Draigon Weather

The arduous brick-by-brick building of Christie’s hardscrabble world, Arnan, makes for a slow start to her debut fantasy, despite the in medias res kickoff. Cleod, a guard for a merchant caravan, sits horseback, gazing at a drought-stricken landscape. Christie only gradually reveals why it’s arid, why he’s there, or why a reader should care. The backstory unfolds painstakingly in time-skipping flashbacks from Cleod’s perspective and that of his schoolmate, Leiel, a scrappy girl whose mother is selected as a sacrifice and burned when Leiel is just nine years old. Only “bad girls” get selected—by an all-male council—and their female relatives are forever tainted by association. The sacrifice is offered to appease the Draigon, whose superheated body and malice are at the root of the land’s periodic droughts. Naive and loyal, young Cleod vows to train as a dragon-killer and avenge Leiel’s loss. The distance between that youthful vow and the middle-aged minder of a struggling caravan is the substance of the tale. It’s hardly a rousing page-turner, but Christie’s skillful evocation of a disintegrating landscape and the dysfunctional society grappling with that disaster is worth being patient for, as is Cleod’s gritty, desolate perseverance. (May)