Daniel Fox, Dragon in Chains

[ellarien]

A vast empire has fallen to revolution and civil war, and the Emperor and his court flee to an offshore island that's barely big enough to hold them and their army. A pirate's greed loosens the bonds on the great dragon chained in the strait. The parallels to China and Taiwan are obvious; this is a fantasy analog where the life-extending powers of the jade mined on the island are real, and so is the dragon, where an emperor can take a fisher-girl for a concubine, but death and destruction and pain are none the less real for that.

If you like Chaz Brenchley's writing, you should enjoy this; it has the same lyrical vividness. (And if you haven't tried it yet, it's well worth a look.) I look forward to the sequel.