Review of The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

Note: The Book Stop is on vacation!  This post was written in advance.  But please feel free to comment.

If you like well-written fantasy with a strong female character, this is the book for you.  The Hero and the Crown won a Newbery Medal in 1985, which is awarded once a year to the best novel in children’s literature.  This may be a children’s book, but the writing is incredibly adult.  McKinley gives us a fantasy novel that doesn’t rely on the standard tropes and doesn’t take any easy ways out.

Aerin is the daughter of the king of Damar, but she’s never been accepted by the people because her dead mother was rumored to be a witch who enspelled the king into marrying her.  Even worse, royalty in Damar are expected to manifest some magical talents by adolescence and Aerin has failed on that front.  She’s not beautiful, not talented, and mistrusted by her peers.  Her only support comes from her father, her best friend Tor, who is the next in line to be king, and her maid Teka.

Her life becomes more interesting when she rehabilitates Talat, the old and lamed horse who rescued her father in battle but hasn’t been ridden since.  She also creates a new way of riding without stirrups or a bridle.  She and Talat heal each other.  Then, while reading a book about fighting dragons, she discovers an ancient recipe for an ointment that protects skin from dragonfire.

In the world McKinley has created, dragons are small but because of their fire, incredibly dangerous to kill.  They prey on crops and villages, and it usually takes a team of trained warriors to slay one.  And lately, the threat of dragons has been increasing.

This is an incredible fantasy novel, and a surprisingly challenging read.  McKinley writes in a complex, lyrical style, which is at times almost dreamlike.  Most fantasy isn’t “literary” but this one is.

The book mixes the expected (dragon battles) with the unexpected (her visit to Luthe and the Lake of Dreams).  As with most fantasy, Aerin is destined for more than she realizes.  But each battle is hard fought and nothing comes easy to this heroine.

This is the kind of book I would love for my nieces to read, because I know it will make them think, but also because Aerin beats most heroines for bravery and strength.  I think this is a book you could read a few times and get more out of each time.

Review of Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

Over Sea, Under Stone is the first of five books in Susan Cooper’s classic children’s series, The Dark is Rising.  She won a Newbery award for the fourth book, The Grey King.  It’s on my Classics Club list and also counts towards the Around the World in 12 Books Challenge.  March’s country is Wales, and even though this book takes place in England, it’s based on Welsh folklore.

I’m not sure how I missed this series as a child, but this book was a fun read, if a little traditional.  It’s based on Arthurian legend – and according to Wikipedia, is a mix of Celtic and Norse mythology as well.  It’s classic English fantasy – a little lighter than C.S. Lewis and darker than E. Nesbit, and Edward Eager.  Three children, Jane, Barney and Simon, come to Cornwall for a holiday.  Their parents, as in all great children’s fantasy, are absent for most of the book.  And then there’s mysterious Uncle Merry.  Of course they’re staying in a mysterious old house, and on the first rainy day, they decide to explore and they discover a very old, very cryptic map.  This sets them on a quest to find King Arthur’s Holy Grail, before the forces of darkness can find it.

Since Book One is clearly a set-up for the rest of the series, it’s difficult to review.  I’ll just say it was a quick and entertaining read, although a little far-fetched a few times, as the children escape their evil pursuers just a little too easily.  On the other hand, their escapes may be part of their enemy’s evil design.  The children know that by searching for the Grail, they run the huge risk of leading the enemy right to it – but they go ahead anyway.  There were a few times I wanted to slap them – but then this is a book written for kids, not for me.  This felt like a “starter” book – written for younger kids but wanting to be a lot darker.

Still, I enjoyed the Arthurian background and who doesn’t like a good treasure hunt?  It’s Narnia without the religion, which I appreciated.  Character development was good for this kind of book and I expect will grow a lot in the future books.  I hope to see Jane’s character developed further as the boys had a lot of the adventures in this book.

If you’ve read the series, I’d love to hear whether I should keep reading.  The other fantasy series I need to read is the one by Lloyd Alexander.  Which would you recommend?

Review of Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

Storm of Swords is the third book in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, and it will be airing on HBO beginning March 31.  It’s also the book most people say is their favorite in the series.  And while I found Book Two kind of disappointing, Book Three was worth the read.

If you haven’t read or watched Game of Thrones, and you’re wondering what all the fuss is about, these books are definitely fuss-worthy.  Martin has created a fantasy world on the scale of the Lord of the Rings, complete with detailed languages and history that goes back hundreds of years.  You get all the fun of brutal medieval battles plus dragons and zombies.  It’s fantasy, but what a lot of people love about Martin is that the humans come first in the story, and the fantasy creatures are kind of a backdrop.  For now anyway.

I enjoyed Book Three a lot more than Book Two – Book Two was a lot of battle strategy and also seemed like a transition book.  Plus Book Two seemed to spend a lot of time on the less likeable characters.  In contrast, Book Three felt like it gave you more on the characters you love, plus it really developed some characters that hadn’t been developed before (namely, Jaime Lannister).  Another thing I like about Martin is that there are characters you’re supposed to love, characters you’re supposed to hate, and then a bunch you’re not quite sure of.

I won’t deny that this book drove me crazy.  While I was reading it I thought it would never end.  I would watch the percentage meter on the bottom of my Kindle and it just did not budge.  You think these books are a quick easy read, but they are crammed so full of characters and back-history and cities and islands and kingdoms you need an encyclopedia sometimes to follow what’s going on.  You have to be able to tell the Martells from the Tyrells, for example, and you have to know that Davos is a character but Daavos is a town.  You have to know who is from which royal family, who’s a Brother of the Watch, and who’s a wildling.  Just for starters.  There is a guide in the back of the book if you need it.

Martin doesn’t make these books easy on the reader, but I kind of respect that.  It’s like you’re in his world now, and he’ll do what he wants with you.  Which includes making you wait a hundred pages or more to find out whether your favorite character lives or dies.  And with Martin’s books you know anyone can die at any time.  It’s amazing how much that adds to the suspense of a book.

Should a writer write for his readers?  You would think the answer is clearly yes, and yet… I recently heard an interview with writer Jennifer Egan on the subject of how much a writer should care about the opinions of readers while writing a book.  She received tons of comments on her “Powerpoint chapter” in A Visit from the Goon Squad, which won a 2011 Pulitzer and is supposedly being adapted as an HBO series.  A lot of readers told her they couldn’t get through that chapter and either skipped it or stopped reading at that point.  Egan says that chapter is one of the most pivotal in the book and she couldn’t have written it any other way.

I’m telling you nothing about Storm of Swords because anything plot-related would be a spoiler.  Read these books if you enjoy fantasy, or watch Game of Thrones and see if it suits you.  These books are long, complicated, and VIOLENT.  Just so you know.  But Martin has a way of sucking you into his world that very few writers can match.  So when I got close to the end, I felt relieved – and when it was over, I felt like something was missing in my life.

New Science Fiction and Fantasy in 2013

While I’m working on a few reviews, I wanted to post this awesome link to all the best 2013 science fiction and fantasy novels coming out in 2013.

My husband sent me this link, and the first thing that struck me about this list was how many of my favorite authors AND my husband’s favorite authors are included. And we don’t share much in our reading tastes.   Mine: Diana Gabaldon, Kate Atkinson, Stephen King, Gail Carriger, Neil Gaiman, Paulo Bacigalupi, Terry Pratchett, and Brandon Sanderson.  His: Charles Stross, Peter Hamilton, James A. Corey.  We both like Robert Sawyer, John Scalzi, and J.R.R. Tolkien (yes, new Tolkien coming out!).

But what really struck me about the list is how gender-neutral most of it seems.  My husband reads really “male” science fiction (he calls it “hard” science fiction, tee hee).  I like science fiction that’s more plot, less science, like Ray Bradbury or the recent anthology I read, Diverse Energies.  I’m struggling with the term “gender-neutral”, which seems a horribly dry way to discuss books, but what I mean are books that aren’t girly and not screamingly-male.

For example: urban fantasy or steampunk usually = girly.

Space opera = only guys are reading this stuff.

But look at most of the books on the list and you tell me where the categories fall.  You can’t.  Sure, I’m judging mainly by the covers, but let’s face it, science fiction and fantasy covers are usually about as gender-specific as you get in the world of fiction.  And even though I hardly read books with physical covers any more, covers still determine who buys what book.

For a collection of science fiction and fantasy to look this varied says a lot about the changing world of science fiction and fantasy.  I see boundaries being mixed, borders being crossed.  I’m happy to see writers like Stephen King and Diana Gabaldon being included in science fiction and fantasy rather than segregated in the back of the store as horror and romance.  I see new ideas about what is science fiction and fantasy, and women writers emerging as more equal in the field.

Granted, I’m seeing a lot from just a list.  And I’m sure there’s room for criticism: too many series books?  Too much YA?  Too many white authors? What do you think?

Amidst all the greatness on this list, there are also tons of authors I’ve never heard of and can’t wait to try out. So thanks to the husband not only for a fantastic reading list but for turning me on to io9, a really cool website (and while you’re there, you have to check out this awesomeness).

Review of The Water Witch by Juliet Dark

This book popped up on NetGalley and looked like a good fluffy read.  It’s sort of urban fantasy, minus the urban, with a mix of fae, witches, and other supernatural creatures, with a little romance thrown in.

The plot of The Water Witch is basically that the town of Fairwick is in the midst of a fight between the witches and the fae.  The town’s witches want to close the last door between the human world and Faerie.  The fae want to keep it open so they can continue to go between the two worlds.  Presumably, the human world benefits from their abilities and vice versa, and these two groups have lived semi-peacefully together for many years.

Callie McFay is a part witch, part fae who is also a “doorkeeper”, which means she can keep the door open.  The only problem is her power seems to be restricted in some weird way and she has no magical training.  Oh, and she’s also trying to get over an obsession with Liam, an incubus who tried to drain the life from her (through sex of course).  He’s been banished to the Faerie world and she feels pretty bad about that.

Unfortunately, The Water Witch is actually a sequel, and I hate to read books out of order.  It’s a sequel to a book I’m sure I would never have picked up, called The Demon Lover.  It was immediately clear that I had missed a bunch of the story, but on the other hand, the first book mostly seemed to revolve around Callie’s amazing supernatural sex with Liam, so I don’t think I was lacking any important plot points.

It was pretty well written for urban fantasy.  Juliet Dark is a pseudonym for Carol Goodman, who has written a number of well-regarded books, and for obvious reasons didn’t want her name on this one.

I liked the parts of the story that involved paranormal beings like the undines, which are these part-fairy,  part-fish creatures.  The romance seemed ridiculous to me, but maybe it would have helped if I’d read Book One.  On second thought, no it wouldn’t.  I’m just trying to give this book a break.

The truth is, I put this book down a few times and didn’t really care one way or another – and yet I kept picking it back up.  It was an entertaining read, but very high on the cheese factor.  I’d rather be reading something more “weighty” but the holidays seemed to cry out for this kind of book.

I’m not entirely sure who this book is meant to appeal to – it’s steamy but without much romance, and it doesn’t have the usual leather-pants-wearing ass-kicking heroine to be urban fantasy.  As a heroine, Callie is weak and pretty stupid.  This isn’t a book I’d recommend unless you love this kind of thing.

Note: I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley, in exchange for a review.  This book will be released February 12, 2013.

Tallula Rising: Glen Duncan’s sequel falls short

I loved The Last Werewolf, so I did something I don’t normally do – picked up its sequel right away.  Unfortunately, Tallula Rising disappointed, not just a little but a lot.  I took this book with me on vacation, and while it got me through several stressful days of travel headaches, once I got out of the airport I realized I was NOT enjoying this book.

WARNING: while I don’t think there are spoilers in this review, it is a sequel, so I don’t recommend reading this review if you’re thinking about reading the first book.  If you like horror/supernatural stories at all, STOP HERE and pick up The Last Werewolf.

But if you’ve read Werewolf, here’s my take on the sequel.  I gave some thought to why this book felt so different from the first book.  And here, in a nutshell, is what I came up with:

1)     I loved the character of Jake, but really disliked Tallula.  Jake had intellect and elegance.  He had 200-years perspective on life.  He was also a good friend and cared about the people who helped him along.  Yes, he kills people out of necessity but he tries to plan out who he killed and why.  Tallula, on the other hand, revels in the goriness of her werewolf life.  And while The Last Werewolf was about accepting your inner nature and coming to terms with contradictions, Tallula kind of just lives for food and sex.  She’s not much of a friend to her “handler”, and she does horrible things like chaining a girl in her basement for a month while she waits for the full moon so she can eat her.  Jake would never have kept someone captive and terrified like that.  And this was in the first chapter.  I remember thinking, ugh, I don’t like the way this book is starting out, but The Last Werewolf was so good I gave it a shot.

2)     Along the lines of not liking Tallula, I hated the kid storyline.  Tallula obsesses about being a mother but it’s not meaningful, it’s self-centered.  Sort of “poor me, what a bad parent I am” over and over again.  So of course, the reader is supposed to think “but no, you’re worrying so much that you’re really a good parent”.  Bleh.

3)     Violence.  Violence.  Violence.  I said in my review of The Last Werewolf that I really appreciated how Duncan told a gory story but really skirted the lines of acceptable and necessary violence – for me, at least.  This book crossed my violence threshold early and often.  I wish I’d put it down halfway through — before some incidents in the book got stuck in my head (once there they don’t come out).  There’s violence as in “I can’t help eating this helpless person” and then there’s violence as in prolonged torture and degradation.  I’ll spare you the details since I wish I’d been spared.  I’ll just say again, bleh.

Here’s a link to a Tor.com review that’s a little more balanced.  Reviewer Alex Brown says “reading Talulla Rising was an experience riddled with ambivalency.”  I like what this review has to say about a rape scene in the book.  This part of the book was a perfect example of violence that adds something to a story, that isn’t just there for shock value.  Unfortunately I didn’t find much of that in this book.

The first book was thoughtful, explored new ideas and had an unexpected story and point of view – but this sequel just felt like a poor rehash of those ideas.  It’s just the same characters with more action and horror.  I think that’s an easy trap for a sequel to fall into. But I expected more from Glen Duncan.

Review of Alanna by Tamora Pierce

Note: The Book Stop is officially on vacation.  So I pulled an older review I never got around to posting.  Enjoy!

I’ve been wanting to read something by Tamora Pierce for a long time, since I enjoy young adult fantasy and this book is considered one of the best.  However, I think as with most series, the first book is a little more set-up and I expect the books get better as you go.

This book was also a little “younger” than I anticipated.  I was hoping for something with the complexity of Sabriel, but this was a lot more basic.  I wouldn’t call Alanna a young adult book, I’d say it’s perfect for the fourth-fifth grade range.

The book is set in a standard medieval fantasy world.  Alanna and her twin brother Thom are thirteen and being shipped off to school.  Thom is off to the knights academy, and Alanna is off to the convent.  However, Thom wants to study sorcery and Alanna wants to fight, so they switch places.  Alanna disguises herself as Alan and somehow fools everyone around her into thinking she’s a boy.

What’s good about the book – Alanna is good at a lot of things but she also has to work really hard to succeed in knights’ training.  This isn’t one of those stories where everything comes easily to the magical hero or heroine.  Alanna has to spend her nights training in swordsmanship and during the day has to fight the school bully.  She does, however, have a gift for healing and is clearly destined to become some higher power.

Alanna lives in a time where there used to be female warriors, and a female knight is unexpected but not as ridiculous as it might seem.  The interesting thing about the book is that Alanna has to come to terms with her own identity.  She’s sure if her friends discover she’s a girl they will hate her.  She cringes every time people look at her closely and it’s clear she can’t keep up the deception for long, if only for her own sanity.  It’s this extra layer of complexity that makes the book better than most.

I think this book might be one I needed to have read as a girl, sort of like Anne of Green Gables.  There are a lot of young adult books that are just as good when read by adults, but this wasn’t one of them.  If I was a girl I’m sure I would have loved Alanna; in fact I remember very few great heroines when I was young and reading fantasy.   If you’re looking for good fiction for a daughter or niece, this is a good pick, and I’m guessing the series gets even better as it goes.

I know Tamora Pierce has a lot of fans out there, so I’ll ask, is this the right place to start?  Should I keep reading or go to one of her series for older readers?  Similarly, the next author I need to read is Diana Wynne Jones — any recommendations for her?

Review of Poison Study by Maria Snyder

I’m leaving town for a few days and won’t have much time to write reviews or post anything.  The latest entry in my Fluffy-Summer-Travel-Reading series is Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder (I also didn’t think I could do The Moonstone justice in a short review).

I found a surprising number of different covers for this book, so I’ve copied them at the end of the post.  The one to the right is my favorite, which one’s yours?

Here’s the description from Goodreads (you can see I’m taking shortcuts here):

About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She’ll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.

And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly’s Dust—and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison.

As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can’t control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren’t so clear…

I enjoyed the book and found a lot of it very original, which is rare in a lot of fantasy books.  Yelena is a strong character who has to wrestle with a lot of demons and fight to find her place in the world.  I liked how she develops throughout the book, from someone who is just grateful to be alive and well-treated, even though basically a slave, to someone who has growing power and dignity.  Snyder gives Yelena a well-developed history that makes her a sympathetic and unique character.

I also really enjoyed the political issues raised in the book.  Yelena works for the Commander, who is at first seen as a tyrant who overthrew the last king and killed all his relatives and advisors.  But we gradually come to see the Commander as a more nuanced ruler.  Politics, trade and commerce are important in the country of Ixia, which made it a much more real place.

The side characters in the book – Rand, Valek, and Ari among others – are also well-developed, although I wanted more from  Valek’s character.  Valek is Yelena’s trainer and basically her captor.  She lives in his room (mostly for her protection from thugs who hate her) and he doles out an antidote to poison each day that keeps her alive but enslaved.  Their relationship, based on distrust and power and captivity, is an interesting one.

On the other hand, we hear from the other characters about all the fearful, horrible things Valek has done as chief to the Commander.  We’re not sure what’s true anymore than Yelena does.  But I did think Valek’s character disappointed by the end of the book.  I wanted more moral ambiguity, more of him being caught between his political responsibilities and sympathy for Yelena.  Instead he ends up feeling watered-down.  But saying any more would tell you too much of the plot.

One of the biggest flaws in the book (and it’s still a good read) is that Snyder sets up this really compelling story about what it’s like to be a food-taster.  Yelena has to learn to nibble, swirl, inhale, etc (like drinking a good glass of wine) and use every sense to detect the slightest wrong taste in the Commander’s food.  If she succeeds, she saves the Commander’s life but could die herself.  Her job is to tell the world with her last gasping breath what poison she tasted.  As the title suggests, Yelena has to really study to get this right.

But Snyder leads us pretty far from the Poison Taster story.  Yes, there’s magic and intrigue, betrayal, love, and even acrobatics.  But the story kind of loses focus for me.  Understandably, Yelena’s “job” doesn’t take up much of her day, so she has to do other things.

And the love story is on the weak side.  Okay the very weak side.  I just didn’t get there.

This book had many of the fantasy genre tropes I talked about with Magic Lost, Trouble Found, but it still has a much more original story.

As promised, alternate covers of the book:

Review of The Magicians by Lev Grossman

It’s hard to explain how a book that steals so much from existing children’s fantasy series can feel so original.  And yet it does.  The Magicians by Lev Grossman is unlike most of the fantasy you’re probably reading.  It’s a book within a book, homage to great children’s fantasy worlds like Narnia and Harry Potter.  It will make you remember all the things you loved about fantasy books as a child.

Lev Grossman, through the character of Quentin Coldwater, says something maybe most of us think but won’t admit to: we want there to be magic in our lives.  Life without it is like Kansas compared to Oz: gray and dull.  We know we’ll have to go home to our regular lives at the end of each book, like Harry Potter to the Dursleys or Dorothy to her farm; yet we really want to be sucked in and taken away.  It’s not that we don’t love our families — but deep down don’t you think Dorothy was wrong to leave Oz?

I love the way Grossman says all this.

The Magicians is the story of Quentin Coldwater, who grows up enraptured with a series very like Narnia about a magical land called Fillory.  Quentin can tell you every detail about every book, including all the unfinished storylines left when the author died.  Quentin lives his life with the quiet longing to experience magic like the characters in the Fillory books do.  In his senior year of high school, his dream comes true when he’s magically summoned to take an entrance exam to attend the mysterious Brakebills College of Magic.

Grossman is a huge Narnia fan, and this book steals liberally (maybe excessively) from the Narnia world.  I was never a big Narnia fan, but I found it easy enough to substitute my own favorites (Oz, or the books of Edward Eager or E. Nesbit).  And I can appreciate the concepts of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, even if it isn’t a favorite – the child who sticks his head into a wardrobe and comes out in a wintry forest, the idea of children going to a fantasy world, saving it, and then coming home again.  The idea that time might operate differently in an alternate universe, or that magic might not be everything you expect it to be.  C.S. Lewis wasn’t the only fantasy writer to play with these concepts.  So this book might be Grossman’s homage to Lewis but for me it says something about the genre as a whole.

The Magicians has been billed as the grittier version of Harry Potter, but I don’t completely agree.  It’s certainly more adult, but that’s to be expected since the characters are picking up at the age Harry Potter leaves off.  It’s really the “college version” of Harry Potter – there’s sex, drugs and alcohol.

It’s grittier in that the characters are more nuanced and less likeable.  Gone are the simply good and bad characters of Harry Potter – Quentin and his friends are just mixed-up students trying to get by.  But at the same time, their lives are so much easier than in Harry Potter.  Magic in this book isn’t about combating a great evil, it’s about learning some tricks and graduating and trying to put those tricks to work in the real world.  Harry Potter sees a friend murdered in Book 4, but these students don’t face any real monsters until very late in the book, so you tell me which is darker.

Clearly that’s deliberate – in typical fantasy there’s a “we have to save the world” element; here, the question is more like “what if you could do magic but there wasn’t anything important you needed to do with it?”

There’s a few too many ripoffs of Harry Potter to suit me, like the college’s made-up sport. In some ways this book reminded me of another favorite, The Secret History by Donna Tartt.  The characters attend a highly elite school and are extremely talented but pretty messed up.  They have too much time on their hands and no idea what to do with their lives.  They’re cut off from the real world and have to create one of their own.   Although I’m not saying it’s near as good as The Secret History.

A lot of people on Amazon didn’t like this book because they didn’t like Quentin.  Fair enough.  If you have a sunnier disposition than I do (which is likely) you may have the same problem.  Since I tend towards the dark and gloomy side, Quentin suited me pretty well.  He’s a glass half empty kind of guy.  He knows he has a good life but wants more – and isn’t quite sure what the “more” is.  When I read the first few chapters I thought, I completely sympathize with this guy.  He just doesn’t quite fit.

The trouble with the book is that he finds a place where he does fit, but his life still doesn’t come together. And that’s when even I started finding him a little annoying.

The other real problem with this book is that the friends aren’t well-developed, and since there aren’t a lot of monsters in this book, a lot of time is spent on these under-developed friendships.

Finally, I thought magic itself kind of got short shrift in this book.  Quentin and his friends spend years studying magic only most of it is never explained in any detail.  I loved the part where they all change to geese and fly to Antarctica though.  Normally in fantasy, when people get turned into animals they never actually think like that animal would.  Here they really (sort of) see the world through geese eyes, rather than human eyes with wings and feathers.  Still, that richness of detail isn’t found in much of the book.

Grossman eventually brings the book to an exciting story and a satisfying conclusion, although it takes him a while.

This book reminds you that Narnia, and Oz, and Harry Potter (which I really wish had a world-name) weren’t just full of magic and excitement, they were full of darkness and physical danger.  And that even in the world of magic we have to deal with our own neuroses and problems.

And yet we love these stories, and given the opportunity, would go there in a heartbeat.  Maybe that’s because we know they aren’t real, and no one’s ever going to give us that choice.

Maybe.

Review of Jasper Fforde’s The Last Dragonslayer

I’ve said this before but here it is again.  Jasper Fforde is awesome.

If you’ve read nothing by Jasper Fforde, go out and find The Eyre Affair.  If you’ve read and loved those books (and Shades of Grey and the Nursery Crime series), you may be interested to know he’s started a young adult fantasy series.  The Last Dragonslayer is very different from other Fforde novels but at the same time unmistakably his.

If you’re a Fforde fan you know that besides being clever and satirical, he puts an incredible amount of detail into his world-building.  Dragonslayer is no different, though it’s a simpler read and definitely good for younger readers.  The book takes place in modern day England, where magic is slowly losing its power.  Jennifer is a teenager who runs Kazam, a job agency for aging witches and wizards.  Unfortunately, as technology increases, the prestige of magic has decreased, so now they do things like clean out pipes and rewire houses – things that magic can still do more quickly and cheaply than regular labor can.  Magic carpets are now used to deliver pizzas.

We hadn’t been able to afford a towncar for years, so the three sorcerers, myself, and the beast were packed into my rust-and-orange-but-mostly-rust Volkswagen for the short journey from Hereford to Dinmore.  Lady Mawgon had insisted on sitting in the passenger seat because “that’s how it will be” which meant that Wizard Moobin and the well-proportioned “Full” Price were in the back seat, with the Quarkbeast sitting between the two of them and panting in the heat.  I was driving, which might have been unusual anywhere but here in the Kingdom of Snodd, which was unique in the Ununited Kingdoms for having driving tests based on maturity, not age.  Which explained why I’d had a license since thirteen, while some blokes were still failing to make the grade at forty.  It was lucky I could.  Sorcerers are easily distracted, and letting them drive is about as safe as waving around a chainsaw at full throttle in a crowded disco.

Jennifer is training her replacement, when she hears of a prophecy that the Last Dragon is about to be slain, and Big Magic is coming.  Jennifer is troubled by the fact that the last living dragon is about to be killed for no reason, although the rest of the world isn’t.  In fact people have already started lining up to see the slaying and claim a piece of the dragon’s land.  Jennifer also worries what that the death of the Last Dragon will mean for the rest of their world, especially the uneasy peace between Britain and Wales, which is divided by the Last Dragon’s lands.

This leads into a complicated back story about the Dragonslayers and why there is only one dragon left.  Jennifer then has to find the Last Dragonslayer and try to keep the Last Dragon from being wrongfully slain.  The book has a really strong heroine, so I recommend it highly for girls who like fantasy, although boys would love this book too.  Also typical of Fforde, the side characters are equally strong, like the imperious Lady Mawgon, the wise Wizard Moobin, and especially the dreaded Quarkbeast (who reminded me a bit of Pickwick but with razor sharp teeth).  Jennifer isn’t one of my favorite names for a heroine, especially given Fforde’s talent with words, but it’ll  have to do.

Like Fforde’s other books, this one is original and creative and laugh-out-loud funny.  Sure, there’s plenty of dragon-fighting fiction written for middle-school kids, but this is one worth reading.

So, if you’re a Fforde fan or someone who likes YA fantasy, run out and find this book (it’s not released in the U.S. yet but Book Depository can send it to you).  There’s a sequel, Song of the Quarkbeast, and I would assume more to come.  If nothing else, it will tide you over until the next Thursday Next novel comes out (July in the UK, October in the US).  Me, I’m still waiting on a sequel to Shades of Grey.  You can find out more about Fforde’s books and events here.