Dragon's Green: 06/24/17

Dragon's Green by Scarlett Thomas is the start of the Worldquake Sequence. Effie Truelove comes to learn that the magic she has believed in since she was tiny, is real — but not the way she expects.

As I mentioned in my review of Storm by Amanda Sun, Western fiction is built on the rule of three — especially fantasy stories. Thomas, here, world-builds around an expectation of threes and then subverts them. There is the mainland or otherworld (the land of magic) and the island or real world (the land of no magic) and the way things were before the worldquake.

There are also three characters: Effie, Maximilian, and Wolf. But rather than stick with just three heroes and three magical weapons — Effie's adventures bring to light the skills of other friends: Raven and Lexy — bringing together a group of heroes that would be expected in an Eastern fantasy.

In this first book, though, there's a lot of set up — a way to learn how the world works. At first glance, the set up seems like a blending of Harry Potter and Bunny Modern. Like in Bunny Modern, there was a worldwide event that forever altered the modern world. This event stopped most of the internet from working — though the older BBS sites do still work. Perhaps also gopher works — but that isn't specifically mentioned. Like Harry Potter, Effie learns that magic does run in her family and that her mother's death besides being related to the worldquake, is also related to a larger magical conspiracy.

Like Thomas's other novels, this one is metafiction. The metafiction is part of the magical elements of the book — much like they are in The End of Mr. Y. As this is a middle grade fantasy, the metafiction is based around storytelling — showing how the process of reading and writing and experiencing stories can be magic. In this regard, the book is a lot like Die unendlische Geschichte by Michael Ende.

Beyond that, I'll say no more. The book needs to be experienced. Do yourself a favor and import a copy from the UK to get the British spellings and the glow in the dark cover.

Five stars

Comments (2)

Comment #1: Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at 20:37:23

herding cats

the UK version sounds really cool! I've never seen a glow in the dark cover. Neat addition!

Comment #2: Wednesday, June 27, 2017 at 23:08:00

Pussreboots

I must admit, it's my first glow in the dark cover.