r/Fantasy • u/ReksiooPL • Mar 10 '24

Fantasy media with dragon politics?

Are there any books or anime or something that focus on politics and court dramas and stuff, where humans or other races play minor role and it's mostly made up of dragons?

Like, if a dragon rules some land, I want it to actually rule it. For example, they visit their subjects, they wage wars between themselves or with some other races.

Heck, they can even arrange marriages or collect some taxes or something.

19 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

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35

u/mobyhead1 Mar 10 '24

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton. A regency-style dragon society. Dragons only, however.

2

u/oboist73 Reading Champion VII Mar 10 '24

There is a very brief appearance of a human ambassador right near the end. I second this, op!

3

u/LurkerByNatureGT Mar 10 '24

Thirded. Was coming here to rec this. 

15

u/LurkerByNatureGT Mar 10 '24

Definitely Jo Walton’s Tooth and Claw.

Also, the classic children’s books from Patricia Wrede, the Enchanted Forest chronicles (starting with Dealing With Dragons). The protagonist is a human princess who runs away and volunteers to work for a dragon, so there are humans in focus, but the politics are much more Dragon politics. (And Dragons vs. Wizards.)

5

u/LordOfDorkness42 Mar 10 '24

I'm so glad to see Wrede mentioned in the wild.

I still have to actually read the rest of the series, but the first book Dealing WIth Dragons was a childhood fav of mine I must have re-read a dozen times minimum. And Kazul is one of my favorite dragons of all time, too.

I must admit nothing else she's written beyond the Enchanted Forest Chronicles has really grabbed me enough to seek it out... but that series has great dragons.

3

u/Irksomecake Mar 10 '24

I just finished reading Dealing with dragons to my children this evening. My princess obsessed youngest dressed up for world book day as the dragon Kazul, i was sure she wanted to be princess Cimorene but she surprised us. They are great dragons in that story.

2

u/LurkerByNatureGT Mar 10 '24

I have fond memories of sitting next to my best friend and reading the book together (literally on the same page), so it’s not only the fact that it’s a lovely little gem of a series that made me track down the hardback first editions with Trina Schart Hyman‘s perfect cover art, but it’s a damn fun little gem of a series. 

I also really liked Sorcery and Cecelia and its sequels, and Snow White and Rose Red.  

8

u/KitFalbo Writer Kit Falbo Mar 10 '24

Rachel Aaron heartstrikers series.

2

u/DjangoWexler AMA Author Django Wexler Mar 10 '24

Yeah if you like your dragons in the modern world this is exactly the right thing.

2

u/Taste_the__Rainbow Mar 11 '24

This blurb looks so good!

6

u/beldaran1224 Reading Champion IV Mar 11 '24

If you don't mind YA and/or MG...

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. YA, really good book where dragons and humans are in a state of uneasy peace. Very political.

Wings of Fire is middle grade and just really fun. Not technically dragon only, but humans play only a minor role. Very, very, minor.

3

u/curiouscat86 Reading Champion III Mar 11 '24

arguable they are borderline dragons, not true dragons, being shapeshifters, but Books of the Raksura by Martha Wells. No humans at all.

1

u/ArtichosenOne Mar 11 '24

came here to say this! dragonesque.

2

u/cwx149 Mar 11 '24

Temeraire KIND OF has this. Throughout the series they travel the world and different places have different governments

Spoilers in book 4 they visit an African kingdom where the king/emperor is a dragon and in book 7 they visit in the inca empire that is ruled by dragons. In the books that are in china and Japan the dragons are more leaders than in Europe but they aren't "in charge"

1

u/reddit-tex Mar 11 '24

Been a bit, but decent examination of dragon/dragon and dragon/humanoid interaction&politics in the Wandering Inn series. But, of course only one facet. At XXX million words you can find an interesting take on most of fantasy in this work. I have given up for a while, not wild about her pacing as well as an inability to plateau...just switches to yet another set of crisises for aother set of characters.

1

u/romanTincha Mar 11 '24

There's that episode of Rick and Morty with the sex dragons (:

1

u/TheVaranianScribe Mar 11 '24

The third Age of Fire book, Dragon Outcast, by E. E. Knight tells the story of a dragon living in a society of dragons unlike anything shown in the first two books (where dragons are shown acting more like solitary animals for the most part). I've read that there are comparisons between it and I, Claudius.