seemed to be more of a mind-meld/direct transfer of knowledge, like how they communicate emotional states and physical sensations. And then that Anglish dragon, Gerhard, didn't speak either, but that could have just been him being A Soldier On Duty. But the casual way the Anglish dragonrider, Karina Kuiper (who, btw, I can't tell whether will be a McGonnagal-like tough-but-fair headmistress or a racist asshole, although Moniquill Blackgoose has a light enough touch with character that I'm hopeful for the former) asks about Kasaqua's sire and dam makes me think that dragons aren't fully sentient - presumably it would be a lot more difficult to pair up dragons for breeding purposes if said dragons were sentient enough to give or refuse consent.
Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
Date: 2026-01-07 04:21 pm (UTC)At first I found her a little too reserved/not terribly engaging, but now that I've settled into the story a bit, she really does feel like an unusually self-possessed, bright teenager
Nod. I remember seeing some people's quibbles with the book -- not as an issue of quality, but of difficulty attaching to the narrator IIRC -- were that Anequs was too... self-possessed is probably the best word for it. And I can definitely see how that could make things harder for a reader -- unlike your normal YA protagonist, she is not yearning for anything, she is not looking to escape the confines of her world -- quite the opposite. Which is unusual, but I quite like it as a departure. Even though I can't say I'm personally attached to Anequs at this point -- I'm rooting for her, and I appreciate learning about the world through her experiences, but that's mostly it.
and the differences between indigenous North American dragons and European ones (which have presumably been deliberately bred for certain traits) is interesting
Yes! I really liked the otter vs bear comparison. It does seem like European dragons are "husbanded", but like you I'm curious to learn more about what that means -- and also how sapient they all are.
It's not 100% clear yet how sentient dragons are, or how bonding with a human affects their sentience (if at all) - Kasaqua clearly derived some benefit from being sung to/told stories while in the egg, and I think it's implied that she understands spoken human languages? But she doesn't speak herself, which could either be a general dragon thing, or be just the result of her only being a couple of weeks(?) old.
Yeah, I'm really curious about this also! So far the interaction-between-dragons we've seen seems to be on the level of domesticated animals, and Kasaqua's interaction with Anequs, other than the moment of choice and name, seems to be on the level of "bright cat" + psychic awareness of emotional states -- but that's also about the level of a human baby, mentally (minus the psychic connection), so... The Anglish seem to think of dragons on the level of domestic animals, from the way they talk about them -- but of course that was basically also the way the Westerners talked about Temeraire-verse dragons, who could talk and do advance mathematics and stuff. (Why haven't I been using my Temeraire icons for this post??? *remedies that*)
presumably it would be a lot more difficult to pair up dragons for breeding purposes if said dragons were sentient enough to give or refuse consent.
Heh. I mean, humans breed lions and tigers in zoos, so it's definitely possible. But we definitely haven't been given enough info about dragon reproductive biology or their sapience in this world to figure that out at this point, I think :)
Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
From:Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
From:Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
From:Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
From:Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
From:Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
From:Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
From:Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
Date: 2026-01-07 03:35 am (UTC)Oh and also apparently ~magic obeys conservation laws, which I’m always pleased to see.
I do miss the lovely nature writing now that we’re in a city.
Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
Date: 2026-01-15 11:28 am (UTC)Kasaqua, of course, is a delightful tiny dragon even if she currently rather ignominiously resembles a chicken XD and I'm really enjoying the emotional bond/emotion-sharing, though I'm a bit sad that aside from conveying her name, we haven't gotten proof one way or the other whether she's not speaking in words because she's too young, or because that's just not how dragons work in this world. Though I do appreciate that even if dragons in this world are not verbal, she clearly has character.
I'm also genuinely loving the vibe of the book in general? It feels Indigenous in a way that resonates with the wandering I did through that museum on Whidbey Island, and the presentation I attended there on the 10 rules of the Canoe. (And the asides about how it's not right to call a canoe "the b-word".) Not just the traditional ways of being (though I appreciate the care with which they're written) but also the tension inherent in living in a world with significant settler presence, and the tradeoffs inherent in that, and the way everyone has their own opinions on how to exist and how to move forward. (Like Niquiat, who clearly both loves his people dearly and would feel trapped if he tried to stay.)
It's something that I don't think I've ever seen in a novel before (which, admittedly, might be because I've read very few novels with/about Indigenous people) - I feel like usually we see Indigenous people in a far-distant past or alt history with no settlers, or a first contact, vs being something that engages with the fact that Indigenous people through the entire length of North American settlement have been making tradeoffs and having opinions about settlers just as much as they do now. :)
And the community of their community is also really striking; from how Kasaqua was hatched and how the decision to attend the dragon academy was made, to how Niquiat's proceeds go to benefit the entire community rather than just his family; it just quietly, matter-of-factly, keeps being ever so slightly different from the tropes I tend to expect. :D I do hope that Anequs will continue to carry some vibe of her family with her as the novel shifts to the dragon academy. (Also, Marta's letter was adorably awkward, lol.)
Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
From:Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
From:Re: Chapters 1-10 (First, there was the evening before the morning - To a city of soot and sparks)
From:Chapters 11-20 (To a place of warmth and stories - And was presented to her social betters)
Date: 2026-01-03 11:58 pm (UTC)through chapter 14
Date: 2026-01-07 03:59 pm (UTC)Dragons, of course, are one thing that attracted me to the idea of this book, but magic school narratives are my other jam, so I was happy to get to the magic school part.
And the first part that’s interesting to me is what is Frau Kuiper’s deal? We had a rather brusque introduction to her when she visited the island and handed over the letter, but the things that jumps out at me is – all the teachers at her school appear to be male, the majority of the students (although I don’t know what that majority means yet, like is it 3 or 5 or 20 or 50) is male, which would seem to imply that female dragoneers are rare, but she seems quite unequivocally in charge, and holds her own against the Dragon Ministry guy. So quite curious how she ended up with her dragon and in charge of the school.
Oh, and telkraft is math! I was trying to figure that out! It makes sense that the preliminary examinations are in composition, basically, math, and ~magic (or magic runes specifically, I guess; it seems like there’s a broader category of magic than just skiltakraft which is referred to as witkraft in Anglish or thaumaturgy in, I guess, the other one). Anyway, the magic teacher appears to be the Snape (though I’m not expecting redemption or whatever), and the math teacher appears to be the one who will be Anequs’s ally (though I did appreciate that his pleasure at her exam paper is surprise that she isn’t a remedial student, and that she has conflicted feelings about it), and I’m curious about the language teacher – he seems benevolently inclined, and also seems to have a better understanding of alt-Native culture – or at least to be aware it’s not monolithic – than the others, given that he spoke up with the Dragon Ministry guy during the inquiry – so I wonder if the fact that he didn’t offer to shake hands with Anequs the way the math professor did is like a cultural sensitivity thing or whatever. He did seem to be trying to be helpful. Anyway, I’m looking forward to the lessons, and to Anequs meeting the other Native student who’s been mentioned many times.
Oh, and we got to learn about more dragon types, too, and see some more of them, and also hear about some of the “applications”. Military, of course, but interesting to know that some dragon breeds are specifically geared at ~magic – industrial applications, lol – and also that there’s dragon racing. And while most dragon breeds so far have had Anglish (or at least Germanic-sounding) names, “velikolepni” is clearly a Russian/Slavic word (it means “magnifiscent”), and I’m not sure what Bjalladreki are meant to be/what language that’s meant to come from.
(I do, btw, think it’s interesting that we’re given a pronunciation guide and a largely impenetrable periodic table – I mean, it’s recognizable as a periodic table, but the “elements” are not explained and the rows and columns are just numbered, so one can’t figure out the principle by which they’re grouped – but no glossary whatsoever. I think it’s a fitting choice – you need the pronunciation guide to be able to pronounce the names that would be familiar to Anequs, but for the rest of it, she is venturing out into a world she has no experience of, and this way so are you – and just because you don’t know these words doesn’t mean you’re not a smart capable person any more than Anequs not being able to answer the magic teacher’s questions means she isn’t. And I do like this kind of throw-the-reader-in worldbuilding, but this is definitely a fairly hard more example, especially for a book that I believe was meant to be YA. This is, like, Sarah Monette levels of layered, unexplained worldbuilding – and I do mean that as a compliment :)
Now that Anequs has been out in the wider world for a bit, I was really starting to wonder about what it consisted of. The map on my hard copy is very hard to read, between grayscale and small, script writing, but while I’ve been able to find digital copies of that exact map, I haven’t been able to find anything zoomable. Anyone having any better luck? Kindah seem to be Middle Eastern, but I haven’t been able to place Vaskosish – Spanish, I guess (Professor Ibarra, and I think a few other names point that way).
Anyway, this is basically all “features” I’ve been hoping for so far, so I’m having a good time!
Re: through chapter 14
From:Re: through chapter 14
From:Re: through chapter 14
From:Re: through chapter 14
From:Re: through chapter 14
From:Re: through chapter 14
From:Re: Chapters 11-20 (To a place of warmth and stories - And was presented to her social betters)
Date: 2026-01-09 04:34 am (UTC)Oh, and speaking of mic drops! My admiration for her grew during the conversation with her Anglish and Vaskosish classmates (more on whom below), when her response to Ivar's "this continent is filled with SAVAGES and DANGEROUS WILD BEASTS that DEVOUR ANYONE WHO LEAVES THE SAFETY OF THE COLONIES" was basically, as the kids these days say, "skill issue :)"
I'm both surprised and surprisingly pleased with how much of a traditional boarding school story this is, btw! We've got:
- our plucky outsider hero(ine),
- the tough-but-fair headmistress,
- the teacher who hates the heroine for no reason(/intensely stupid reasons),
- the cool science teacher,
- the aloof but intriguing rival who will become a friend,
- the friend Below Stairs,
- the kindly housekeeper/matron,
- the rich girly-girl who's never been allowed to have an original thought in her life (and will hopefully soon discover a predilection for violence and/or chaos, and thus be unleashed :D),
- the Mean Popular Girl, and
- the
Draco Malfoyblond racist assholeIcy Blonde Mean BoyI hope we get the dim-witted but well-meaning jock (although maybe that's Nicklas?) and the salt-of-the-earth groundskeeper soon! I assume Marta, the rich girly-girl, will eventually be fulfilling the "loyal sidekick"/BFF role... if that's an archetype Moniquill Blackgoose goes for; I can see her doing something significantly more complicated and interesting with it than your run-of-the-mill sidekick/BFF. And finally, I don't know if a couple of hulking teenaged goons to act as the Icy Blonde Mean Boy's henchmen-in-training would be asking for too much.
Re: Chapters 11-20 (To a place of warmth and stories - And was presented to her social betters)
From:Through chapter 20
Date: 2026-01-09 10:59 pm (UTC)And we got to meet people’s dragons, too – they definitely seem to be on the level of “bright empath cat” as Rose and I were positing in the other comment – which, I confess, is less interesting to me than PROPER dragons, but a) maybe it’ll be different with Anequs because she’s obviously approaching the bond in a very different way, and b) I’m enjoying the magic school aspects of the book enough that proper dragons would just be a bonus. (And interesting to hear that the mean teacher is the only one who never had a dragon. I wonder why he’s there at the school in the first place, actually.... It seems like dragons are absolutely fundamental to the type of magic he teaches, so is it weird that he doesn’t have one of his own? Is it some kind of thing where he was either rejected by a dragon or never had the means to try for one (and that’s why he’s so mean to Anequs who “undeservedly” got on?)
And oh, right, so the periodic table is actually a periodic table of elements, rather than something more arcane XD (Also, it bugs me to a disproportionate degree that the way the periodic table is described, and the elements are identified, is not how it’s depicted on the artsy one in front of the book. What’s the point of including the periodic table if you’re going to make it decorative?) It’s clear that Kolfni is Carbon (my beloved), and Vetna is Hydrogen, and others I’m pretty sure are Iron (Isen), Gold, Lead, Silver, Mercury, and presumably Kessel and Zan are some kind of metals as well… Copper and Zinc? I don’t know what Zurfni is, or Stiksna, and I’m guessing that Pospor is Phosphorus and Saffle is Sulfur. One of the ones I’m puzzled by should be Nitrogen, as that’s the main one missing, but I’m out of ideas on which one. I’m not sure what “tatkraft” is – energy? Or something magical, like “lifeforce”? Also, I was originally all excited that the elements in the graphic periodic table at the front of the book were arranged very differently than their real-world counterparts would be… but now I’m not sure anymore if that’s meaningful worldbuilding, or just artistic license…
OK, that’s enough geekery. Anequs also met some people. I find her crush on Liberty cute! And I’m glad she seems to have managed to make a friend, said friend’s best efforts to the contrary. I’d been looking forward to Anequs meeting the oft-mentioned Knecht, but was in no way prepared for either his very sad story or his refusal to engage with Anequs. I’m sure that’s just a starting point and his arc will be an important part of the book, but it’s an interesting choice to have him (understandably) not immediately see any commonality between himself and Anequs. Marta is interesting! On the one hand, she seems to be a twittery little thing much more concerned with social graces and cute boys…. On the other hand, it is pretty clear that trying to become a female dragoneer is a highly unusual choice, so why is she there at all? Did she accidentally get chosen by a dragon meant for her brother(s)? Is she hoping to marry a dashing dragoneer fellow she meets at the academy? (I mean, she obviously is, but is that the whole reason she’s there?) Anyway, I look forward to learning more about her. And the two boys Anequs met at dinner are also interesting – the nicer one who is all “explain your culture to me”, and of course the monologuing asshole (although I don’t believe even monologuing assholes talk in paragraphs like that, lol, not when they’re 18 or whatever).
Re: Through chapter 20
From:Re: Through chapter 20
From:Re: Through chapter 20
From:Chapters 21-30 (Anequs makes a friend - Anequs learned the principles of natural philosophy)
Date: 2026-01-03 11:58 pm (UTC)through chapter 22
Date: 2026-01-10 05:04 am (UTC)But mainly I have to say that, in the last reading's comment I wondered about what Frau Kuiper's deal was, and so I was delighted to learn, in the very next chapter, that Frau Kuiper's deal is that she's basically Alanna of Trebond ! XD (But I do not have an Alanna icon, so I'm deploying another cross-dressing war hero one.)
Truly this book was clearly written with me specifically in mind :D
Re: through chapter 22
From:Re: through chapter 22
From:Re: Chapters 21-30 (Anequs makes a friend - Anequs learned the principles of natural philosophy)
Date: 2026-01-12 05:58 am (UTC)It looks like our Four-Man Band is forming, and I love it! I really sincerely hope that Marta's and Anequs' big blow-out argument is just character development, rather than the end of their budding friendship, because I REALLY like both of them, both apart and together. Anequs I've talked about at length, but Marta clearly has more hidden depths than even she is aware of. I deeply admire how realistically Moniquill Blackgoose is treating her as a character - several increasingly-pointed conversations and one big "hey, you're being a dick" argument aren't enough to overcome a lifetime of "well, of course people are just this way!" IRL, and I like that Marta doesn't immediately see the error of her racist ways and immediately commit to doing better, even after Anequs told her very plainly that this is not how friends treat each other. I certainly hope that will happen eventually, because I do like Marta as a person - under all the frills and Deportment and anxiety, there clearly is a smart, astute, capable person waiting to get out; it just makes sense that the glue holding the frills on will take some time to come undone. And as far as boarding school tropes go, Marta does a bang-up job as the insider who explains The Way Things Are Done to our outsider heroine.
I continue to like Anequs a lot. She remains smart and capable, willing to listen to other people and demanding the same of them. It made me a little sad when she stopped insisting that she be referred to by her real name, Anequs, rather than the imposed colonial name of Anequs (usually mispronounced) Aponakwesdottir, and just accepted the Aponakwesdottir surname, at least in large public settings. But she still does her damndest to treat people with kindness and compassion, while, after a brief foray into Deportment Expected of Young Ladies, decides that she's got 0 time for "manners" that just make everybody unhappy and anxious. She's also a gr8 narrator in that she's drawn to the most interesting students! Like I said above, I'm really liking the Four-Man Band that's forming - heavily-implied autistic Sander (who is a darling), Marta who will hopefully break free from Deportment now that she's associating with The Right Wrong Sort of People, and Theod "If I Have A Single Emotion Other Than Annoyance I Will Be Forced To Acknowledge All The Other Emotions, And Thus Explode" Knecht. In particular, I really like how the Four-Man Band has very natural & organic points of commonality once Anequs got them to break down the social barriers between them - Marta and Sander's love of serials, Anequs and Sander's "oh thank goodness, another person who thinks all of this is stupid!", Anequs' cheerful but absolutely ironclad determination to get Theod to make one (1) friend, and Theod's refusal to let Marta retreat behind her "air-headed society miss" mask.
As for everything else, let's see... Still pretty light on the actual dragons. Upthread we were discussing whether the dragons were going to turn out to be sapient or not, and for a while I had settled on "not, mostly", but now I'm starting to wonder... especially from Marta's argument with Anequs, it sounds like ~European dragoneering revolves around the rider dominating the dragon's will and controlling it, whereas the Indigenous method is more of a partnership, which I imagine gives a lot more leeway for sapience. So I'm still holding out hope for dragons as actual characters, further down the line.
I like most of the other characters an awful lot - Liberty (who is legit friends with Anequs, but also: awwww, Anequs has a crush!), Frau Kuiper (who is apparently an Alanna or a Sweet Polly Oliver all grown up, and now with even less time for your bullshit), and Professor Ulfar (aka Fun Science Teacher). There are some that we're clearly meant to hate and that's that (Ivar Stafn, Captain Einarsson, and Professor Ezel, although I hope that Professor Eziel at least will reveal hidden depths at some point, but mainly I think he's just a bitter asshole), some who may or may not become more than tertiary characters (Dagny and Nicklas Sørensen), and some who I'm almost certain will (Niquiat and his steampunk co-op friends).
More broadly, I like the interstitial stories, which do a great job of deepening and broadening the world - they all feel very true to form for the type of stories that they are, if that makes any sense. Anequs', Strida's, and Liberty's (all women, I'm just now noticing - is that just a general cultural thing, or is there more of a point to it?) stories all have very unique rhythms, and they would all sound right at home in a collection of creation stories, sagas, and fairy tales, respectively.
We've just started to get into the actual classes, and so far they've been fun. Natural Philosophy was exactly the kind of class I would have loved to take, and while ~chemistry was somewhat dampened by the professor being a dick, I found it interesting that he apparently has the textbook by heart, since he quoted the intro word for word at the beginning of his class. Or maybe he even wrote the book? Idk.
Re: Chapters 21-30 (Anequs makes a friend - Anequs learned the principles of natural philosophy)
From:Re: Chapters 21-30 (Anequs makes a friend - Anequs learned the principles of natural philosophy)
From:through chapter 30
Date: 2026-01-14 04:35 pm (UTC)There are some other things revealed in the lesson that I was also surprised by. First, the thing we learned unshaped dragon's breath does is disassemble everything into the constituent elements. This is a bit odd, for two reasons! The first one is that I didn't think that's what was happening in the scene at the beach where Kasaqua uses her breath -- the beach is described as "black and smooth", which I took to mean volcanic glass. Elemental silicon (which is the nonvolatile thing you'd get from applying dragon's breath to some sand) is more of a dark silvery gray, but if it's a mono-crystal, I guess I could see how it would look black (I don't think you'd get a mono-crystal with a gust of dragon's breath, though). Anequs also smells what is clearly ozone (air around a thunderstorm), but I could see how you'd get that -- ozone is O3, which is not the most common form of oxygen, but if what you're doing is separating the Oxygen into its individual atoms and then they recombine as they will, which I think is how this stuff works, then you'd get mostly O2 but also some O3. So, this isn't what I was expecting, but I can see how it could be consistent with what we learned (though I still don't think you'd get mono-crystalline Si out of a beach with no further effort...)
The other interesting thing is that in the caustic soda example the student talks through in class, you can apparently take an atom of Chlorine from table salt (NaCl) and eventually turn it into Hydrogen by tearing apart their "motes" (which apparently means nuclei). This is interesting for several reasons. First, I originally said that nothing in the actual world works like this, not even nuclear chemistry, but I guess I don't know what they mean by "pure vetna" -- you do have alpha decay, where what's ejected is a Helium nucleus -- 2 protons + 2 neutrons -- which I guess is two Hydrogen "motes" worth of stuff, but it's not Hydrogen. And it's not clear to me what's happening with the electrons in all of these nuclear fission/fusion reactions that are apparently possible. The other thing is, Chlorine has 17 protons but 18 neutrons (in the most common case), so when you divvy it up into hydrogens, that extra neutron has got to go somewhere, and I suppose it goes into deuterium or tritium or something. Which might be a useful thing if they didn't apparently have dragon-powered nuclear energy already :P
The thing with all this kind of stuff is that I don't have a sense of whether Moniquill Blackgoose has thought through all of these implications and has explanations for them which (for obvious reasons!!) didn't make it into this book, or if the real-world chemistry is not supposed to hold up beyond a certain point. (How obnoxious would it be to contact her with skiltakraft vs chemistry questions? XD)
Oh, and these guys know about Silicon -- it's one of the elements named -- which is interesting! It's not surprising in this worldbuilding, because while you don't some across elemental Silicon much (the process to make it is quite arduous (but cool!), what you do have plenty of in the world is substance containing silicon -- sand and rocks are SiO2, and so if a dragon breathes on some sand, you should get plenty of pure silicon as a result (if you can prevent it from oxidizing right back). The other interesting thing about Silicon, of course, is that it's the basis of semiconductors, and I do wonder if the automata they've got have, like, actual logic gates inside... Theoretically you should be able to draw a vast, vast skilta network and be able to manufacture yourself some pretty advanced semiconductors... (well, OK, not everything in the semiconductor manufacturing process is a chemical step, so you'd have to figure out some stuff like polishing and, hm, how you would apply a bias for something like implant, and I'm not sure how one generates radicals specifically rather than atoms, but to be fair we only have had one lesson...)
Anyway, OK, moving on XD
Professor Ezel-Snape remains a dick, but I see that I called him being suck a dick because he'd studied skiltakraft and then no dragon would have him. (I mean, this was a very easy thing to call.) Professor Ulfar the cool science teacher is great! I would love to take a class with him, and I love both the approach and the obvious care that went into the introductory lesson -- this is how you do group work and reverse classroom properly :D And they get little lab notebooks, d'aww! It's also interesting that Professor Ibarra, the history guy, is maybe not as warm and fuzzy, but seems to be committed to balancing catching up his 'remedial' students with accommodations tailored for what they know. I like him!
In addition to classes, Anequs also has quite a bit of interaction with some fellow students. This has been hitting slightly less solidly for me, but I do still enjoy these interludes. Sander with his preference for writing over verbal communication, and both his keen awareness of his differences (well, limitations is how he thinks of them) but also knowing that he is not "simple", and his fidget toys and avoidance of eye contact is very clearly autistic, and that felt a bit on the nose... How smoothly Anequs accepts all that surprised me a bit, if she's had no prior close interaction with a non-NT person (and we don't know that she hasn't, but he doesn't seem to remind her of anyone she already knows), but on the other hand, Sander did save her bacon back in Professor Snape's class, so she's certainly motivated. (I'm also not convinced that communication via writing on wax would go this quickly... but fine, whatever) I did find it very cute that Marta and Sander bonded over serials over lunch - fandom buddies! Anequs is also slowly sort of 'domesticating' Theod, by getting him to talk to people other than the dragonskeeper more, and he does seem to be showing occasional signs of personality other than bitterness, which is encouraging.
I also found it interesting that both Marta's *and* Theod's default assumption is that Anequs should feel lucky to be where she is, with an opportunity to get "civilized" and advance in the world, and she's very firmly like, 'no, here's your patriarchal bullshit back, I shan't be needing it' in the one case and 'have you actually met any of the people from the culture you're making assumptions about, and how about we fix that' in the other.
I'm looking forward to this outing by the ragtag team of misfits Anequs has collected!
Re: through chapter 30
From:Re: through chapter 30
From:Re: through chapter 30
From:Re: through chapter 30
From:Re: through chapter 30
From:Chp. 31-40 (She learned about the keeping of dragons - Anequs and Marta roundly discussed politics)
Date: 2026-01-03 11:58 pm (UTC)But I think that's the only development, dragon-wise; everything else is all humans. I continue to be v. v. impressed with Moniquill Blackgoose's delicate hand with characters - people like Frau Kuiper and Marta are enormously sympathetic and interesting characters, while still holding very period-appropriate views, let's say. I really appreciate that they're clearly struggling to reconcile Anequs with their preexisting notions of ~Indigenous people, and even moreso that it's a slow and non-linear process. Especially with Marta, it feels very true-to-life that her genuine liking for Anequs and general desire not to be an asshole runs up against a lifetime of ingrained racism and restrictive social norms, and doesn't always win. Both she and Frau Kuiper are clearly trying to be friendly and/or kind to a person they like and respect... even if the way they go about it is
oftensometimes insulting. As always, Anequs and the narrative both do a good job of balancing "You Tried(TM)" and "(but seriously, c'mon)."The big event in this chunk, of course, is that Ivar Stafn went full Draco Malfoy, and Anequs went full Hermione Granger on him in response. >:D I really liked that scene - I found myself getting really riled up on Anequs' behalf, and I deeply admired her sincere attempts to Use Her Words as a first option; she only fell back on giving him the smacking he so richly deserved after that failed. He really was being vile, and in a particularly poisonous "what, I'm just asking innocent questions, geez, why do you have to get so ~emotional~ and ~offended~ about everything???" way.
The way Frau Kuiper and Marta reacted also had me lowkey punching the air. Frau Kuiper (who might be involved with Frau Brinkerhoff, btw? I got a very couple-y feeling from Frau Brinkerhoff's hand on Frau Kuiper's shoulder) punished Ivar in an extremely satisfying manner (making him write an essay on, essentially, Don't Be A Fucking Chode), and Marta is *going to write so many letters*. Each in their own way, they're doing their best to support Anequs; Marta in particular seems to be in the process of showing a very Sibyl Ramkin-Vimes-like side. Do not fuck with the Ladies Who Lunch! (Oh, and btw, I'm glad that Marta and Anequs seem to have patched things up after their big argument in the last chunk.)
But other things happened, besides Ivar learning the consequences of being a giant screaming douchebag! Aside from that, things have been actually a lot of fun, in that particular magic boarding school way - the Four-Man Band had an outing (Sander's crush on Marta is almost as cute as Anequs' on Liberty [and I think probably on Theod too??], btw), Anequs has done homework, dealt with bullies in various forms, we've met the salt-of-the-earth groundskeeper, and Anequs and Liberty had an outing of their own. Speaking of which! It looks very much like Liberty returns Anequs' feelings. <3
One of the ways this feels very magic boarding school-y is that the chapters are all fairly self-contained and episodic - which is a good thing! Since I usually have fairly small bursts of time in which to read, I really really appreciate not having to cut myself off mid-scene. The story itself is still moving along at a good clip, and is clearly building towards something, but I like fairly regular placement of the on- and off-ramps. :D
through chapter 40
Date: 2026-01-16 02:24 am (UTC)Anequs’s ragtag band of misfits has their outing, which is by turns cute (Sander and Marta and the serials), poignant (Theod sort of standing by awkwardly while Anequs and her brother joke around together), and awkward (Sander’s outburst and meltdown, Marta ditching them for more attractive company). I do like that Anequs’s relationship with Marta is not monotonic or particularly easy, but it’s clear by the end of this section that Marta IS committed to her, even if not always in the way that Anequs would most appreciate.
I was expecting the dragon husbandry professor and the dragon hall keeper to be… fluffier than what they ended up being, maybe because I had Hagrid in the back of my mind, lol. In reality, the professor is at best disinterested as far as Anequs is concerned, and the keeper does seem kindly, and does seem to care for his charges, but also tells Anequs “too bad you’re a girl” pretty much verbatim.
One of the quibbles I remember seeing about this book when my flisters were reading it back when it first came out were that Anequs is “too perfect” as a character. It’s not something that’s bothering me, but I think I do see where that criticism was coming from. Like, she doesn’t always do the BEST thing – while her slapping Ivar was satisfying for me as a reader, and her rescuing Sander from bullies was cathartic – it’s pretty clearly not the right thing to do in the world she’s inhabiting. The dragon keeper and Sander and Theod basically all agree that she’s solved nothing and probably made it worse in the latter case, and I just got to the consequences of the former, which is requiring a massive scramble from Frau Kuiper, and potentially putting Anequs’s people in danger. But… these are the actions that align with what a modern reader feels is right, and so it’s hard to see them as “flaws”. And it’s not that they are not plausible actions for Anequs – I do fully buy them from someone who grew up in a matriarchal society and a much more egalitarian one than the Anglish one. But it is kind of easy mode to have your protagonist only make mistakes that feel fully justified to your readers…
We got a little bit more of Frau Kuiper in this section, and I was really happy to see her again, dispensing discipline with Ivar, being straight with Anequs, like telling her she is representing her people whether she wants to or not, and also suck it up, she’s not the only one to have faced prejudice, and laying down damage control battle plans swiftly and decisively. I particularly enjoyed her advising Anequs to go back to reading the etiquette book so she understands “the rules of engagement”.
Re: through chapter 40
From:Re: through chapter 40
From:Re: Chp. 31-40 (She learned about the keeping of dragons - Anequs and Marta roundly discussed politi
Date: 2026-01-16 05:13 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think you're right. It does seem like Anequs being able to hold Kasaqua back from doing what she (Anequs) doesn't want her to do is more of a partnership of equals than just suppressing your emotions or smothering the dragon's will, which it seems like is what Anglish dragoneering is like.
people like Frau Kuiper and Marta are enormously sympathetic and interesting characters, while still holding very period-appropriate views,
Yeah, I appreciate that a lot! Especially against the modern trend of having all characters divided clearly into Good and Bad, and the Good ones not being allowed any Problematic views.
and in a particularly poisonous "what, I'm just asking innocent questions, geez, why do you have to get so ~emotional~ and ~offended~ about everything???" way.
That was so evocatively written, ahaha, I really wanted to reach through the pages and deck him myself XD
(making him write an essay on, essentially, Don't Be A Fucking Chode),
LOL!
Marta in particular seems to be in the process of showing a very Sibyl Ramkin-Vimes-like side. Do not fuck with the Ladies Who Lunch!
Now you've got me imagining Marta and Sybil striking up an interdimensional correspondence about dragons and Society :))
Frau Kuiper (who might be involved with Frau Brinkerhoff, btw? I got a very couple-y feeling from Frau Brinkerhoff's hand on Frau Kuiper's shoulder)
Ooh, you know what, I can see it!
One of the ways this feels very magic boarding school-y is that the chapters are all fairly self-contained and episodic - which is a good thing! Since I usually have fairly small bursts of time in which to read, I really really appreciate not having to cut myself off mid-scene.
Yeah, I was noticing that too, around this section. And I also appreciate that, because it's a rhythm that fits my commutes well. I don't really feel DRAWN BACK to the book when I'm not reading it, but I do think the gentler pace is OK as a choice, especially for the kind of protagonist Anequs is.
I've also been wondering about the short chapters and the way they are named descriptively and not numbered. That must be a choice, since it's an unusual approach (and it's not doing the Dumas-style "in which Our Heroes Discover a Secret and Thwart a Villain" or whatever -- the descriptions are very plain. I assume this is emulating something, but I wonder what...
Chapters 41-50 (Anequs was interviewed - The end of term approached)
Date: 2026-01-03 11:59 pm (UTC)Liberty seems...less enthused about Anequs actually making a move on her, but not from lack of interest, if that makes any sense? In fact, she does seem *very* interested in Anequs; the barrier seems to be entirely positional. Which is what I imagine the next chapter, "And she had a frank discussion with Liberty", is going to be about. It's another stupid Anglish custom, but, for the moment, an insurmountable one.
In other shipping news, Sander's (implied) eloquent confession to Marta was adorable! This was another ship that I didn't see coming, but I ain't mad now that it's here. I trust Moniquill Blackgoose enough not to break up the Four-Man Band in favor of two couples (if Anequs & Theod's attraction ever goes anywhere, that is), so for now I'm less >.> and more :)
Again, very little actual dragons in this section. There was some in the mostly-but-not-entirely-bullshit interview (which Anequs handled like a fucking *champ*, btw) about what she planned on doing after graduation, and I was surprised by how open her options seem to be! From other series like Temeraire and Pern, if you're a dragon-rider, that's just it; that's what you do. You live with other dragon-riders and do dragon-rider things together with them and your dragon. But it sounds like there's actually a pretty broad range of social and economic options for a dragoneer (assuming, ofc, that these were all legit options that Anequs is at least semi-seriously considering, rather than more flannel for the interviewer, like, "oh, I love serials! :D" and the other "look how domestic and harmless I am" stuff) - instead of entering into the military by default, she could work at the steampunk co-op, go into academia, set up a ~manufacturing plant, or just go home and do what it sounds like Nampeshiweisit have always done, which is kind of help regulate nature and facilitate things like farming, fishing, and a healthy balance between humans and nature. Imagine that! XD
I continue to find Anequs a fascinating narrator - she's very believably fifteen in some ways (her rather belated & a little embarrassed realization that more of her friends have traumatically dead parents than she had realized, her push-and-pull between "ugh, Anglish dresses and corsets" and "...actually I do look pretty nice," etc.), but a thoughtful and mature fifteen. Like, she demonstrably still finds most of Marta's frilliness kind of silly, but she's willing to listen to Marta get Very Excite about this season's fashions, because they're friends. Oh! And watching Marta develop her social judo is just a pleasure - now that she's much more aware of all the shit Anequs (and Theod, and Sander) is dealing with and how patently unfair it is, she's extending her formidable powers of Deportment to, for example, get Frau Jansen to fuck off and leave them alone.
We also got another interstitial story! In tone and kind of in content, this one was pretty much a rehash of the other saga-like one that Strida told, so I don't feel like it added as much. But it's interesting that we're now four for four for the stories being told by women! I don't think Moniquill Blackgoose is doing anything with this yet, but I'm interested to see where, if anywhere, she does take it.
through chapter 50
Date: 2026-01-16 04:27 pm (UTC)On which note – actually, two notes. First, it was really nice to see Theod in his element! He has always come across so stiff and repressed in past interactions that I was assuming that was actually his personality… but as soon as he is interacting with the dragonhall lads and maids, he is bantering and much less woe-is-me, and a) it’s lovely to see, but also b) it made the realization for me, along with Theod’s conversation with Anequs in the last chapter of this section, that the Theod we see in school context is basically his footman-trained “worksona” overlaid with extreme quantities of imposter syndrome (because if anyone is justified to feel imposter syndrome it’s definitely him). Which explains why he is, like, stoically waiting for Frau Kuiper to give up on pretending he’s a student so he can go back to the world where he is actually enjoying himself. (And it was also interesting to me that Theod seems to think he belongs among the dragonhall lads et al, while Anequs feels the two of them being Indigenous makes them separate. Both of these views make perfect sense given their different circumstances! But it is interesting to me that Theod probably wasn’t JUST saying that he feels himself a citizen of Lindmarden first just for the purposes of the interview.
Second, I’m obviously not reading this book for romance, but I am nevertheless very much enjoying the chemistry Anequs has with Theod (that waltz scene was intense!) and with Liberty. It does seem like Liberty is ambivalent about the kiss and Theod is probably going to be challenging to navigate through whatever comes after. But good for Anequs to have options! :P
On a totally unrelated note, how adorable was Anequs getting fan-mail from a 10 year old half-Indigenous girl who wants to be a dragoneer? And writing back with her favorite color and books! D’awww!
Oh, right, and chemistry note: so the glowy aether that seems to be powering tatkraft (strahlendstone) is now confirmed to be Radium (atomic number 88), which explains why it’s glowing and makes sense to be the first radioactive thing discovered (I was sure it was also the first discovered in the real world, but apparently no, it was the second, with Polonium being the first, with radium following a few months later). I am puzzled by this, though, because I don’t think Radium is actually useful for nuclear energy in a dragon-less world. Looking up the discovery of radium and polonium, both were isolated from samples of uranium ore. It was easier to isolate polonium and radium than uranium as an element, and that’s why they were discovered first… but in a world where dragon’s breath breaks down everything into its constituent elements, surely if you breathe on a sample of uranium ore, you get ALL those things, including uranium itself. Another one for my list of questions to obnoxiously ask Moniquill Blackgoose (“Est Ms Blackgoose, I do hope that you will excuse the rudeness of my sending you this letter not having been introduced to you first. I wish you to know that your story about dragons doing chemistry has affected me strongly.” :P)
Re: Chapters 41-50 (Anequs was interviewed - The end of term approached)
Date: 2026-01-16 05:25 pm (UTC)That was such a cute scene! The contrast between Sander barking "Marta. Read it." and thrusting the notebook at her -- not the most auspicious beginning! -- and what he had written, and Marta's reaction to both parts was very nicely done, I thought.
I was surprised by how open her options seem to be! From other series like Temeraire and Pern, if you're a dragon-rider, that's just it; that's what you do. You live with other dragon-riders and do dragon-rider things together with them and your dragon. But it sounds like there's actually a pretty broad range of social and economic options for a dragoneer
Yeah, that is really interesting! And I don't think I've encountered a dragon book before that had this many options either. It makes perfect sense, because the industrial applications of dragons are INCREDIBLE! much more far-reaching than military ones -- I mean, obviously, you don't want to be the only military in the world without dragons, but setting things on fire is, you know, a pretty narrow profile*, while the manufacturing applications are HUGE and incredibly broad.
*(I kind of do want to know what military applications dragons have besides just setting things on fire, though. Because once you have skiltakraft, you can very easily do a speedrun of military technology. You can make mustard gas from table salt, for starters. And I kind of feel like they should have the capability to make a nuclear bomb, although it doesn't appear that they do, at least from where I've gotten to...)
or just go home and do what it sounds like Nampeshiweisit have always done, which is kind of help regulate nature and facilitate things like farming, fishing, and a healthy balance between humans and nature.
Very AtLA vibes, I was thinking, as I read that...
Like, she demonstrably still finds most of Marta's frilliness kind of silly, but she's willing to listen to Marta get Very Excite about this season's fashions, because they're friends.
That was also very cute!
I'm also not sure what Lisbet's story was doing in terms of the larger narrative, which makes me curious, because the others were all about the different ways dragons are viewed by the culture of the story and this one is not, so what is it about, in the grander scheme of things?
Chapters 51-60 (And she had a frank discussion with Liberty - Winter came)
Date: 2026-01-03 11:59 pm (UTC)Anequs figuring out that skilta are Masquisit dances used to shape a dragon's breath (or maybe the other way around) was FUCKING AWESOME. It was very neatly-done & satisfying, narratively speaking, but also it was a great example of why I love Anequs as a POV character. She's clever enough to synthesize a lot of widely-disparate information into something new and useful, and her unique perspective means that maybe nobody else in the world could do so. I can't wait to see what she does with this knowledge... not least pass her skiltakraft class, I hope. (Oh, and speaking of which! While Professor Ibarra is not a particularly warm person but apparently a good teacher, Professor Ezel turns out to just be a shitty teacher, to the surprise of nobody.)
Moniquill Blackgoose does the very realistic two-steps-forward-one-step-back thing very well, this time re: Theod. Much like with Marta, Anequs' friendship (and maybe Something More???) with him had been progressing nicely, until they had a big blow-out fight. The animosity with Marta just kind of faded away over time, though, and this time at least Theod put on his big-boy pants to make an actual apology. An
endearinglyformal and stilted Anglish one, but still! At first I thought that this was kind of re-treading old ground, narratively speaking, but upon further thought, I do think it's doing something structurally important - Anequs is now close enough to Theod to give him a talking-to over how he can brood over being a Friendless Orphan, Alone in the World or brood over being ~Indigenous, but not both, especially when he almost certainly has living family that he's chosen not to seek out. I mean, I can absolutely see why he hasn't! But I do think he needed to hear that from Anequs, in her particularly caring but no-nonsense manner. And, oh, her running her hands over his cheeks! T.TSadly, I think the book might be a little overburdened with characters at this point, because it looks like MB is having trouble managing all of them. Marta, Sander, and Liberty haven't been mentioned at all since Anequs got back from her visit home, and haven't appeared on-page for quite a bit longer than that - I don't think she even mentioned thinking about them while she was home, either. And I'm dead sure that Ivar Stafn hasn't stopped being an asshole, but we haven't even heard about him since the editorial. Oh! And as cathartic and heartwarming as Anequs and Kasaqua going home was, I found it a little jarring for her to fall back into this very close friendship with Hekua, who I think has been mentioned by name...twice, maybe three times? in the whole book? I definitely didn't get the feeling up until this point that Anequs had a BFF that she was missing - certainly not the way she was missing her family, and maybe not at all.
Chapters 61-70 (She learned of other Anglish customs - And some truly alarming correspondence)
Date: 2026-01-04 12:00 am (UTC)Chapters 71-80 (Battle plans were laid - Spring came)
Date: 2026-01-04 12:00 am (UTC)Chapters 81-end (The gravity of the situation was made very clear - Anequs and Theod went home)
Date: 2026-01-04 12:00 am (UTC)