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[moonsheen]

So, the other day I found myself rereading the first book in Jane Yolen's The Pit Dragon Trilogy. I'd read it years and years ago, after I saw a bad animated adaptation of it--I completely adored it. I was pleasantly surprised to find coming back to it I still like it a lot. Unlike, say, the Pern books. Which I also cracked open again and found it completely impossible to read with a straight face anymore. I think as far as the "alien planet in the future where there are dragons for whatever reason" world-building goes, The Pit Dragon Trilogy actually does it a lot better. Of course, I say this going off of just the first book. I remember by the third things got a little funky--probably because it got away from the whole gambling/bondboys aspect of the society, something that was just horribly fascinating. And I liked how the dragons are handled in the first two books, they seem like plausible, interesting creatures, they're characters without breaking the rules of being animals in this world. Likewise there's a surprisingly nitty gritty feel to everything and a fullness that I am always a sucker for (there are songs! little folk songs that make the rounds in popularity! there are cultural icons! ...there are whores!). Good solid world building can make or break a series for me. Using an anime example: Naruto vs. Wolf's Rain. I like Naruto because you actually get a real feel for the setting. This is a world of ninja and I'm convinced of it. It sets down its rules and goes by them. There's a definate framework in place. Wolf's Rain on the other hand always had the feel of a poorly constructed RPG: it seemed like things were being made up out of the blue as it went along. I never really felt any sense of a place around the characters. Things kept getting thrown in haphhazardly--the only episode I found an exception to this being the one with the town with the wolves that had "become dogs" by doing work for humans. Otherwise it just never clicked.

Anyway, that's what I found I liked about revisiting the Pit Dragon Trilogy. It's nothing original on a lot of counts (ooo, desert world! ooo dragons! oo coming of age tale!) But it puts it together in a way that gives the place a character of its own.

...also rereading it I never realized how utterly slashy Likkarn and Sarkkhan are. ('He found me freezing to death and warmed me with his own clothes.' :D!) But then that might just be me.

Comments

Books =D!

[sefeiren.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of this trilogy before o_o... But you've completely grabbed my attention with it, especially when comparing it to Pern.

I must find and read them this summer. Thanks~ =D