In “Draco Campestris” by Sarah Monette there’s a museum with a bunch of dragon skeletons and a dragon ghost that only pale-eyed tithe-children can see. The Empress is about to deliver the death penalty to her daughter, Lady Archangel. The Director plans to whip the skeletons out to the front of the museum for all to see (they’ve been languishing in some dark corner of the museum for a long time) and the taxonomist goes about his job.

With no beginning, no ending, and scarcely a middle, this plotless story also suffers from infodump-itis. But I could have ignored all of that and still enjoyed the story if there had been characters worth caring about. But alas, the characters felt more sketched on than all the museum descriptions. All I can say is that Ms. Monette took to the difficult challenge of taking the experimental route with this piece, and for that I applaud her attempt. But this reader felt completely lost through the whole thing.