Beyond Revenge: The Search for True North

In Winter’s YA fantasy novel, human mages colonize a sentient planet of dragons.

Sixteen-year-old twin brothers Lando and Jaq find themselves on opposite ends of the planet Dragon Scarp, a world “capable of revenge.” Lando, a prestigious magic wielder, lives in Dragonhold, where he trains under a king who cruelly binds seven dragons in captivity. In contrast, Jaq, who was kidnapped as a child, works as a “glean,” or slave, on a merchant airship. When Lando witnesses a “culling,” the slaying of baby dragons, he redefines his goals. No longer desiring to become a dragon master, he becomes the guardian of a dragonling named Damsel instead, requiring him to flee Dragonhold. (“He had enslaved himself to this infant queen, and no dragon or person would persuade him he was wrong.”) Meanwhile, hoping to find Lando, the lower-class Jaq surreptitiously replaces his brother on Dragonhold. Readers learn that humans colonized this delicate planetary ecosystem after destroying their own world, Earth. The planet itself fights back against their presence, harming humans and the native dragons alike. Unsurprisingly, the human ecological footprint is deeply tied to complex political interests, much as in our own world. “In their ignorance and arrogance, the settlers had waged war on the planet and its dragons,” Lando learns from a forgotten settlers’ log. Dragon Scarp, a sentient planet, works to eliminate human magic even as the humans attempt to subdue dragon magic; as human magic wanes, political turmoil erupts. Winter deftly combines elements of SF and fantasy in this stirring allegory, holding up a mirror to the evils that exist in our own commercial and political landscapes, where human greed thrives. While the prose is sometimes overly explanatory, the complex narrative invites comparisons to Dune (1965), and the plot is a fun nod to The Prince and the Pauper (1881). The worldbuilding is solid, and the morals of the tale emerge naturally and organically, never feeling preachy or didactic.

A fantasy/SF yarn that provocatively explores the role of unchecked hubris in ecological catastrophe.