From the moment you crack apart the pages of The Dragons of Babel, Swanwick leads you into an enchanting world that continues unfolding until the very end.

The story itself follows a young man, Will, whose village is visited by a dragon – a heaving, mechanized beast – that needs a new Rider and chooses Will to be enslaved by its consciousness. While his mind is intermittently overwhelmed, the young protagonist finds his way back to freedom – or so he believes – but is too late for repentance for his kinsfolk for his action as the dragon’s servant.

Ostracized and alone, Will sets out, braving the landscape torn and tattered by war, and gets himself tangled up in all the sorts of trouble only the most haunted of travellers can seem to fall into. Along the way, he meets allies and adversaries, and those who he can’t ever seem to figure out one way or the other.

But the grandest of charades ensues when Will finds himself swept into the tutelage of a master conman, Nat Whilk, learning and biding survival as much as anything after finding himself neck-deep into trouble by no fault of his own (but rather by Nat’s).

Painted into a corner, there is no way to go but to see it through to the end, and even Will is shocked to discover the ruse his associate has shimmied him into. And yet, at last, it all falls into place.

As much a personal story as it as a grand adventure, Swanwick’s artfully woven tale leads you through thoughtful perspectives on power and how one is affected when afforded a consequence-free choice to abuse it. While it, too, touches on a thirst for vengeance, there is the craving for peace in that dangerous, enchanting, wonder-filled world where anything can happen, or nothing at all, with even more tricks and mysteries than even the infamous Nat Whilk himself.