John Wiswell burst onto the fantasy scene with his fractured fairy tale debut Someone You Can Build a Nest In, which won a slew of awards. That book followed the exploits of a monster who wanted to be left alone to be a monster, but who also just wanted companionship and someone to love. He followed this up with Wearing the Lion – a retelling of the trials of Hercules in which all of the monsters that Hercules is supposed to kill become part of his found family. Which brings us to his latest cosy fantasy novel, The Dragon Has Some Complaints in which, it is unsurprising to learn, about a violent dragon learns to love humans (the good ones) again and becomes part of a found family.
The great dragon Garrodigh has fallen on tough times. One of his four heads (Lefty) is gone, one of his legs is broken and his wings are so damaged that he can’t fly. He is so traumatised that he can’t remember how all of this happened to him only that somehow it involved humans and their ongoing war. He also finds himself cast out from the community of wild dragons and caught in a war zone between the citizens of the flying city of Kardoša and a group called the FFR. Garrodigh hits on a plan which is gets him taken to Kardoša to be healed. On Kardoša, dragons are tamed and flown by humans. He gets a rider – Rania – and slowly starts to recover, finding himself drawn into the war but also getting closer to Rania.
Garrodigh is actually three characters – as each of the heads has a different personality. Centrehead is the most sensible of the three, although still traumatised like the others, and is the point-of-view for this story. Bottomhead is a more typical dragon, just wanting to be fed and eat people. And Upperhead believes that he is a human, which makes things a little difficult for the other two. Much like the protagonist of Someone You Can Build a Nest In, Garrodigh keeps talking about being violent and eating humans but somehow keeps finding himself doing nice things for people, especially Rania.
Wiswell puts all of his inclusivity on show in this book. The flying city of Kardoša is made up mainly from immigrants from the oppressive FFR but also the equally unpleasant Leonia. Both are fighting to incorporate the city into their hegemonies. There is plenty of queer representation, to the point where one of the characters, Oleksiy, in initially described as a ‘trans-man’. It is unclear what the point of this distinction is except maybe as an explanation as to why he had to leave the FFR in the first place.
The main story is fun and draws slyly on the current speculative fiction obsession with dragons and dragon riding. And Wiswell has some interesting twists up his sleeve just as readers might think the main problems have been dealt with. So there is plenty on the surface for readers, particularly lovers of cosy fantasy, to enjoy. The issue with this book is that, at heart, it is exactly the same story with the same message and the previous two Wiswell books: outsiders should support other outsiders; there is no such thing as real monsters; everyone just wants to be understood; love and acceptance conquers all. These are, no doubt, important messages in these times but Wiswell’s made these points before and so for those who have read his other books, his handling of them is already starting to feel a little repetitive.
The Dragon Has Some Complaints by John Wiswell
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