***** - Excellent
**** - Good
*** - Okay
** - Bad
* - Terrible
+ - Half-star
Voices of Dragons
Carrie Vaughn
HarperTeen
Fiction, YA Fantasy
***+
DESCRIPTION: Kay knew she was pushing the rules when she went rock climbing alone so close to the border, but she didn't really expect much trouble. After
all, dragons rarely ventured within sight of the human lands, and though the military patrolled to keep thrill-seekers away, she had grown up in these woods and knew
where the gaps in security were. And it wasn't like she was actually going to cross the creek that marked the boundary. She just wanted to get away from the pressures
of being a teen, not to mention being the daughter of the town sheriff and probably the only junior in high school not to have a boyfriend.
When she takes an unanticipated tumble, Kay finds herself on the wrong side of the border - rescued by a dragon. Artegal is just as curious about humans as Kay is
about dragons. Though neither species have talked to each other in sixty years, ever since the boundaries between human lands and the dragon domains were set, Kay and
Artegal strike up a tenuous friendship. But humans haven't forgotten the terror that dwells in the north, the horrors of the dragons' re-emergence after World War II,
the fiery battles, not to mention their own instinctive fear of the giant beasts. All too soon, decades of stalemate and tension erupt into violence, and Kay and Artegal
find themselves caught in the middle. Can a teen girl and a young dragon stop a genocidal war, or is the hatred too strong on both sides?
REVIEW: A fairly fast read, this story feels a bit obvious from the start. Vaughn's tale is set in a modern-day world where dragons are real. Once in a
while, the integration feels unnatural. Vaughn's dragons are disturbingly vague. Through the entire book, we readers learn next to nothing of their species and culture;
the dracophile in me kept asking for more. The speed with which Kay and Artegal bond also feels forced, especially as much of their early friendship is glossed over in
page count; they don't seem to have that much in common, really, until Kay figures out how to rig a flying harness from her rock climbing gear. We readers don't see
Artegal's struggles, so we have little idea of what the dragon goes through when the relationship is discovered - a shame, as it would've made the dragons into a
better-rounded species - but Kay endures all manner of problems, from family tragedies and threatened friendships to manipulation by the military. She has a believably
hard time, trying to balance the fears of her friends and family with her own belief that there is a better way for everyone. Some moral ambiguity comes into play as
the re-ignited violence claims loved ones of both Kay and Artegal; Kay must reconcile her feelings of interspecies friendship with horror at what dragons are capable
of, but for the most part the "good" characters are reasonable and the "bad" ones are prideful hotheads, making the battle lines pretty clear. Without dealing in spoilers,
I can't get too specific, but the ending feels unsatisfactory, a trailing thread that ought to be tied up, or at least lead into another story.
In the end, I could only work up enough interest to add an extra half-mark to an Okay rating. Better fleshing-out of the dragons and the integrated world, plus a more
conclusive ending, would've probably bumped it up a notch, but I've definitely read worse.
You might also enjoy:
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Dragon's Keep (Janet Lee Carey, YA Fiction - A princess is born with a dragon-claw finger in a kingdom terrorized by dragons)
Dragons in the Stars and Dragon Rigger (Jeffrey A. Carver, Fiction - In an future where lucid-dreaming "riggers" pilot interstellar ships, a female rigger befriends the dragons of hyperspace)
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher (Bruce Coville, YA Fiction - A boy buys a dragon's egg at a magic shop, never expecting it to actually hatch)
The Knight and the Dragon (Jody Bergsma, YA Picture Book - A knight who has never fought dragons meets a dragon who has never fought knights)
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The Dragon of Lonely Island (Rebecca Rupp, YA Fiction - Three children find a three-headed dragon on their great-aunt's island)
Heroes of the Valley (Jonathan Stroud, YA Fiction - Raised on tales of his heroic ancestor, a boy attempts to avenge his uncle with disastrous results)
Dragon's Bait (Vivian Van Velde, YA Fiction - Falsely accused of witchcraft, a girl teams up with a dragon to exact revenge)
The Leviathan trilogy (Scott Westerfield, YA Fiction - A London girl posing as a boy and the hunted son of the slain Archduke of Austria form a friendship amid the fires of an alternate World War 1)
The Dragonback adventures (Timothy Zahn, YA Fiction - An interstellar boy thief reluctantly teams up with a symbiotic dragon-alien to save the galaxy)
How to Train Your Dragon (Single Disc Edition)
(2010 DVD - A misfit Viking's forbidden friendship with a hated dragon may save both of their worlds; based on the book by Cressida Cowell)
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