Dylan Taylor asked Marie Brennan:

Thank you for answering! And that answers half of my question. The other half is, why did you decide to aim for realism with the dragons? I like the fact that they aren't magical, while I appreciate such fantasy the more realistic approach seems to bring them much closer home.

Marie Brennan The inspiration for the series came from two things that both treated them from a more realistic/scientific angle: DRAGONOLOGY and the DRACONOMICON sourcebook from 3rd edition D&D. Granted, the latter is not actually talking about non-magical dragons -- but what inspired me were the sections on life cycle and so forth, and particularly the skeletal drawings Todd Lockwood did, so my brain was in biology rather than fantasy gear. And it seemed like a fresh angle, so I ran with it!

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