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arielzeit 's review for:
Dragon Pearl
by Yoon Ha Lee
I was surprised by how much I liked this book, given that I couldn't read more than a few pages of Aru Shah, the first book in the "Rick Riordan Presents...." series. This is quite different from Rick's own Lightning Thief genre. Not only is it about Korean mythology, it's set in the future: the era of a Thousand Worlds, which have been terraformed by dragons; the best ones are terraformed by the Dragon Pearl, a semi-mythical magic artefact of almost unbelievable power. Our narrator Min comes from one of the more poorly terraformed worlds, where the inhabitants struggle to get by with hydroponics and dust masks. So there's a kind of galaxy-wide system of have and have-not planets.
Notice that I said "inhabitants," not people, before; these include a number of creatures from Korean mythology, most notably the mischievous fox-spirits like Min, our narrator and heroine, but also supernatural tigers, dragons, goblins, ghosts and others. The Korean inflections extend into the deepest levels of the fantasy; for example, the space ship has "meridians" of gi (aka qi or chi) as does a person in Chinese medicine. I loved that! I also loved Min's foxiness; her sense of smell, her shape-shifting, and her Charm (similar to the Western faerie's "glamour").
The plot is less entrancing but that was OK with me. Min is searching for her vanished brother, a cadet in the Space Force who is accused of deserting the corps in a search for the Dragon Pearl. She shape-shifts to impersonate a dead cadet on his ship and search for him. I'll try the next one for sure.
Notice that I said "inhabitants," not people, before; these include a number of creatures from Korean mythology, most notably the mischievous fox-spirits like Min, our narrator and heroine, but also supernatural tigers, dragons, goblins, ghosts and others. The Korean inflections extend into the deepest levels of the fantasy; for example, the space ship has "meridians" of gi (aka qi or chi) as does a person in Chinese medicine. I loved that! I also loved Min's foxiness; her sense of smell, her shape-shifting, and her Charm (similar to the Western faerie's "glamour").
The plot is less entrancing but that was OK with me. Min is searching for her vanished brother, a cadet in the Space Force who is accused of deserting the corps in a search for the Dragon Pearl. She shape-shifts to impersonate a dead cadet on his ship and search for him. I'll try the next one for sure.