Musings: The Last Dragonslayer

Jasper Fforde is an author who is always on my radar but that I never read.  I read his first Thursday Next book and really enjoyed it, but never continued with the series.  When I saw that he had a new young adult book featuring a dragon, I was immediately interested.  I thought that Fforde's witty sense of humor would do really well in a young adult fantasy novel.  So I settled down quite happily with his newest book The Last Dragonslayer.

Jennifer Strange is an orphan in an alternate universe Britain (called the Ununited Kingdoms) who works as an admin for a wizarding agency.  The magic in the world is leaking away, though, and the wizards are not very effective.  Word gets out soon that the last dragon is dying, and the land he holds will soon be up for grabs to anyone who can stake a claim on it first.  As it turns out, Jennifer is the last dragonslayer, and she must decide if she really wants to kill the dragon or find a different way to deal with the situation.

The world building in this book was interestingly done.  There is a lot going on that is quite different from our world, but we don't get much more than a glimpse into it (perhaps that's for future books).  Jennifer lives in a small kingdom with a despotic king, and she knows next to nothing about all the other kingdoms around her.  There was a horrible Troll War in the past that left many women as widows and many children as foundlings.  Britain is comprised not of four different regions but of a myriad of fiefdoms that do not get along.  And there are dragons, but they are relegated to the background after a Dragon Pact was formed hundreds of years ago between humans and dragons.

It seems like the sort of world I'd want to know a lot more about, only Fforde doesn't give much more information.  He doesn't have time to do so.  There are just too many characters populating this novel, and there are a few very big messages that he wants to push through, and the setting suffers for it.  For example, there is a potential love interest of Jennifer's mentioned in the first chapter who never again shows up in the book.  So why even have the brief scene between the two characters?  There are also many side characters who are quirky and eccentric, but don't add much to the plot.  I would have preferred that Fforde focused on a few key characters and fleshed them out more.  While Jennifer was likeable and kind and fought for what she believed was right, she seemed pretty typical for a modern-day teenager and I would have liked to know her better.  And I would have liked to spend a lot more time with the dragon.

Fforde also packs a lot of political messages into this book.  There's a lot about environmentalism, greed, big business and trashy media.  I understand Fforde's desire to bring these issues to light in a humorous way, but there was just too much going on for me to care enough about one topic over the other.

Generally, I felt pretty "meh" about this book.  It was fun for a plane ride, but I won't be continuing on with the series.

Note:  This review is based on an advanced reader's copy.  I received this book for free to review.