Book Review: A Language of Dragons

Title: A Language of Dragons

Author: S.F. Williamson

Date: 2025

Publisher: Harper Collins

ISBN: 978-0-06-3353884-8

Quote: "Those two words--Second Class--are the difference between having something and having nothing."

An even better quote for this book might come from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe: "Even a traitor may mend." This is a story about a traitor who chooses to mend. If you're looking for a young adult novel in which a girl thinks seriously about friendship and loyalty instead of bogging down in yet another Teen Romance, here is one. 

It has its flaws, of course. As the author says, a lot of things went into this novel, and they didn't all meld into a plausible whole. The world of this novel is England in an alternative history, but how that history shaped this England is hard to imagine. Viv has totally twenty-first century attitudes about her cousin's being "gay," and everyone has totally twenty-first century attitudes about how half-grown boys and girls can work together, but Britain--at a period when people were clamoring for the abolition of Britain's flexible class system and of India's rigid caste system, in our world--has adopted a rigid caste system like India's. Second Class citizens like Viv are being taught to give thanks for their blessings and stay well away from Third Class citizens, of which Viv has just caused her best school friend to be demoted to one, so they'll not be seeing any more of each other...or wouldn't, if things went as expected. Dragons are real in this world, and have their own society, with which European countries have to negotiate diplomatically, which is taking their minds off the international coalitions that occupied their attention in the real 1920s. 

Dragons, in this world, speak as many different languages as humans do but they also have a "sacred language," more like whale songs. Dragons are willing to speak human languages and teach humans most of their languages, but not the sacred one. Viv is a linguist studying dragon languages, so she's recruited to "crack the code" that is the sacred language. What she learns of the sacred language, and the reasons why it can't be used by or taught to humans, changes her politics and begins to change her character. 

You might not like Viv at the beginning of the story, but you'll probably like her at the end. If you're one of those mind-bound young people who've learned at public school that they can't communicate with or like people who don't agree with them on every point, reading her story just might open your mind a crack. This book is dangerous. It should probably be censored, or at least it will be, by the Loony Left. Reading it just might connect their children's minds to the real world again.

Another flaw is that it's not a very pleasant read. Well, some young adults want dystopian fictional worlds--this is one. The class system keeps most people much poorer than real people in the US and UK were at this period, and enforcing it has imposed martial law on the UK at a point where, in real history, it was close to being the "free country" it called itself. Of course in real history Britain, at this period, owed its relative prosperity and freedom to its colonies, which in this fictional world it doesn't seem to have, but it's not developed any alternative scheme for improving its economy, which in the real world a free country would have done. This fictional England already has a Queen and a female Prime Minister, and both of them are as deranged as George III. Instead of having a relatively good time at university, as the characters would have been doing in real life, they're in prison, pursuing their studies at gunpoint. The pressure is intense enough that some of them commit homicide and suicide; the main characters' friends try to kill them. 

Against the background of sewage Viv's, and Sophie's and Atlas's and Marquis's, attempts to clean themselves shine all the brighter. Some readers might enjoy a good cry over this book.

You can't run out and buy it yet. What I have (and am banned by contract from sharing) is an advance review copy sent to a few reviewers by the publisher. You and your favorite booksellers can check harpercollins.com for advance ordering information, though. A Language of Dragons is scheduled to reach the stores by the seventh of January.