The Dragon Waiting
2006-Oct-13, Friday 13:42![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qiihoskehThe Dragon Waiting by the late John M. Ford
The novel is subtitled A Masque of History; it contains a number of historical characters acting in a non-Christian Europe around the time of the Wars of the Roses. These are used in a fictional manner, some more fictionally than others.
This will be more of an attempt at analysis rather than a review, so ....
The book is divided into five parts with a total of thirteen chapters. Part One acts like a prologue and introduces each of the three main characters, Hywel Peredur, Dimitrios Ducas, and Cynthia Ricci with one chapter for each, taking place in Wales, Byzantine France, and Florence, respectively. Part Two brings the characters together with the addition of Gregory von Bayern, vampire. For two chapters, the book becomes a murder mystery in a snow-covered inn in Lombardy with almost everybody there pretending to be something different. Chapter six brings the four travelers to French France (the smallest part; most of France is either Byzantine or English).
The rest of the book takes place in Britain and centers on Richard Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, best known as King Richard III. Until the end of the book, the action parallels known history (I should note that I myself don't know history all that well). One difference is that in the novel Richard is the innocent beneficiary of others' plotting.
The "dragon" mentioned is a magical construct appearing in the last chapter.
This post is not yet complete.
The novel is subtitled A Masque of History; it contains a number of historical characters acting in a non-Christian Europe around the time of the Wars of the Roses. These are used in a fictional manner, some more fictionally than others.
This will be more of an attempt at analysis rather than a review, so ....
The book is divided into five parts with a total of thirteen chapters. Part One acts like a prologue and introduces each of the three main characters, Hywel Peredur, Dimitrios Ducas, and Cynthia Ricci with one chapter for each, taking place in Wales, Byzantine France, and Florence, respectively. Part Two brings the characters together with the addition of Gregory von Bayern, vampire. For two chapters, the book becomes a murder mystery in a snow-covered inn in Lombardy with almost everybody there pretending to be something different. Chapter six brings the four travelers to French France (the smallest part; most of France is either Byzantine or English).
The rest of the book takes place in Britain and centers on Richard Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, best known as King Richard III. Until the end of the book, the action parallels known history (I should note that I myself don't know history all that well). One difference is that in the novel Richard is the innocent beneficiary of others' plotting.
The "dragon" mentioned is a magical construct appearing in the last chapter.
This post is not yet complete.
