The Dragon's Son

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Summary: An great, new, expanded story about King Arthur!
Review: A wonderfully written, imaginary story about King Arthur -- told by the "secondary" figures in the story. An insightful and refreshingly new look at the infamous story. Creative, catchy, and worth every minute you spend reading it!

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Summary: The Dragon's Son
Review: Anyone well read in Arthurian myth and legend will find this a most extraordinary read---especially with Thomson's use of the Welsh identities, which prove her to be a crafty storyteller. The final chapter only made me eager for more!

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Summary: A very entertaining new telling of the Arthurian legend!
Review: As someone who has studied and read Arthurian Legend quite a bit, I thought that I could no longer be surprised by any new retelling of the tale. This book proved me wrong! By telling the tale through the points of view of secondary characters like Nimue and long time antagonists like Medraud (Mordred), Thomson weaves an exciting new version of a famaliar story. However, my favorite part was her choice to include two fascinating characters that were dropped from the Arthurian Tales most people are famaliar with today and buried for years in Welsh Lore. These two are Luned, a faithful lady in waiting to Morgan Le Fay's also forgotten sister, Elen, and Gwenhwyfach, Gwenhywfar's crafty, but abused sister. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about these two characters who added whole new dimensions to the story. I can't recommend this book enough to fans of the Arthurian legend looking for a twist or just anyone looking for an entertaining tale.

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Summary: Absolutely essential reading for King Arthur/Celtic lit fans
Review: I can't say enough wonderful things about this book. The lyricism, the intricately crafted structure, the character insight...it puts every single other Arthurian book I've read, from The Once and Future King to The Mists of Avalon to hosts of lesser-known novels, to shame.

From the very first sentences you're drawn in by the vivid, almost poetic prose: "I could wander all day along her banks and she would always lie there, like a silver string behind me, to lead me home in the dusk." The author blends foreshadowing, atmosphere and imagery without a single wasted word, with sentences like "I thought he would murder like a saint prays, and with the same hope of blessing," and "On the edge of the surf, in the white foam, in the place that is neither land nor water, he was killed by his uncle's spear and his blood flowed into the waves."

The plots are also much more compelling and carefully crafted than those of most other Arthurian novels. It's fascinating to see these well-known events through the eyes of characters who usually don't get a voice, such as Merlin/Myrddin's love Nimue, Mordred/Medraud, who is almost always portrayed as hate-filled villain and is never allowed to show why he might resent his father, and lady-in-waiting Gwenhwyfach, who dropped out of sight in modern versions altogether. When you're reading about those familiar events, you suddenly see a new interpretation and a new motivation for those events; on top of that, the author imagines new events that somehow make the legends even more real. So that's why Nimue turned on Myrddin, you say, or Oh, that's how Owain/Lancelot wound up married to Elen/Elaine. Not a detail is wasted or out of place -- everything that happens matters later in the story, or in another narrator's story.

The book leaves you feeling as if you've finally read the real version of the King Arthur legend. The details of the Welsh setting are carefully researched and woven in so skillfully that you feel you're there, not just reading about it; the motivations of the characters are so well explored and convincingly told that you finally understand why characters like Nimue, Morgan and Medraud did the things for which they have been vilified by later writers who could only manage one-dimensional, black-and-white versions of the tales. It says something that to this day, when I'm remembering or talking about the King Arthur legend, I find myself thinking of the events in this book as "canon" -- that's how strong an impression it left on me.

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Summary: A Book Every Intelligent Reader Will Enjoy
Review: I do not know where to begin praising this book. One indication is a list of the books I was reading and enjoying that I set aside once I picked up The Dragon's Son: The Lord of the Rings; The Ear, The Eye, and the Arm; Charlotte's Web; The Wind Singer; The Bridge to Terabithia. All enjoyable or important, but I could not seem to focus on them until I had finished The Dragon's Son. The book does a spectacular job of explaining the motivations behind characters' actions, and it creates characters whom you never want to let go of and whose stories stay with you for days after reading the book. Thomson has a deep, humanistic sympathy for all of the four complex, damaged characters who serve as narrator for the book in turns. She is able to make you ache for the characters and their plights, even as they make terrible choices and unleash evil and havoc. [Spoiler ahead.] When Medraud's lover asks him how many people he is willing to kill to get his father to notice him, a whole life that hasn't been explored elsewhere springs into being. It makes other versions' renderings of these characters seem so naïve and uninteresting. [End spoiler.] The book brims with striking images. The battle scenes are particularly well-choreographed, exciting, and always clear. Geographical and historical detail are never ladled on, but glanced tastefully and tantalizingly in passing (J.R.R. Tolkien could have learned something from this book). There is a perfect balance in the time spent on describing physical things and settings against the time spent on describing characters' inner thoughts. The book is studded with examples of incisive turns of phrase, from a description of a handsome bard's crooked, disarming smile, to a description of a frown, like that of a priest at a Midsummer festival. And all of it achieved not through gussied language, but through simple, athletic prose. A real achievement. Also, the book's structure is quite skillful. It is told in four interlocking stories, with main characters glimpsing each other as side characters in multiple refractions. The effect is a wonderful feeling of non-linearity and involvement in the dynamic lives of these characters. You feel like you're ducking in and out of rooms in a bustling house, and peering into rooms through front-doors, then through peep-holes. Couple other things that make this book unique. First, it is one of the rare books that manages to depict lovers convincingly. You are never told that a character is sexy or alluring or charismatic, you're given vivid examples that arouse the reaction. Second, the book's feminism is subtlely and maturely incorporated. The book operates on a personal level, then on a political level, and never feels polemical or revisionist or didactic. I realize now that I've written this reader review for adult readers, although this is marketed as children's lit. For parents, educators, or kids, let me just say that any kid who likes Greek mythology (and all the neatest kids in every generation in every country all love Greek mythology), will like The Dragon's Son. It has exciting plot, it has really interesting characters, it has thrilling battles. And it also has a good deal of heart and guts to it that make it transcend mere entertainment. I would say that Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief and The Queen of Attolia and Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass are its closest analogs and peers, and that's meant as very high praise. Highly recommended to all intelligent readers.

Also recommended: The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner The Queen of Attolia, Megan Whalen Turner The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman

Rating:
Summary: The Dragon's Son: A Must-Read!
Review: This book is a must-read for fans of Arthurian legend. Beautifully written, it tells the tale from the point of view of several characters in the story that have been overlooked or forgotten in other tellings of this tale. The authentic descriptions of early life on the British isles add a lot of interest to this intricately written and gritty tale.