One of the most controversial trilogiesof the year in the fantasy book world has to be Janine Cross' DragonTemple Saga. The second book in the series, Shadowed by Wings,
has just hit the shelves. It continues the tale of a young woman serfnamed Zarq, whose sleepy peasant life is ripped apart when members ofthe brutal ruling theocracy destroy her village, drive her motherinsane, and propel her sister into a life of sexual slavery. One ofthe peculiarities of Zarq's culture is that its feudal system is founded on a "Temple" that preaches dragon worship. Thesearen't your Pernie, Anne McCaffery dragons, though. They're more likesomething out of Heronimus Bosch.
Cross' dragons secrete a venom on theirtongues that's a combination of heroin, LSD, and the best aphrodisiacyou've ever had. In book one of the series, Touched By Venom,
Zarq joins a small, underground group of Temple acolytes who performan ancient dragon ritual known only to the oppressed natives. Dear reader, these ladies lay with dragons. Oh yes. The dragonsbury their venomous tongues deep in our acolytes' trembling netherregions, combining the very best of oral sex, hard drugs, bestiality,
and cosmic orgasms. Needless to say, the experience is ratheraddictive. It also creates a brief psychic connection between human and dragon, which turns out to be crucial to the plot of book two.
This isn't to say men are immune to thelure of the dragon. In the opening scene of Touched By Venom,
Cross describes a public dragon-worship ritual in which the“dragonmaster” whips a group of boys he's chosen to serve thedragons with him. Covered in dragon venom, his thick leather whipgets all the boys so hopelessly high that they wander around withgiant erections, called “venom cocks” by Zarq's people. There's agiant parade every year to honor the dragonmaster, and attendeesopenly admire the venom cocks on display. Publisher Roc handed outtearsheets of this chapter to drum up interest in the book atWorldCon last year, and were met with resounding shock. While someembraced it as brilliantly perverse, others condemned it assensationalism and bad writing.
There's no doubt that Cross indulges in the usual baroque prose of fantasy, but it's no worse than H.P.
Lovecraft or Robert Jordan. And I would argue that her nightmarishworld, with its sexual slaves and disenfranchised natives, is far morecompelling than almost any other in contemporary fantasy fiction.
Cross' trilogy is best understood as a fantasy version of Dorothy Allison's Bastardout of Carolina. While Allison's "poor white trash" character Bone is sexuallytortured by her father, Zarq is tortured by her crazed, supernaturalmother as well as her addiction to dragon sex. What the two novelsshare is an unflinching look at how poverty and dispossession canravage people physically and psychologically.
In Shadowed by Wings, Zarq'smother has taken the form of a magical bird whose single desire is tolocate Zarq's enslaved older sister Waivia – and she uses everykind of magic she can to torment Zarq into carrying out this task forher. But Zarq has plans of her own, and when she secretly quaffsdragon venom she is temporarily immune to her mother's influence.
Most of Shadowed follows Zarq as she infiltrates the all-maleorder that serves the local dragonmaster. Her dream is to become the firstfemale dragonmaster, with her own clutch of dragons. She's aided byan unusual dragonmaster who mentors her because he's part-native, andbelieves an old myth that one day a woman will liberate his peoplewith the help of a spirit bird (which would be Zarq's mother).
Shadowed fills out more of thepolitical world that Cross introduced in Venom, exploring thecolonial system of military men, theocrats and aristocrats whosesquabbles are about to erupt in civil war – and possibly war withthe distant island nation whose imperial court controls them all. Ofcourse there's more dragon sex, more drugged-out eroticism, beatings,
enslavement, and horrifying family dynamics. Plus starvation.
Throughit all, Zarq's determination to survive – and her refusal to bestay in her (female) place – makes her a hero. She's hardly theheroine of typical fantasy novels, though. Her addiction is drivingher literally insane, and she has a history of destroying the peopleshe loves. Zarq is in the Conan mold of heroism: she fightstooth and nail to win, and she's not afraid to play as dirty as thesituation requires. Unlike Conan, however, she's lucky to findherself in a smart narrative with intriguing subtext. If you likeyour stories served up raw and bleeding, put the Dragon Temple Sagaon your weekend reading list.
Shadowed by Wings [Janine Cross]
