Book Review: The Dragon Has Some Complaints, by John Wiswell

A multi-headed allegory that rewards multiple readings

It’s tricky to attempt to pin down in a few paragraphs all the things that The Dragon Has Some Complaints is trying to say, because it operates on several layers of meaning at the same time. Its tale of a grumpy, battle-weary dragon who infiltrates a city of dragon riders to get free food while he quietly plots his revenge on humans is both hilarious and heart-wrenching, and the points it has to make about pain, kindness, hubris, cruelty, loyalty and resilience get richer the more one reflects on them.

The first and most obvious level of analysis has to do with disability and chronic pain. When we meet the protagonist, the fierce dragon Garrodigh, he’s badly injured and traumatized. In one of the frequent and interminable wars between human kingdoms, a cannon shot knocked him down from the sky, leaving him with the bones of one leg shattered, his wings torn to shreds, his four heads reduced to three, and his memory partially erased. Other dragons shun him because of an alleged closeness to humans he can’t remember. He can barely hunt his food, much less defend himself. If hunger doesn’t kill him soon, a stray cannon ball will. By the time the book starts, he already has nothing to lose.

Author John Wiswell has spoken openly and at length about his own experience with disability and chronic pain, and he uses that personal perspective to great effect in the book. Because the nature of dragonkind is all explosive fire and brimstone, Wiswell employs the imagery of water and ice whenever he needs to refer to things that harm dragons. The pain in Garrodigh’s broken bones is described as a freezing sensation, like being stabbed with needles of ice. To a dragon’s mind, the nearness of death feels cold. And in a fascinating bit of worldbuilding, dragons in this universe can’t swim. A dragon’s fire can’t survive immersion in water.

The reader will find such allusions repeatedly, because once Garrodigh sneaks his way into a dragon-friendly human city, the book takes its time to very gradually depict his recovery. These humans have an entire arsenal of techniques to rehabilitate injured dragons, but even after he has laboriously regained his full mobility, an echo of the pain still lingers. There’s no perfect cure, and a body that has taken that kind of beating will never not carry its old wounds. For a book that has dragons, this is a strikingly realistic representation of physical therapy in both its benefits and its limitations.

How the narration treats Garrodigh’s inner life is another point of interest. This dragon has three remaining heads, but the book is told exclusively from the perspective of Centerhead, who seems more in touch with reality than the perpetually hungry Bottomhead, who has no interest in complicated ideas and prefers to follow more animalistic urges, and the delusional Upperhead, who is horrified at dragon behavior and is convinced that he’s a human trapped in a bad dream. The constant disagreements between Garrodigh’s heads, with Centerhead almost always taking the role of the mediating and decision-making personality, can be read as a creative reinterpretation of the Freudian trinity of Id/Ego/Superego, with the missing four head serving as Garrodigh’s life-defining trauma, the symbolic castration in reference to which everything else is framed.

(Another possible reading of Garrodigh’s heads would view them as representing the fractured self that emerges in cases of dissociative disorders, with Bottomhead’s and Upperhead’s maladaptive coping mechanisms, as well as their selective amnesia, having developed to protect the primary identity from its life-defining trauma.)

(YET another possible reading of Garrodigh’s personality would use a Lacanian lens. The primordial Lack of the fourth head is what drives Garrodigh’s every goal and choice, and his inner conflict isn’t resolved until a later chapter where he crosses an ocean, facing the thing that can kill him. Here I should be careful not to spoil too much, but the turning point in this part of his journey is that he recovers a lost Archetypal Mother at the same time as he helps humans recover a lost Archetypal Father, an encounter that reconciles Garrodigh with both the order of nature and the order of society.)

Interestingly, with all the details the book provides on Garrodigh’s mind, it never mentions how dragons experience (or not) desire. This omission stands out because the narration goes out of its way to make a recurring joke about Centerhead’s bafflement at human sexual habits, and these moments showcase how humans can look outright alien when viewed at a distance. The human Rania, Garrodigh’s self-appointed rider, caretaker and confidant, has a head-spinningly convoluted love life that the reader only gets to see as filtered through the dragon’s inevitably inaccurate perception.

On the human side, things are no less complicated. Rania is an immigrant in the dragon rider city, a native of another kingdom with which her new home is at war. Some of her superiors expect her to simply fulfill her duty and fight, but others mistrust her by default and question the truthfulness of her sworn loyalty. These questions about belonging and acceptance mirror Garrodigh’s own dilemma regarding his place among humans: he hates them and wants to eat them all, but he’s unexpectedly met a human community where dragons are valued and cared for. Neither Rania nor Garrodigh see any reason to expect they’ll end up being loved, and finding exactly that will be the final test of their respective characters.

The Dragon Has Some Complaints continues Wiswell’s literary exploration of what we mean by the category “monster” and what we do to beings that label is applied to. Sometimes prejudice makes us eschew any attempt at communication, and sometimes we wish nothing more than to open up to each other, but never learned what to do if such connection succeeds. If you’ve ever felt it’s dangerous to open your mouth, imagine having three.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

Reference: Wiswell, John. The Dragon Has Some Complaints [DAW, 2026].

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Book Review: Point of Hearts by Melissa Scott

Continuing the story of Philip and Nico, and their secondary world next door fantasy city of Astreaint.

In recent months, Queen of Swords Press has reissued the 1990’s fantasy Points series, set in a queer alternate Europe city of Astreaint. Astreaint is placed in the world next door, with two suns, real magic, and a world where astrology actually does work. For more details on the world, you can always read my review of the reissue of Point of Hopes.

Point of Hearts is a new novel, written by Scott alone (Barnett sadly passed away in 2006), set in the city and featuring once again Nico and Philip as our primary characters and our points of view. The story builds and continues their social positions. Philip is working for the City Guard (which happened back in Fairs Point) and Nico is an Adjunct Point (which happened back in Point of Dreams). They’ve stably lived together for some time and cooperate on cases where the City Guard and the Points (the local watch of a particular section of the city) must cooperate and work together.

In Point of Hearts, in fact, they do. Nico and Philip are confronted by a series of strange events in the titular Hearts district of the city. An aristocrat, guilty of a crime against the queen, using a clever and arcane legal maneuver to put herself under house arrest in a comfortable townhouse, rather than facing more severe punishment. Strange carts rumbling through the streets of the district at night. A noted playwright is being accused of radical political ideas and targeting his plays to mock certain rich and powerful people. And there is a big aristocratic wedding with aristocratic and royal political implications involved. How do they all fit together? And why are Nico and Philip in the cross-hairs? This is the matter of the novel.

The novel makes the assumption, perhaps warranted, that you as a reader are not going to start the series here, and the writing bears that out. Scott makes only the lightest of references to previous books’ adventures, and assumes that you know that Philip and Nico have a stable, loving queer relationship (with plenty of indication that this world is queernorm, something the first novel, Point of Hopes only hinted at but further novels made much more clear and unmistakable). The novel doesn’t explain their hard won positions and only vaguely makes reference to their back stories (the fact that Philip is a foreigner is much less important here than it was in the first novel). Astreaint has a lot of gender equity, much more than even a lot of secondary world fantasy written today. Women are commonly and without reservation seen in positions of power and authority, including the Points.

A lot of the other worldbuilding is also taken for granted. You wouldn’t know, if you had not read previous novels, that astrology is a solid magical science here with results that work (earlier novels made it clear that what counts in this world is not one’s gender, but one’s stars in determining dispositions and potentials). Magic itself doesn’t play as dominant a role in this book as in previous novels, either. This is a novel that is much more of a twisty mundane police investigation and mystery than a secondary world fantasy story with magic. The city feels more mundane, much less magical than previous novels in the series. Also, the novel doesn’t worldbuild a lot with the political and social setup, trusting the reader that they know the layout and the language and rhythms of the city. If you don’t know your Point of Hearts from your Point of Dreams, or know what “calling a point” means, this is, in the end, not the novel for you. This novel is not the place to begin.

But with that said, what this provides for readers of the series, old and new, is a new story set in a beloved fantasy city with two beloved queer characters, who live, love and work together, facing their newest challenge. The novel does a really good job in not taking shortcuts. We’ve never seen “healing magic” in the world of Astreaint and so when Nico gets rather badly injured during a riot (and is also on the run at the same time from the authorities), there is a long period where the momentum of the story has to shift from trying to solve the mystery to the basics of getting Nico treatment and keeping him relatively healthy (and one step ahead of those pursuing them). The novel brings to life that in a pre-modern society without healing magic and magical potions of healing, getting severely injured is no laughing matter, and it takes time and effort to recover from. I do like this approach at grounding the reader and the characters in the seriousness of armed conflict. From a meta-story point of view, I do think that there is a bit of narrative drag and loss of momentum that results from this turn of events.

In the end, though, we boil ourselves back down to the basic question: who is (that I perceive to be) the intended reader and is that reader going to be satisfied with the book. Once again, this is book is for a fan of the Points series. Perhaps they read Points of Hopes in the 90’s and are delighted there is now a new novel in the series. Perhaps they recently picked up Point of Hopes and the subsequent reissues and are looking for more. Either of those readers, then, are going to be well satisfied with this newest installment, especially if they are here for the Nico-Philip relationship (readers more interested in magic, or astrology or other aspects of the series are going to be less content, although they will find this well written).

Is the Points series still relevant? Still vibrant? Still necessary? I think this book proves that the answer to all of those questions is, unimpeachably, yes....but for existing readers of the series.

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The Math

Highlights:

• The first new Points book in far too long,and very welcome for the series continuation.
• For fans of the series who can’t get enough of Nico/Philip
• A queernorm secondary world early renaissance era fantasy world with gender equity.
• Good thematic cover that fits with the previous reissues of the series

Reference: Scott, Melissa, Point of Hearts [Queen of Swords Press, 2025].

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Book Review: Point of Hopes by Lisa A. Barnett and Melissa Scott

The first in a series of city state fantasy novels set in a fascinating and diverse world, re-released after two decades.

Back in 2018, I coined the phrase “City-State Fantasy” in a review at Reactor in discussing Sam Hawke’s City of Lies. It’s a type of fantasy of medium states, set exclusively or almost exclusively in and around a city-state, which itself is a common location in fantasy. However, when the characters and the plot of a secondary world fantasy novel are inextricable from their city setting, and that city is itself a character, then you have city-state fantasy.

Point of Hopes, the first in a series of novels in the 1990’s by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett, fits well in that tradition. In particular it follows a line that goes from the city of Tremontaine (as written by Ellen Kushner in her Riverside novels and stories, through Point of Hopes, and on to works like Silasta, the aforementioned City of Lies, or the many Maradaine novels of Marshall Ryan Maresca, or the Kithamar novels of Daniel Abraham). I had read Point of Hopes (but not its sequels) in the mid 1990s, and so this first volume was a re-read for me.

Point of Hopes is set in a world where the city of Astreaint is not an individual political entity, it is the capital of a kingdom. However. all of the action takes place within its borders (aside from one culminating excursion). Astreaint’s technology is in our terms in mid to late 16th century in terms of firearms--flintlock firearms are just starting to replace wheellock firearms. Other technology we see seems to be in keeping with the period except for one thing that is definitely ahead of the curve, and that is clocks.

Astreaint, you see, and the entire world from what we can tell, is obsessed with keeping time, and the precise knowing of the hour is important. Why? Well, because in this world, magic most definitely exists, and more importantly, astrology here is both a magic and a science, and the stars most definitely affect one’s proclivities and strengths. It is made clear that the stars and one’s astrology are not *destiny* but they are a strong factor that cannot and should not be discounted in considering things like one’s occupation or career. So, knowing when you were born, as accurately as possible, is something that is rather important to the people in the world of Astreaint.

Oh, and there is one interesting bit, not used as much as it might be in this novel. And that is the world of Astreaint has two suns. There is a regular sun and a “winter sun” and it is clear that the orbital dynamics of the solar system are rather interesting (assuming this is a Copernican model of the universe, not at all certain of that!). I found myself imagining the lighting challenges of photography and graphic arts in capturing images in this world.

There are other forms of magic which are studied and practiced in Astreaint, too, particularly necromancy. The form of necromancy we get in the Point of Hopes universe is speaking with the spirits of the dead, that is to say, ghosts. The necromancer we meet in the story, a secondary character, becomes important less because of his skill in this area, and more in his more general skill as a sorcerer in general.

Our two main characters, our point of view characters who are on a slow burn romance (that will not bear fruit until later books) are an interesting mismatched pair. Nicolas Rathe is our street smart, from the streets pointsman (police man) who knows all the criminals and knows his beat rather well. He walks the mean streets of Astreaint, and, in contrast to many of his counterparts and fellow members on the force, is honest and doesn’t take bribes. On the other hand, he does have a friendship with a Wilson Fisk like character, Caiazzo. Caiazzo definitely is a crime lord but also has a lot of legitimate businesses.

Philip Eslingen is a soldier who has just finished a stint in a mercenary company for a rival nation, looking to bide his time and find some side work in Astreaint until, possibly, campaigning season starts again and he can pick up the trade of war once more. He’s good at fighting and relatively honest, and a pretty solid shot with his guns. He is a foreigner, however, and is used to show the prejudice the residents of Astreaint can have against Leaguers like him (the two nations fought a war recently, and even if there is trade between them).

These two meet as the city propels itself toward its annual fair, a celebration that this year is tainted and under threat, and forces Rathe and Eslingen into an uneasy but slow burning partnership and friendship.

The actual main plot, once we get the city and its nature and the nature of this world under its feet, is a mystery: many children are disappearing, more than be accounted for in the usual set of young people running away from their guild positions, or running to join mercenary companies, or trading caravans, or the like. How and why the children are disappearing does in fact, as you might expect, ties in directly to the astrology of the setting, but who and what and why I will leave for you to discover.

I will point out that the book is a slow burn in far more than just the romance. The plotting of the book is distinctly sedate if not slow. This gives us a lot of time to soak in and get to know Eslingen and Rathe and the characters around them rather well, as well as the world that they inhabit, before we get the plot in full motion. This may be a slight weakness to readers with modern sensibilities who want more crackle and pop and forward momentum from the get go. We get to meet a lot of characters, set up a lot of situations and take time in getting things together. The sheer legwork a pointsman has to do in finding that there IS a problem and that it is worse than anyone suspects does consume a fair amount of the book. It does give us through Rathe an opportunity to meet a variety of characters and see a variety of areas of the city, not just in his district (point), the titular Point of Hopes. It goes to, perhaps to a fault, to my thesis about city state fantasy making the city a character in and of itself. Astreaint definitely is definitely described in detail as the novel progresses. But it may take too long for modern readers.

Aside from that, however, I think the book has aged rather well. I did recall the incident that is depicted on the old cover of the book quite well (and rather disappointed, however, to learn that they were distinctly far more minor characters in the overall scheme of things than I had realized.). The casual accepted queerness of the novel’s setting is something I had not recalled in the earlier reading, but here, it is clear that Astreaint is close to what we would call queernorm, with one of the main characters possibly bisexual. No one makes any hay or deal out of it. Also, the role and positions of women in the world of Astreaint are strong and equal to men. The monarch is a queen, we come across many important members of the community as being women, including members and leaders of the Points themselves.

In fact, Point of Hopes makes it clear you can take an early Renaissance setting, not quite a analog of our own world, and improve on it by making it queer friendly, and balanced in terms of the roles and social power and position of women and men in society. This is a lesson that Point of Hopes got right three decades ago. And gets it right today, now that it is widely available again.

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Highlights:

• Strong sense of place and location
• Queer and diverse world
• A successful relaunch of a fantasy classic 

Reference: Barnett, Lisa and Scott, Melissa, Point of Hopes, [Queen of Swords Press re-release, 2024]

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.