Perhaps the best way to describe this book is to say that Ford writes with panache. His characters are witty, or darkly brooding, or make comments that are full of deep meaning or are elliptical yet foreboding. Naturally, the characters have style to match the dialogue. One main character is a beautiful young woman whose hair is entirely white: in the first chapter she kills a vampire with medical precision (the vampire is, as it happens, the Duke of Milan). Another is an ageless wizard with one eye who only needs a pair of ravens on his shoulders to be Odin. Then there's the German engineer (his specialty is artillery) who is also a vampire, and the Greco-French (it makes sense in the context of the book) mercenary who is an almost unstoppable killer as well as, possibly, the rightful heir to the Byzantine Empire. Even the plot has style, with intrigues piled upon intrigues and wound about with plots and conspiracies, with occasional bracing intervals in which battles are fought, spells are cast, and feats of derring-do are performed. And there's enough substance to reinforce the style: Ford has a solid grasp of the basic mechanisms of suspense and is a dab hand at writing a character who is racked by a secret sorrow in his or her past (as pretty much all the important characters here are). Furthermore, his alternate history of a pagan Europe dominated by a greedily expansionist Byzantine Empire (also there are wizards and vampires) is expertly rendered and well thought out, even if it doesn't always seem plausible (essentially, Ford starts changing history in the fourth century, and yet expects us to believe that, for instance, the Golden Age of Florence in the fifteenth century occurs in much the same fashion in his universe as it did in real life). Coherence is, in fact, Ford's weakness, especially when it comes to the plotting, not all of which really makes sense. For instance, at one point Dimitrios, the above-mentioned mercenary, goes on a mission to Scotland with a Scottish spy in the employ of the Duke of Gloucester (the King of England's younger brother, later Richard III) to rescue the King of Scotland's brother, the Duke of Albany, from prison. It's never really made clear why the one duke wants to rescue the other but it's done, only it turns out it's all for nothing after all because as soon as they get back to England the spy murders the Duke of Albany and then dies without revealing why. Do we every find out the spy's motives? Not in the least: in fact, Scotland is never mentioned again in the book. The episode gives Ford a chance to show off his conception of the court of King James VI and the marginalized position of Christians (referred to as Nazarenes or Jeshites) in this universe, and of course the whole thing is as stylish as possible, but it seems a bit pointless. General comprehensibility is further hindered by the fact that the second half of the story takes place in England during the end of the Wars of the Roses (the climax is the Battle of Bosworth Field), which means that every English nobleman we meet is named Edward, Richard, or Henry, and can be referred to by either their given name or the name of their duchy or earldom (or even by their last name), making it difficult to keep straight just who is who in the tangle of competing conspiracies. Luckily, Ford is a good enough writer to carry you through the occasional rough patches in the plot without you really noticing them, and he manages to infuse a really rather squalid phase of English history with a noble purpose that in real life it certainly didn't deserve. And the best part of the book, the first three chapters, don't suffer from any of these flaws: all three take place outside of England and occur before the main plot starts, and all three are entirely brilliant.
Engaging alternate history of the War of the Roses, with, curiously, vampires, mithraism, and a dash of magic. It's unusual in structure. First, it introduces three of the main characters' backstories. Then, it turns into a brief murder mystery. Then, 40% of the way through, it introduces the main plot and piles on a plethora of new characters. Despite this approach, it largely works, and remains fairly interesting throughout.While I found the story gripping and the characters solid at times, two elements of the book hampered its success for me. First, the exposition towards the middle-end of the book is weak. Key elements of the plot and action are poorly fleshed out, and major developments and motivations are glossed over superficially. This weakness stands in marked contrast to the rest of the book, and does not serve any obvious purpose. This lack of exposition in the late game is exacerbated by the author's penchant for calling many characters, even minor ones, by different names every time he refers to them. It's like a cloud descends on the story at a key point, misting up the exposition. Luckily, it clears by the end.Second, the author introduces so many characters in the latter stages of the story -- many of which fulfill important roles -- that they are left wholly undeveloped. While this is forgivable for some of them, major players such as Hastings and Buckingham really need more development for the story to reach its fullest potential.These misgivings asides, I quite enjoyed the read. It's successful, underrated, and probably would appeal greatly to fans of other alternate histories (including that other magical retelling of the War of the Roses).
What do You think about The Dragon Waiting (2002)?
Basically what I knew going into this book was "vampires" and "the Byzantine Empire" and "Richard III." Which, don't get me wrong, are all major/central elements! And yet the book as a whole is nothing like I would have expected based on that. I don't have much to say about the book other than "it's really good." I can tell there were plenty of things I missed completely (though using the online concordance helped with others); I wouldn't be surprised if it's the sort of book I come back to in a few years and get something completely new from it.
—Schmerica
Rereading this book caused me to clarify some of my muddy thinking with respect to wish-fulfillment characters and stories and those that try to present the world as it should be, could be, might be with a little imagination and grace.The very far end of the spectrum is the so-called Mary Sue story, wherein the protagonist is the center of the universe just because the narrative voice tells us the protag is a special snowflake. Leading off down a different path is the idealized protagonist, which could be termed the Beau Ideal. In the hands of a great writer this character serves to show what humans could be, and as such he has a venerable history. Not starting with Castiglione’s Courtier as I’ve seen asserted, but farther back, and at the inspiration of a very strong woman: Eleanor of Acquitaine, who worked so hard to wrench the war hungry drive of feudalism into a semblance of the chivalric ideal because she got tired of stinking, sweaty men tromping with filthy boots into her fine rooms, blabbing exclusively of killing unruly barons and damned Saracens, to the exclusion of wit, history, song, and about anything else worth listening to.There’s a traceable line of these heroes, particularly in the hands of female authors, stemming from the Pimpernel, up through Peter Wimsey to Crawford of Lymond and those he inspired. That Beau Ideal is recognizable through his descendants—witty, well, read, courageous, seemingly immoral or amoral, but actually true to his beliefs. And he has beliefs, even if it is only in his fellow-man.I think of him as a descendent of Eleanor's vision, and in The Dragon Waiting John M. Ford gives us the splendid Dimitrios, the anchor to the story, the sign that though the world around the characters seems to be sick with disease, war, greed, ambition, and death, there is grace, even if as elusive as the echo from an unseen choir.
—Sherwood Smith
I finished the book. I got confused in the middle because I am not that familiar with English history of the period and what the book was about. I started it thinking it was a book about the survival and expansion of the Byzantine empire and various people trying to fight against it. The book was really about giving reasons for how Richard III acted. I was vaguely aware that Richard killed off all the possible rivals to the throne including two young nephews. This book explains that he was doing it to fight against various plots of the Byzantines. The main characters and the Byzantines were there just to explain that story. The book was well written and the characters were well done. People would probably enjoy the book more if they read Shakespeare's Richard III play and maybe Wikipedia.
—Michael
