Within the Sanctuary of Wings (Marie Brennan)

Within the Sanctuary of Wings: A Memoir by Lady Trent
A Natural History of Dragons series, Book 5
Marie Brennan
Titan Books
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: In her years, Isabella, now titled Lady Trent, has made quite an impression, both in the field of dragon studies and in society as a notorious, occasionally scandalous woman who dares study science. With this memoir, she recalls her most famous excursion, the one that made her a worldwide celebrity and changed everything everyone thought they knew about dragonkind. During the so-called Aerial Wars, with the Yelangese and Scirlings one-upping each other in the development of airborne caeliger craft (a technology only made possible with preserved or synthetic dragonbone), Isabella and her linguist husband Suhail receive a most unusual visitor: a Yelangese man who wants her help investigating an unusual mummified dragon, found frozen in the forbidding Mrtyahaima mountains. This will put her right in the lap of hostile Yelang, with whom she already has contentious relations (not just due to being a Scirling woman, but personally)... but Isabella is stagnating at home after so many years abroad, and his imperfect descriptions of his findings are too great a temptation for her to resist. Along with her husband, her long-time associate Tom, and a colonel escort from the army, she sets out into the very jaws of danger, into regions few humans dare to tread... and into a discovery that rewrites the book on the dragons and the long-lost Draconean civilization whose remains dot the world.

REVIEW: The final book in the main series, this installment concludes the arc of Isabella's journey, from her childhood studying sparklings in the family garden to being recognized as the most preeminent dragon researcher of her time. She's a little older, a little wiser to the ways of the world (and its intractable politics), but still has her passion for dragons and her insatiable drive to push boundaries and explore and learn, even if it gets her in over her head. Tom has moved further into the background as her new husband and partner Suhail joins the crew, but it's Isabella who remains the driving force behind the story. This story moves into the in-world equivalent of the Himalayas, complete with a "lost world" that Isabella discovers in their forbidding heights; the story wavered on the edge of losing a half-star with some of the revelations here, but ultimately found its balance, and it was in keeping with the overall retro/Victorian adventure feel of the series. Like the other stories, it moves at a fair clip, and while characters make mistakes they generally figure out ways to rectify them on their own. The ending feels both a touch drawn out and rushed, if that makes any sense. Overall, though, this is a solid conclusion to a solid series, with some great adventures and excellent dragons along the way.

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