It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you are a fantasy book lover, you have at least one beloved book that involves dragons. Whether they are arrogant monsters like Smaug in The Hobbit or gentle and shy homebodies like the titular Reluctant Dragon, dragons are a perennial symbol of the genre, akin to the unicorn or the mermaid. I myself am one of those dragon lovers, having owned many plush dragons and imagined what having a pet dragon would be like.
While Carrie Vaughn’s Voices of Dragons is not necessarily a beloved dragon book for me, I can acknowledge its fun premise among other dragon stories written today.
Seventeen-year-old Kay Wyatt lives in a small Montana town bordering the realm of Dragon, where dragons have lived peacefully away from humans for over sixty years. When the atomic bombings of World War II shook the world’s dragons out of their hiding places, a truce was reached between humans and dragons, and the two have lived beside each other, but never really making contact, since then. One day, Kay slips into a creek and a young dragon named Artegal saves her. It turns out that Artegal is a curious young dragon who wants to better understand humans, and over time, he and Kay become friends. But there’s more going on behind the scenes than either human or dragon realize, and their friendship, as well as the world, stands on a dangerous edge…
In other words, this book is a contemporary How to Train Your Dragon, but between an American girl and a dragon capable of speech.
That does not make Voices of Dragons any less compelling or fun, though. If anything, it’s just plain fantasy wish fulfillment. And I can’t think of many other books imagining dragons as a given in modern life. With the exception of dragons just existing, the world of this book is just like our own, and that is so interesting to imagine.
Like, imagine your own life as it is right now, but colored with the existence of majestic, enigmatic creatures like dragons. That would be both beautiful and terrifying, wouldn’t it?
I like how the dragons of this book are more intelligent than the typical fairytale dragon. They can actually speak, have their own governing bodies, and are not so quick to violence. Of course, I’ve always preferred my fairytale creatures to be more gentle and friendly, making them easier to connect with and befriend.
That said, this book is not just about exhilarating flights and tender moments between man and beast. It does talk about the dangers dragons would present if they lived in modern times. While they are beautiful, they do have the power to destroy civilization, and there are entire governing bodies dedicated to keeping humanity and the dragons separate. Buildings are built to stay strong against dragon fire, and schools hold safety drills in case the dragons come to burn the world down. The world as we know it exists on the edge of destruction if anything breaks the barrier between the two worlds. And of course, Kay’s parents work very closely with groups that keep the peace, which makes her budding friendship with Artegal that much more difficult.
I like that the book gives space for Kay’s more teenage problems, such as her growing feelings for her friend Jon and her best friend Tam pressuring Kay to lose her virginity. It helps give Kay a little more depth than just the fact that she was saved by a dragon.
While I do think that Kay and Artegal’s relationship works, I kind of feel like Artegal, and the dragon world, could have been developed more.
Artegal’s curiosity is his most prominent characteristic, but I kind of wish we had seen him exert more of his dragon traits, like breathing fire or roaring like the powerful beast he is. If a character has incredible abilities, such as flight or fire-breathing or a powerful roar, then let’s see them use it a couple of times to their full extent, just to show how truly powerful they are. Since Artegal is so gentle and intelligent, I would have loved to have seen his full dragon rage come out. Especially if there was a moment where Kay or others could stand still and appreciate how powerful one young, gentle dragon can be.
Like, if a young dragon with a gentle personality can breathe such fire and make such a loud, petrifying roar, then what is a fully adult dragon capable of? Let’s see firsthand exactly why the human world is so scared of dragons! Let’s see them in their terrifying and majestic glory, wings billowing, tails lashing, fire streaming, claws out!
We hear little snippets of how the dragon world works, but I wish we had seen more dragons besides Artegal interact with the humans. If maybe Artegal had taken Kay to meet another dragon, or if another dragon appeared in the human world wanting to make a connection. Maybe one of the elder dragons Artegal mentions so often would appear at the height of the tensions, either ready to fight or negotiate another truce. The other dragons are so far away that they feel like a footnote in the story, despite being one half of the world that Kay and Artegal live in.
I also think the book ended too quickly. There is a good resolution, but I wish we had seen more of what came next, so we know that everything truly turned out all right. We get a glimpse of what comes next, but the book cuts short before the picture comes into full view. Which, for a resolution as important to Kay, Artegal, and the rest of the human and dragon worlds, is a little disappointing.
In the end, Voices of Dragons is a fun, compelling story of how our world would accommodate the existence of dragons. It ends a little too quickly, and I don’t think it takes full advantage of the dragons and their abilities, but it’s still a decent book when you need some light fantastical escapism.
The Library Key 