Dragons are people too.
And so are unicorns, gryphons, and snail sharks.
Why do I love fantasy? I enjoy the glimpse well-written fantasy books give into alternative worlds. After a long day at work, organising a conference or patiently answering emails, it’s wonderful to be able to pick up the Kindle and lose myself in a world where women take up swords in battle, the castles are magnificent, and the dragons are--
Oh, dear, the dragons. And the unicorns, gryphons, snail sharks…
But first let’s talk about the humans in fantasy books. Writers often seem to offer us a medieval society, set in a form of England which never existed. Kings and Queens, knights and cooks, stable hands and pig herders, all of which can seem like a quick shorthand so the book can focus on the characters and the action.
But a book which has a well considered social backdrop is all the better for it. How has this kingdom come into existence, and how does that history affect the way its citizens interact with each other and with other communities? Are people fixed into the social strata into which they’re born, or can they move between them? How does this affect the characters and the choices they might make?
The same cultural considerations can be applied to the non humans which feature in the story. What sort of culture do dragons come from? Do they live in groups, or are they solitary? Were they driven from the nest or did they never know their parents? Or what about unicorns? Do they live in herds, like horses, or do they have a very different social structure? Do gryphons take after eagles or lions?
Snail sharks, by the way, are my own invention, and the group noun is ‘a rabble’. You do not want to encounter a rabble of snail sharks. They have very sharp teeth and they can move very quickly. And they grow to be the size of a large dog.
When I started to write my ‘Penny White’ urban fantasy series, I wanted to offer something new to the genre. The main character, Penny, is a Church of England minister for a village in England which, strangely enough, isn’t that far from my own home. In the first book, ‘The Temptation of Dragons’, she stumbles across a dragon dying at the side of the road. To her amazement, he asks her for the last rites. And so she is made aware of the existence of Daear, a magical world which exists in parallel to our own. Lloegyr is the equivalent of England and Wales in this sister world, and it’s to this country that Penny often travels.
As Penny comes to know the non human characters, their own social structures become clear. And their cultures affect them, even as our own societies affect each one of us. For example, Raven, the dragon who has romantic intentions towards Penny, is a search dragon. Search dragons are rare, and hated by their own families for their abilities to find out treasure and secrets. Raven had to flee from his mother, or she would have eaten him. Perhaps this explains why Raven is a loner, and why he demands independence from others. ‘I’ll fight alongside Penny,’ he states, ‘but I won’t fight for her.’
Lloegyr is undergoing an industrial revolution, which is bringing all the different races (dragons, unicorns, gryphons, harpies) to live side by side in cities and towns. Cultural differences are causing tensions, particularly when cross-species romances develop. A group who are against this mixing, called Cadw ar Wahân, will attack those who dare to marry outside of their own type.
Morey, the cat sized gryphon who becomes Penny’s Associate, was once an ordained priest in Lloegyr’s Christian church. He left the Church, and his gryphon clan, when he insisted on marrying a were-fox. The loss of his two communities, church and clan, helps to explain why he has suffers from sarcasm management issues and always tries to be the cleverest person in the room.
Unicorns are viewed as fair and just, and are trusted to act as judges in the cities and towns. But unicorns derive their power from the land, and it is land which is threatened when cities and towns want to spread roads and buildings across countryside. How far are they willing to go to defend their ancient way of life? Particularly when a corporation from our world stumbles across Lloegyr, and wants to claim the lands for human use?
As for snail sharks, the fourth novel delves into their background. Let’s just say that it’s not only humans who can come up with totalitarian societies.
I gave thought to matters such as transportation (tacsi dragons provide lifts for a price) and communication (flying rats who are sent by their telepathic rat kings, and who deliver their messages in verse). What would the buildings be like, and what sort of religion would citizens of Lloegyr follow? Would they avoid the terrible practices of human industrial development, or would they use children in their factories? And would some of the species, who find it hard to cope with these changes, try to migrate to Earth?
Above all, I like fantasy novels which make me look at my own world in a new way. As one Amazon reviewer of the third Penny White novel stated, ‘The characters deal with serious world issues such as the cost of industrialization, political corruption, inter-racial marriage, homosexuality and growing pains of a religion that either needs to adapt or risk becoming extinct. And it does all of that with DRAGONS AND SNAIL SHARKS!!’
Dragons are people too. Let’s have more fantasy books which explore how culture influences both human and non human characters.
