The Dragon Waiting by John M. FordMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Ford exerts an impressive control over his story – a huge span of events, locations, intrigues and magical tricks wrestled down into very tightly-packed scenes and chapters. The compression makes catching all the details difficult, and readers are advised to refer to the excellent annotations of the Draco Concordans to make sense of the book. But the effort is worth it to see just how well Ford keeps the plates spinning. Ultimately his creation of a ‘good’ Richard III feels more like an intellectual exercise than a profound statement about the different turns history or historical interpretation can take. The triumph of the book is in its characters, particularly the four protagonists, each of whom are victims of history and empire who by extraordinary efforts, willpower and solidarity manage to turn the tables and transform their fates.
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