Book Review: Dealing with Dragons

I realized after my most recent blog post that, while I've mentioned Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles in glowing terms repeatedly over the lifetime of this blog, I've never properly reviewed them. And, since they are hilarious cliche-breaking books that I believe every fantasy writer should read, I'll go ahead and review them now.

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles are a four-book series, and although the last two are all right, the first two are the best. My favorite of all of them is definitely the first one, Dealing with Dragons, so that's the book that I'll review here.


Title: Dealing with Dragons
Author: Patricia C. Wrede
Page count: 240 pages

Stars: 5 stars, All-Time-Favorite

• 5 = an amazing book that delivers a punch. Read this!  

Teaser: Cimorene is not a traditional princess. She's tall with black hair rather than dainty with golden tresses, she learns to fence instead of dance, she's bored sick at the castle, and she definitely doesn't want to marry a prince. Instead, she runs away to volunteer her services to a dragon. The rest of the story is a hilarious series of adventures and misadventures in which Cimorene deals with confused knights, stone princes, dangerous wizards, a cat-loving witch, quarrelsome dragons, and lots of soap.

Age level: Preteens and up (younger children would probably enjoy it, but they might not be able to appreciate the sarcasm and satiric humor)

Violence:

• 1 = mild injuries appropriate for all ages

Romance:

• 1 = a hint of romance (the second book contains slightly more romance, or a 2 rating on my scale)

Language:

• 0 = none (there may have been some humorous exclamation at some point along the lines of "leaping lizards" but I don't recall exactly)

Christian worldview: There's no religious content, but it's written in the tradition of knights-in-shining-armor, that is, with chivalry and respect towards ladies. Definitely nothing anti-Christian, unless you're opposed to magic occurring in a fantasy world.

My thoughts: Have you ever wanted to read a book that took the conventions of fantasy stories--frog princes, princesses held captive by dragons, and knights in shining armor--and turned them on their head? Well, search no further: Dealing with Dragons is the best fantasy satire I've ever read. I love this book so much that I bought it for my younger sister for a birthday present years ago!

If you need convincing, just take a look at the chapter titles. "Chapter 2: In which Cimorene Discovers the Value of Classical Education and Has Some Visitors," "Chapter 5: In which Cimorene Receives a Formal Call from Her Companions in Dire Captivity," and "Chapter 14: In which [some bad guys] Try to Make Trouble, and Cimorene Does Something about It."

I'll leave you with this sorrowful monologue from a sad prince that Cimorene befriends: "It's been three years since I graduated, and everyone's still waiting for me to do something spectacular," the stone prince said, lengthening his stride. "The rest of my classmates are already making names for themselves. George started killing dragons right away, and Art went straight home and pulled some sort of magic sword out of a rock. Even the ones nobody expected to amount to much have done something. All Jack wanted to do was go back to his mother's farm and raise beans, and he ended up stealing a magic harp and killing a giant and all sorts of things. I'm the only one who hasn't succeeded."


So don't miss this book, really! It's a hilarious story that everyone should read and enjoy.

A Few of my Favorite Fantasy Cliches

This is my 100th post! In celebration, I'd like to do something very cliche: write a post about my favorite fantasy cliches. (Cue applause.)

Also, please note that in my blog post, I've used male pronouns to refer to characters, since the majority of fantasy stories are still written about males. Hopefully someday the case will be different!

So, without further ado, I present:


My Favorite Cliches
To the tune of, "My Favorite Things"

Dark stormy nights and scales on dragons
Bright shining daggers and red glowing fire
Stacks of old parchment all tied up with strings--
These are a few of my favorite cliches.

Black or white horses and elvish lembas bread
Watch bells and beacons and Gollum with worms
Creatures that fly with the Nazgul on their wings--
These are a few of my favorite cliches.

Shield maidens in white dresses with swords at their sashes,
Arrows that barely scratch my nose and eyelashes
Silver white beards of wise old men who soon die--
These are a few of my favorite cliches.

When the Dark Lord rises, when the prophecy rhymes, when the hero's an orphan,
I simply remember my favorite cliches, and then I don't feel so bad (about my own writing)!

And now for a proper list of my favorite fantasy cliches.

1. Stock characters

Almost every single fantasy story contains an old man/wizard/wise person who imparts crucial information to the young hero, usually an orphan. Said young hero discovers he has magic powers or is the "chosen one," a fact that no one has told him all his life, and that the villains have only just discovered. Add in a handful of warrior maidens and a dragon or two, and you've got a regular soup of cliches. If you really need any examples of this, just look to Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.


2. Prophecies or curses

Speaking of the "chosen one," any prophecy or curse of any size or shape definitely counts as cliche. Particularly if the hero is the only person that the prophecy could refer to. And if the stakes are "the end of the world as we know it." So if you're dying to make your story as cliche as possible, please, please, insert one of these. I promise it'll increase the cliche-factor by ten. Don't believe me? Ask the dishes! (Reference to Beauty and the Beast, which by the way contains a prophetic curse.)

3. Medieval setting

Despite the constant use of Medieval costumes and weapons in fantasy stories, the hygiene and medicine of fantasy stories seem to be pretty modern. Because, really, where's the plague? Furthermore, there's always a journey that takes days or weeks to get to the destination, usually by walking or riding the same horse for days on end. Honestly, how do characters in these stories manage to get anything done when they must be dead tired from traveling all the time? Walking kills your feet, kills the horses, and can't be done constantly. I'm looking at you, Lord of the Rings.


4. Good versus Evil

So your hero is battling a "Dark Lord" or the "forces of evil" or must go through the "Dark Forest" and battle an army of ugly evil orcs? Wow, how original. But let me ask a question: why should darkness be the enemy just because it's dark? Couldn't that be construed as a bit racist? And why should the whole race of elves (or dwarves, or men) be good and beautiful while orcs (or other villainous force) are always evil and ugly? The real world has good ugly humans and bad beautiful humans. Why should fantasy be any different?


5. Unrealistic fighting

Hero learns swordplay in about a week and is suddenly a master at weapons of any kind, able to confront expert enemies who've had years of training to perfect their technique. Also, arrows never, ever run out, armor is feather-light, and shields are hardly ever necessary. Oh, and while we're on the subject, all wounds seem to be either a minor scratch or life-threatening. Don't heroes ever get paralyzed, or suffer brain damage, or have to amputate their arms?

That said, of course, these particular cliches are only cliches because they've been used very effectively in some of the greatest fantasy stories of all time, from Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter and Beauty and the Beast. So should you really always avoid using cliches?

Well, on the one hand, if you purposefully try to avoid all cliches ever, you're just going to give yourself a horrible headache while you try to think of original plot devices and methods of transportation. On the other hand, you do want to think very carefully before inserting a cliche into your story.

If you do use a cliche, make it humorous and obvious, as Patricia C. Wrede does in her hilarious Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Or try turning it on its head, as Gail Carson Levine did in her amazing novel Ella Enchanted. Recognize the cliches in your writing--and run with them! Use them for your own benefit. It's the best way to write!


Have you read any books or seen any movies with cliches? Any cliche-breaking stories you'd love to share? What about in your own writing--love them? Hate them? Avoid them like the plague?

Realms of Faerie: Forests

{I apologize for the delay in getting this post out--I'm sure you know how summers can be, especially with those nagging fantasy projects you've been wanting to accomplish}

This is the second post in our series on realms of Faerie. Last time we talked about castles; now, we're moving into the realm of nature to cover forests.

Forests of all shapes and sizes abound in every proper fantastic world. The Enchanted Forest of Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles is a prime example of such a forest, brimming with worthy woodkeeper's sons, damsels in distress, dragons, and magical enchantments of every sort. You know the type, I'm sure.

As far as faith goes, forests do not typically pose a problem to Christianity. After all, God was the One who created forests in the first place! In fact, we can even say that by creating forests in our imagination, we are reflecting the nature of our Creator God. Pretty neat!

But there's some bad news too. Unfortunately, in fantasy these days, forests often go through the same uses over and over again: a place of refuge for bandits or the big bad wolf, somewhere to gather herbs of healing, a dangerous area through which the long-suffering hero must travel, the ideal location for a poor widow's cottage, and so on.

And, if that weren't bad enough, these forests often consist--dare I say--of trees just like the ones around us {maples, birches, aspen, and so on}, and, further, forest animals suspiciously like the ones we see every day {do I need to mention the word "deer"?}.

Clearly, we need to up the ante on our forest originality!

Need a gentle nudge to get your little gray cells thinking in the right direction? Here are a few things to think of when crafting fantasy forests.

1. Color: Maybe color doesn't matter in the least in your story. So what? Go ahead, make your forest an unusual shade of titanium gray, dove white, or perfume pink, and I guarantee it'll make you think a little deeper about the structure, biology, and cosmology of your fantasy universe as a whole! Just compare it to our forests in autumn or spring--and, really, who needs a boring old green forest?

2. Type of tree: The first thought that comes to mind when I hear the word "tree" is a tall object with branches and leaves. But not necessarily! What if you had a forest made of poles, like a bamboo forest? Or if you had a forest made of gigantic mushrooms? Or a forest of large, fluffy objects that grow on stems {think Dr. Seuss}? The possibilities are literally endless!

3. Use of forest: Honesty, you do not need a forest to conceal your poor dear kidnapped princess. There are so many more clever alternatives involving toothpicks and particularly skilled swordsmen--not to mention imagination. But, let's say you do need that forest for the princess. What if, at the same time, you made the forest come to life, as with the Ents and trees in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings? Then your princess not only faces the task of getting away from her captors, but also somehow befriending or battling the trees to get out. Much more original, aye?

I certainly hope that those are enough questions to get you thinking the best ways to combat boring old forests. I'll also post some public domain pictures below for further inspiration :)