2008 Woodie Awards
Fantasy novel will leave you tangled in a web of depression
Mark Aspillera
Issue date: 3/4/08 Section: Student Culture
Everything makes sense, if not on that exact page, then certainly within the next one or two, until the very end. There can be little confusion to any careful reader.
The lack of lingering confusion is a testament to the author's skills in crafting a plot.
"Last Dragon" is depressing.
Characters in the story, unusual for fantasy, have moral ambiguity.
There is an overlying, larger plot that hangs over the entire book and is the entire reason the "memoir" is being written. It is referred to in passing continually and never addressed directly. An obvious important longing dominates this plot-that-isn't-really-a-plot, but since the reader never learns the context of it, there is a sense that it is never resolved in any positive way.
The author said in an interview with Amazon.com that the book is about a sense of duty. To me, "Last Dragon" is about the destructive aspects of notions like duty, bushido, honor, or whatever name is attributed to sets of self-imposed "moral" obligations. The human preconception is that duty affects only the individual who adopts it.
The rebuttal in the bleak, unsympathetic ending of "Last Dragon" says that duty requires action upon others, drawing them inextricably into our spreading webs.
The lack of lingering confusion is a testament to the author's skills in crafting a plot.
"Last Dragon" is depressing.
Characters in the story, unusual for fantasy, have moral ambiguity.
There is an overlying, larger plot that hangs over the entire book and is the entire reason the "memoir" is being written. It is referred to in passing continually and never addressed directly. An obvious important longing dominates this plot-that-isn't-really-a-plot, but since the reader never learns the context of it, there is a sense that it is never resolved in any positive way.
The author said in an interview with Amazon.com that the book is about a sense of duty. To me, "Last Dragon" is about the destructive aspects of notions like duty, bushido, honor, or whatever name is attributed to sets of self-imposed "moral" obligations. The human preconception is that duty affects only the individual who adopts it.
The rebuttal in the bleak, unsympathetic ending of "Last Dragon" says that duty requires action upon others, drawing them inextricably into our spreading webs.
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