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maludee 's review for:
The Book of Three
by Lloyd Alexander
The Chronicles of Prydain was my favorite fantasy series as a kid, but I hadn't reread this since then and was wondering how much I'd enjoy the story as an adult.
Overall, it's a solid high-fantasy story. There are definite similarities to the Lord of the Rings, but not enough that you feel like you're reading the same story. There was a lot of exposition at the beginning of the story (maybe slightly too much) but I liked how quickly the story got underway and how vivid all of the characters were. There were some fantastical elements (like a prophetic pig) that were taken very matter-of-factly by all of the characters and I enjoyed that. The dialogue was well-written and each character had a distinctive voice. Sometimes I felt like Taran's voice swung between sounding like a silly kid (which he was more-or-less supposed to be) and a very wise adult, though.
This isn't all included in the first book, but I know there's a lot of character development ahead for the main character, Taran, and I like that he changes a lot throughout the five books (especially because he can be kind of annoyingly dumb in this one). One thing I didn't notice as a kid but didn't like as much during this read was that a lot of the action happened away from the main character and was told to him at the end of the story as another exposition / info dump. Especially for Gwydion's transformation. The whole book is from Taran's POV but I wish there'd been a more dynamic way to deliver that information.
Overall, it's a solid high-fantasy story. There are definite similarities to the Lord of the Rings, but not enough that you feel like you're reading the same story. There was a lot of exposition at the beginning of the story (maybe slightly too much) but I liked how quickly the story got underway and how vivid all of the characters were. There were some fantastical elements (like a prophetic pig) that were taken very matter-of-factly by all of the characters and I enjoyed that. The dialogue was well-written and each character had a distinctive voice. Sometimes I felt like Taran's voice swung between sounding like a silly kid (which he was more-or-less supposed to be) and a very wise adult, though.
This isn't all included in the first book, but I know there's a lot of character development ahead for the main character, Taran, and I like that he changes a lot throughout the five books (especially because he can be kind of annoyingly dumb in this one). One thing I didn't notice as a kid but didn't like as much during this read was that a lot of the action happened away from the main character and was told to him at the end of the story as another exposition / info dump. Especially for Gwydion's transformation. The whole book is from Taran's POV but I wish there'd been a more dynamic way to deliver that information.