Adara is a “winter child,” born during the harshest freeze in her farming village’s history. Her mother died in childbirth, leaving Adara in the care of her two older siblings and her father. The mark of winter lingers on Adara as she ages. She shows little emotion, doesn’t cry, and rarely laughs. While other children frolic in the warmth of summer, Adara is happiest when the dead of winter extends its cool touch over the land.
Adara’s Uncle Hal is a dragonrider in the kingdom’s army, which is at war with an army encroaching from the north. Hal urges the family to flee south, but Adara’s father refuses. During the harsh winter and with the threat of destruction looming, Adara encounters the ice dragon. It breathes cold instead of fire, and everyone fears it. Everyone but Adara. She rides it through the gloomy winter skies and enlists its help when the war finally reaches her village.
The story focuses on a small family unit existing within the implications of something bigger (a coming war with dragons fighting in the skies). Most readers could finish the story in one sitting, and I appreciate its in-and-out nature. Martin doesn’t dwell on unnecessary ideas or trap himself in literary corners. Is this a problem with his other work? Golly gee, I wouldn’t know!
Winter is the thematic star of the show in The Ice Dragon, and it seeps into every corner of the story. Cold. Ice. The long dark. Everyone in the family is frozen in some way. John, Adara’s father, has a stunted emotional relationship with the daughter whose birth coincided with his wife’s death. Adara’s sister Teri steps into a motherly role, parentified after her mother’s death. Hal is locked in a senseless war that he will likely die for. Geoff, Adara’s brother, idolizes the glorious stories of dragonriders without sparing a thought for the grisly consequences. Grief, duty, and naivety all wear the same frost.
By contrast, Adara is the only one who wears winter on the outside, and it’s why she’s viewed as odd. Though she’s only seven, she understands she has been othered. She knows her father refuses to connect with her. She inherently knows she isn’t “normal” by the standards of those surrounding her. Yet Adara is also the one who finds something worth loving in the cold. Through her, Martin lets winter be more than a metaphor for loss. It’s also stillness, clarity, and a strange kind of companionship. And without spoiling the ending, the story does eventually offer a thaw. It doesn’t solve grief so much as show what it costs to set it down.
I especially appreciate Martin’s ability to plumb these thematic depths without being hamfisted about it. The plot is blunt and brisk. The feeling underneath it is anything but. The text is simple enough, but the subtext breathes cold, wintry life into the tale.
I enjoyed The Ice Dragon aplenty, and hey, maybe I’ll read some of this author’s other work. Who knows? It’s a sure-footed story that handily carried its thematic weight without crumbling beneath it. I’ll revisit the story in the dregs of Chicago’s famously terrible winter or when I need to reflect on a loss of my own.
Rating: The Ice Dragon – 8.5/10
