The Last Dragon

by
C.A. Rainfield

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The Last Dragon (Dragon Speaker, 1)

by C.A. Rainfield

2.67 of 5 stars 2.67 · rating details · 6 ratings · 1 review

111 pages

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Dec 13, 2011 Brian rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: the sadists who produced it

This book is not good, even when one accounts for its target audience of struggling readers--for though the low-level vocabulary usage, a seemingly common disease in fiction, can be well accommodated by this fact, the book is of such low literary quality otherwise that it fails even the permissive standards one finds in the worst genres and fields of popular fiction. Everything--the plot, the characters, the setting, the vicissitudes of mood that the story takes as it progresses-- blatantly rips...more This book is not good, even when one accounts for its target audience of struggling readers--for though the low-level vocabulary usage, a seemingly common disease in fiction, can be well accommodated by this fact, the book is of such low literary quality otherwise that it fails even the permissive standards one finds in the worst genres and fields of popular fiction. Everything--the plot, the characters, the setting, the vicissitudes of mood that the story takes as it progresses-- blatantly rips off, not the above-adequate original, but the banal movie version of Christopher Paolini's Eragon. It furthermore performs this horrible sin against letters in such a cheap, disrespectful manner that it almost leaves the realm of lazy imitation for that of malicious, ineptly-done parody. Even if struggling readers have not read Eragon, this "book" may actually discourage them, by various other means, from reading fantasy, and may even, if the reader is young, cause them to eschew the universe of letters altogether. I will recount what I can glean from the preview available on Google Books, and, if anyone think me hyperbolic, check there, and you will see my words validated by the depressing muddled mess you shall see before your shocked eyes

The book--I cannot read all of it, as I am using the Google preview--is, as I have already said, and shall say many times more in this review, awful. The setting is the year 1144-"in the magical Middle Ages when dragons still roamed the earth and daring deeds were the order of the day." Yes, the Middle Ages were quite magical-- as magical as mass illiteracy, bubonic plague, religious intolerance, Crusades, tyranny, and massive amounts of sacrosanct superstition can be. Nothing, however, beats the true magic to be found in all good old HIP Fantasy books--the ability to put even the most hyperactive or reluctant reader to sleep with its preternaturally tedious derivativeness.

Every possible aspect of the book is almost too bad to be genuine. The characters are talking plot devices: literally every action or statement made by them serves only to further the plot or reveal background information deemed necessary to the story, and they are all absolutely devoid of true personality. The dialogue is trash: no character, in the portion I read, speaks more than two sentences at once. The illustrations are nauseating--everything, no matter what it is, bears a vague resemblance to some form of bodily expectoration--usually vomit, though it sometimes improves to an unusually clear and smooth mucus. It is also the case that, in this story, a search for even the slightest bit of humor, wordplay, or lightness of tone will be in vain. (HIP Books, the publisher of this book, is primarily responsible for the perpetual lack of emotion, having stated that struggling readers cannot grasp such subtleties when reading.)

Here is the plot so far as I can tell:

The book opens with the protagonist listening to the cries of birds being killed. After the third-person narrator explains some background info--during power struggles after the capture of a king by pirates, his village was attacked by the forces of the evil Lord Manning, who killed all children with magical ability and set his house on fire, killing his mother and brother--the protagonist goes into the woods and encounters the evil wizard Kain, who uses black magic to prevent him from speaking--a move obviously ripped from numerous fairy tales. There is a major difference between Eragon and this piece of dreck visible here: instead of having, in the role of the protagonist, an ordinary teenage farmhand who soon discovers his highly interesting destiny, we get a "young man" with a limp who already has the tremendous ability to talk to birds, who now just happen to state that he can talk to dragons and declare him "the chosen one." The remainder of the part I am able to read consists of Jacob talking to his friend Orson about Kain (he "talks around" the curse--how original) and describes him gearing up and leaving to go find the dragon and avenge his long-dead brother. (For most of this time, the father is drunk and incoherent.)

I have a deep desire to purchase a used copy of this book (no money will then go to the publisher) and continue my review. Check back for updates.(less)

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Feb 19, 2013 Alex rated it 3 of 5 stars

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Shelves: fantasy, childrens

Nov 10, 2010 Schuyler Esperanza marked it as to-read

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May 03, 2010 Katie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: childrens, fantasy, series, teens

Mar 10, 2010 Morgan Elizabeth marked it as to-read

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Nov 29, 2009 Debbie Ohi rated it 5 of 5 stars

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Shelves: animal-stories, z-2010-books, fantasy, middle-grade-readers, dormant-reader, need-teen-reviewer

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