Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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The third volume of the Rain Wilds Chronicles begins, as do the first and second, with a cast of characters–the keepers and their dragons, people from Bingtown, the crew of the Tarman, and assorted others–before presenting a prologue. Said prologue, titled “Tintaglia and Icefyre,” focuses on the eponymous dragons as they fly and hunt together. Tintaglia assesses Icefyre as they return to a familiar landing-place, and they are ambushed as they alight. The attack fails, although it startles the younger dragon and injures her.

In the wake of the attack, the dragons confer, Tintaglia noting her inexperience with assault from humans. Icefyre opines on previous experiences and ancestral memories of such attacks and their effects, and he notes that he and Tintaglia will have to depart the area for a time–but not until they have eaten their fill from among their slain attackers. Tintaglia initially balks, and she questions one survivor. From him, she learns that the Duke of Chalced has prompted the attack, and Icefyre eats him for his trouble.

This will not be the first time I’ve written about City of Dragons, of course. In addition to occasional references in papers I’ve written for presentation, I reviewed the novel (for what all that’s worth) in another webspace I formerly maintained (find the review here), not long after it hit print, back when I had time to sit and chew through a novel in a day and write about it with daylight to spare. Certainly, there are things I miss about that part of my life, even if I did not recognize at the time the privilege I had then. That said, I am in a better place now than I was then, although it’s not the place I thought that I would be when I thought then about where I might be now.

I am struck once again by Hobb’s ability to write non-human intelligences sensibly, something that features throughout the Elderlings corpus. Admittedly, there are limits; Hobb is, to the extent of my knowledge and the public disclosures I have seen, human, and so there will be only so much of the nonhuman that she can depict. But the fact of presentation is something that continues to stand out to me, as does the believability of the same.

I note, too, that the prologue pivots into something that has been glancingly addressed in the earlier volumes of the Realm of the Elderlings corpus: Chalced. The repeated comment that “Sooner or later, there is always war with Chalced” comes to mind; the war seems to be coming. That the Chalcedean ruler is styled Duke speaks to it, as well as presenting an interesting implication for the Six Duchies; “duke,” of course, derives from dux, a Latin term for a high-ranking military leader, but in the Six Duchies, the Dukes are subordinate to a crowned King…

There will be a lot to do with this book. I look forward to doing it.

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