FANS OF THE SHOW WILL UNDERSTAND THE CHARACTERS MORE DEEPLY, NEWBIES ARE IN FOR ONE OF THE GREAT FANTASY STORIES OF ALL TIME

I've made it no secret on my social media that I consider "The Dragon Prince" to be the greatest animated show of all time and that I consider Wonderstorm, the studio that created it, to be the American Studio Ghibli. But that doesn't mean that I can't be objective about this book co-written by "The Dragon Prince" creator/writer Aaron Ehasz and Melanie McGanney Ehasz. And I found this book a delight.

Fans of the show are treated to a deeper dive into the minds and motivations of the characters, which are revealed to be even more morally conflicted and compelling than in the show. I was impressed at how the authors managed to communicate those complexities so economically and in prose that even beginning readers could understand. There are also a number of lovely grace-notes and poignant exchanges in the book that are not in the show. Thus, while the book tracks the show closely, I was left with a deeper understanding of the characters, their motivations, and their inner conflicts.

For those who are new to "The Dragon Prince", you are in for one of the great fantasy stories of all time. This is storytelling on par with "The Hobbit", and I don't make that comparison lightly. Though the worldbuilding draws on familiar Western fantasy elements, the treatment of them is remarkable. This is a story that truly feels like a kid-friendly "Game of Thrones" because it is all about the human heart in conflict with itself. Or the elven heart. No heroes. No villains. Just real, recognizable people responding to their circumstances, doing what they feel they have to do to be true to their values. The story reminds us that in every war, there are heroes on both sides. Despite the very serious and important themes, the story is full of hope. One of the chapters is entitled "The Fellowship of the Egg", and that pretty much sums up the entire story. Three enemies, united to save something small and precious that could annihilate the world or save it. It's also bust-out loud funny. I have zero sense of humor so if something can make me inhale my drink, it's got to be supernaturally funny.

The prose, pacing, voice, and POV-pivots are all admirably unshowy and invisible. Even though the book clocks in at about twice the run-time of the season of the show that it tracks, and expands considerably on the inner emotional lives and thoughts of the characters, the storytelling is so fleet-footed that it always feels swift and urgent.

Also, I noted that unlike most middle grade novels, in which the author goes through contortions to infodump the characters' physical appearance as early as possible in the book so we can locate them on a race spectrum, "The Dragon Prince" does something highly unusual. For the most part, it entirely eschews physical descriptions of any of the characters. The pitfall of that is that readers of books written in English and published in the West could fall back on a default assumption that the characters are all white, especially since this is high fantasy. This is where the relationship with the show creates something special and beautiful. As fans of the show know, the characters and the cast of "The Dragon Prince" represent a broad spectrum of diversity. Prince Ezran, King Harrow, Corvus, and several other characters are not white. Not even the elves are racially homogenous. The idea that a young fan of the show could pick up the book and fill in the identity of the characters with something other than the white default, or that a young reader of the book could go and discover the show afterwards and have assumptions challenged, is exciting and kinda fills me with a very welcome sense of optimism.

Finally, the audio version features a lovely, enthusiastic performance from one of the voice actors on the show who breaths personality into the characters without resorting to flat-out impressions of the other actors’ takes on these characters.

In short, I think this is a book that is poised to please both fans of the show and newbies. It’s a rollicking, hilarious, thrilling adventure tale, but one that looks unflinchingly at some of the most important questions. Is it wrong to hate people just because they don’t look and live like we do? How do we reach across the divide and find commonality with the people we think we hate? How do we break the cycle of hate and revenge? It asks the most important questions but does so in a way that is filled with fun and hope. It’s not only the kind of book that you’d want kids to read for moral nourishment, it’s the kind of book that they would pick up on their own.

6 people found this helpful

Watch the show, skip the book

Only minor tidbits are added that don’t give much in terms of enriching the world of Xadia that hasn’t been seen in BTS stuff on social media or art books. Overall, I kinda feel like I wasted my time rehashing the first season when I could just rewatch it at my leisure.

4 people found this helpful

Good but could have had more detail

I was expecting more in depth from the tv series. It went in to depth a little but it could have way more. And there were some parts that seems to have more detail in the show.

2 people found this helpful

AWESOME

a must read seriously read this or i will burn your face off and not bury you and let's just say the vultures will be very happy

1 person found this helpful

Well the narrator is the worst part

It follow the plot of season one. It does add in some nice extra scenes, and inner monologues. The only bad part is the narrator just does not convey the character voices at all. This makes the witty dialogue land flat, and Ezran comes off not so much as a child because of this.

1 person found this helpful

My first review of an audiobook.

I enjoyed the story, but prefer to watch the Netflix series. I struggled to finish listening to this audio of the first book. I'm contemplating whether I want to listen to the second book. Bait is my favorite character in the book, even though he's a secondary character, he's always getting into something. I feel that the narration was lacking in the reading of this book. It might be a better audiobook with a full cast.

Amazing!!!

This book is so amazing there is also at tv show but the book tells you so much more.

loved it

loved it! I think I enjoyed the audio book even more than the show. maybe.

BRILLIANT PERFORMANCE AND STORY

I really liked how the reader did a good job putting a specific tone of voice for each character; Rayla’s accent, Ezran’s small voice etc. The story was generally good itself and I really liked it.

Amazing Narration

The narrator did an amazing job of doing the various character voices. it follows the show, but there are so many extra tidbits in this audible book. we loved it.