Dragon Champion (E. E. Knight)

Dragon Champion
The Age of Fire series, Book 1
E. E. Knight
Tantor Audio
Fiction, Fantasy
*** (Okay)

DESCRIPTION: Deep under the mountain, under the loving and watchful eye of a green dragonelle, five eggs hatched - but, within minutes, driven by instinctive male rivalry, one would be dead, another crippled and pushed from the egg shelf. The Gray male emerged victorious, against all odds. Grays are usually not expected to survive in mixed clutches; they are unusual dragons, lacking the heavy protective scales of the other dragon colors, but making up for the deficiency with greater speed and stealth, all of which young Auron will need.
The world is no longer a good place for dragons. The humanoid species who once looked to them for protection from dark, marauding blighters now take up arms against them, and every year fewer wings can be seen in the skies above the world. When dwarven raiders at last find the hatchlings' sanctuary, only Auron and one of his sisters escape the slaughter, both too young to have their flames, let alone their wings - and before long he and Wistala are forced to separate. Thus begins the journey of the Gray drake, a journey that will take him to the far corners of the land, often in strange company and confronting stranger enemies, searching for a way to save his kind from extinction.

REVIEW: Told from the perspective of dragons in a fantasy world that has long regarded them as monsters, Dragon Champion draws clear influence from old-school yarns like The Hobbit and Watership Down... not always in good ways. Like those stories, it creates a sprawling world of various races and species who mingle and clash, wading into legends and lore and poetry (and occasional attempts at archaic language) and conflicting accounts of history - and, like those stories, it seems more than happy to relegate all females of all cultures and species to subordinate roles barely a step above inanimate objects (with so few exceptions that one can count them on the fingers of one hand with multiple leftovers, and even those characters are often undermined by ultimately desiring nothing but to be wives and mothers), to the point where I sometimes wondered if the original target audience was young boys still at the "girls have icky girl germs" stage.
The tale starts with some promise (if with the "no girls allowed" club sign already prominent), with the eventful hatching and struggle among the three males, introducing the dragon world as one red in tooth and claw from the first breaths outside their shells - at least for the males, who are the only ones with remotely interesting or distinct personalities. Even though Auron is a gray, scaleless (though more than once descriptions mention scales on him) and considered weak by some, his parents are proud of his unexpected dominance over both Copper and a Red brothers (girls are all greens, because heavens forfend there be anything like variety among females) - though the former is merely wounded, left to fend for himself in the crevices and cracks in the cavern corners. Scaleless he may be, but he's expected to make up for it by being quick and clever. After some dithering and further worldbuilding and dragon lore, outsiders turn up to shatter Auron's peaceful (by dragon standards) world, leaving only Auron and his sister Wistala - both too young to breathe fire or fly, with only the stories of their parents and mental images passed on from parent to child (which include some ancestral memories, sometimes; there's some plot convenience over what can and cannot be passed along mind-to-mind). Here, Wistala surprises Auron by actually being useful as they struggle to hunt and survive in the harsh world outside the caverns, while still being pursued by the humanoid hunters who destroyed their home. Maybe she will turn out to be a worthy companion and a challenge to traditional dragon roles, where females are often considered little but things to mate with and raise eggs? Not so fast; it isn't long before they split up and Auron finds himself captured by elves and dwarves. It is the first of many encounters that will shape the young drake, showing him the bad and the good of the world, in adventures that can sometimes feel clunky and forced to impart some particular wisdom or lesson upon the Gray before shoving him along to the next thing. He soon learns that not only are dragons increasingly endangered in this world, but that there may be some innate flaw in his kind being exploited by their many enemies - a flaw that one aged black dragon (who may or may not still be alive) could teach him about. Meanwhile, a threat to all intelligent beings arises in the form of a human "mage" and his fanatical drive for racial purity, a somewhat heavy-handed baddie repeating real-world xenophobic talking points in a way that many adult readers would likely roll their eyes at for being overused. Eventually, Auron's quest to save his species inevitably must run head-first into the larger threat to the world... but not before numerous side-tracks and violent, gory encounters engineered for maximum violence and gore, and some creepy moments where a maturing but lonely drake begins feeling inappropriate urges toward a human girl he helped raise after she was orphaned. (Because not only are female dragons regarded as little but mates and mothers by male dragons, but females of any species are evidently lumped into the same category...) None of this was helped by the audiobook presentation, and a narrator who, by choice or direction, made some... unusual vocal choices when voicing the characters. His efforts to make wolves howling announcements - how they communicate between packs across long distances - sound like cliché howls in particular almost made me give up on this audiobook, yet another oddly juvenile signal in a book that does not seem to have been marketed as a juvenile read and which contained content that doesn't seem to track with juvenile books, yet which always feels a step away (at most) from being a boy's adventure tale.
There are, in truth, some interesting ideas and some solid potential in Dragon Champion. Despite some anachronisms in what Auron did and did not understand about the greater world, the dragons here are beings of fire and flight and fury, often to their own detriment, and each of the species have inherent flaws that contribute to the overall chaotic, unraveling state of things. Unfortunately, the story keeps tripping itself up by being too retro in the wrong ways, offering the sheen of classic epic fantasies without the sense of solid foundation or depth, with a main character who has a way of coming across as a plot-shaped object and whom I ultimately never quite cared about, in a world that kept reminding me that, as a female reader, I really wasn't that welcome on its adventures anyway.

You Might Also Enjoy:
Watership Down (Richard Adams) - My Review
Dragoncharm (Graham Edwards) - My Review
Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy (Tui T. Sutherland) - My Review

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
Ballantine Books
Nonfiction, Autobiography
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: Long before she became known internationally for her poetry and civil rights activism (among other accomplishments), Maya Angelou was a young girl sent far away from her mother, to live in the segregated town of Stamps, Alabama with her grandmother and disabled uncle. Here, in Mama's store, with only her brother Bailey as confidant, she would learn lessons that would shape her later life.

REVIEW: I'm sufficiently ignorant and unsophisticated to only have a passing familiarity with Angelou and her works; this audiobook was another part of my admittedly-haphazard effort to patch over the innumerable knowledge holes in my brain. Given the direction of recent events, where books like this are being challenged and removed from too many public spaces (anyone who plays semantics Twister to pretend that's not actually "banning" books or throttling the spread of ideas can kindly find another book review blog to follow, thanks), I figured it was high time to try it. Displaying a poet's ability to deeply and vividly evoke a time and place and life, Angelou weaves stories of her childhood, stretching from Jim Crow Alabama to St. Louis and California as she and her brother move between homes and relatives. Along the way, she has memorable encounters with colorful characters, while also experiencing the dark, twisted legacy of racism and classism (and sexism) in their innumerable guises, plus some personal traumas. Alongside the pain and despair and rage, she also experiences moments of hope and solidarity and beauty, the many threads and experiences coming together as she grows up and begins to build a future for herself that challenges the boundaries others would put around her. It makes for an interesting, inspiring, if sometimes depressing and harsh, read... and the fact that so many in 2025 still actively seek to shut books like this away, along with the questions it forces one to ask of oneself and the things it forces one to see about the world around us, is all one needs to know about how far America has failed to progress since Angelou's youth.

You Might Also Enjoy:
Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates) - My Review
How to Be an Antiracist (Ibram X. Kendi) - My Review
Born a Crime (Trevor Noah) - My Review

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (Stephen King)

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Stephen King
Scribner
Fiction, Horror
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland wanted to enjoy the hike along the Appalachian Trail, one of many recent weekend outings planned by her divorced mother to rebuild a family bond with Trisha and her angry older brother Pete... but from before they left the house, Mom and Pete were fighting. They never stopped fighting, no matter how much Trisha tried to play the peacemaker, tried to swallow her own feelings and smile and defuse the tension. It's like they don't even realize she's there, listening to the terrible things they say to each other. At last, she couldn't stand it anymore. Even a quick bathroom break off the trail would be a welcome respite. She just took a few paces into the brush, far enough not to be seen by any passing day hikers.
She thought she knew the way back...
Soon, Trisha realizes that she must have taken a wrong turn - but the Appalachian Trail is wide and well traveled, and surely she can find it if she just keeps going. Only minutes become hours, and she has to admit that she's hopelessly lost in the wilderness, having few supplies in her pack and no more survival skills than scraps she's read in books or learned from a mother who was far more city than country. To keep her spirits up, she uses her Walkman to listen to radio broadcasts of her favorite baseball team, the Red Sox, and her favorite player, closing pitcher Tom Gordon. She even imagines him there with her, giving her encouragement. But when she realizes that she's not as alone as she thinks, that something of inhuman patience and malevolence stalks her, she finds herself facing a threat that not even her hero can help her escape...

REVIEW: Reading like a cross between Gary Paulsen's classic Hatchet and, well, Stephen King, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon drops an ordinary girl into an extraordinary situation, one where wilderness survival is complicated by supernatural elements. Not that nature needs any help to be deceptive and deadly on its own, especially to an inexperienced kid who never anticipated anything more strenuous than the "moderate to difficult" day hike Mom planned that morning, and most especially to one already distracted by her own anxieties. Some small part of her almost wanted to get lost when she left the trail, just to get away from Mom and Pete... only Trisha never meant it so literally. From denial to determination to find her own way back to panic to practical (if scared) acceptance, Trisha makes some mistakes but tries to get her head together and think her way out of her bad situation - and that's before the animal instincts wake to alert her of her stalker, often more feeling than physical entity, which seems to be herding her deeper into the wilderness and toying with her along the way. As a coping mechanism, an inner voice - often dark, but sometimes helpful - speaks up to guide her, and her imagined companion Tom Gordon offers company that becomes more tangible as her physical and mental conditions deteriorate. As is often the case with these tales, Trisha does a lot of growing up in her time alone... though, this being Stephen King, there is no guarantee that she'll survive long enough to apply the hard-won wisdom of the wilds. Amid the terrors and failures are moments of peace and beauty, and Trisha learns to see and appreciate those, too, even as everything else goes wrong. The whole may not be top-notch Stephen King, but makes for a solid, often gruesome tale of survival and finding inner strength in unexpected places.

You Might Also Enjoy:
The Canyon's Edge (Dusti Bowling) - My Review
The Body (Stephen King) - My Review
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) - My Review

Armageddon Outta Here (Derek Landy)

Armageddon Outta Here - The World of Skulduggery Pleasant: The Definitive Story Collection (So Far)
The Skulduggery Pleasant series, Book 8.5
Derek Landy
HarperCollins
Fiction, YA? Adventure/Collection/Fantasy/Horror/Humor/Mystery
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: A hardened posse of war veterans hunts a fugitive dark mage across the American Western frontier... a childhood dare involving a "haunted" house has dire consequences decades later... a man haunted by visions of a peculiar machine may be the conduit for a world-ending event... a string of seemingly random deaths is linked by a cursed pen... These and more tales explore the world and characters surrounding Dublin's infamous skeleton detective Skulduggery Pleasant and his friend and apprentice Valkyrie Cain.
This collection includes the previously-reviewed story Apocalypse Kings.

REVIEW: This collection of 22 stories is billed as 8.5 in the series, but some elements of the later tales constitute spoilers for coming events; I suspect it would fit better elsewhere in the timeline. (There are also a few that were apparently written for special events based on group participation or guest-submitted character ideas. They played out fine in Landy's tales, though my first thought was that he was flirting with the "evidently written entirely by the fans" territory that some authors venture into, and there are a few people in that particular pool that one would do better not to be around... but I digress.) Some slot into the main timeline, while others are essentially standalone side adventures, but all work quite well and maintain Landy's particular blend of humor, wonder, intrigue, horror, and tragedy.
Starting with a tale set in 1800's South Dakota and ending with events taking place after (what I presume occurs in) Book 9 (or maybe later; I'm currently only up through Book 8 in the main arc), the stories are presented roughly in chronological order. Several of them only involve the lead duo of Skulduggery and Valkyrie as side characters. A few could've been complete standalones with minor reshaping, particularly "Get Thee Behind Me, Bubba Moon", which features mortal kids inadvertently stumbling into a dark magical secret left behind by a cultist when a traditional neighborhood rite-of-passage dare goes awry; even the tone almost felt more like a standalone, more serious and introspective as the main character finds himself dealing with impossible events. Landy demonstrates his writing range across these tales, some being shorter and sillier (but never embarrassingly goofy), some being longer and much darker. Often, the tales involve tragedy in some form or another, a loss of innocence if nothing else (and it's often more than just that), reflecting how even fleeting contact with the magical world always comes with a cost, a cost often much, much greater than even willing parties anticipate. The world of Skulduggery Pleasant is not a whimsical wonderland but a shadowed realm of sharp edges and sharper teeth with roots firmly in the horror genre, even if the earlier entries lampshade those roots and there's never a shortage of humorous quips. Nobody is safe, not even innocent bystanders, and good hearts and good intentions are no guarantee of a happy ending... or even a survivable ending. The tales varied a bit but were generally strong.

You Might Also Enjoy:
Carnacki the Ghost Finder (William Hope Hodgson) - My Review
Apocalypse Kings (Derek Landy) - My Review
Sparrow Hill Road (Seanan McGuire) - My Review

Confessions of an Imaginary Friend (Michelle Cuevas)

Confessions of an Imaginary Friend: A Memoir by Jacques Papier
Michelle Cuevas
Rocky Pond Books
Fiction, CH Fantasy/Humor
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: Jacques Papier has always felt invisible; teachers ignore his raised hand, nobody picks him for teams at recess, and his parents even have to be reminded to set a place for him at the table. If not for his twin sister and best friend Fleur, he'd wonder if he even existed at all.
It isn't until he talks to the roller-skating cowgirl at the playground - a girl nobody else seems to notice - that he begins to realize that he's imaginary.
Driven to an existential (or nonexistential) crisis by this discovery, Jacques seeks out other imaginary friends as he tries to figure out just who, and what, he really is, a journey that will lead him far from his beloved sister Fleur on an adventure beyond even his own imagination.

REVIEW: Clearly inspired by the song "Puff the Magic Dragon" with some elements of Toy Story, this tale of an imaginary friend discovering his true self and purpose beyond the girl who created him is surprisingly touching while still being whimsical, exploring the ways in which imagination takes on a (literal) life of its own as it enables people to become better selves, even beyond the mind that sparked it.
Written from Jacques's point of view (and narrated with a light French accent in the audiobook version), the imaginary boy starts out feeling invisible in the way children often do, only it's clear to everyone but Jacques that there's more to it than that. Still, Fleur has more than enough love and belief to sustain them both... which is why, in addition to being increasingly upset by how he's overlooked, Jacques becomes very cross when he overhears their parents talking behind closed doors, concerned about Fleur's imaginary friend. She never kept secrets from him before - he knows because they keep a detailed map of their world, and all the secrets they've discovered in it. Nowhere on that map is a place for an imaginary friend! In retaliation, he tries to come up with his own imaginary friend, a dragon-herring, which doesn't go well and leads to a tipping point where the Papiers demand Fleur get rid of her nonexistent brother. (This, in turn, ends up leading to a psychiatrist when Fleur decides that Jacques is no more invisible and imaginary than she herself feels, and goes to extreme lengths to prove her own nonexistence to her skeptical parents.) Forced to confront his own reality, Jacques finds a community of other imaginary friends, and comes to understand that his kind can be both a help and a hindrance to the children they're with; some are just playmates, but others are signs of deeper problems, more enablers than healers, and not all of them are helpful, as he learns the hard way when he sets out on his own on the dubious word of another imaginary being. Through a series of mostly-amusing adventures and child companions, all of which involve some reinvention of himself, Jacques learns what it means to be an embodiment of imagination, and just what kind of friend he is meant to be. The ending kicked the rating up a half-notch with a moment of pure wonder and beauty (and a much better ending than the song that inspired the protagonist's name).

You Might Also Enjoy:
Crenshaw (Katherine Applegate) - My Review
Day Dreamers (Emily Winfield Martin) - My Review
The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend (Dan Santat) - My Review