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Restarting a childhood favorite series
Jan. 15th, 2022 12:52 pmPendragon Adventures was a series I started reading on a whim in late middle school. Long story short, the first set of three books was on sale, and since it seemed remotely fantasy/adventure related, I thought I would give them a shot. I had passed the books on the shelves many times and the covers are very reminiscent of Harry Potter and many other children's book series at the time - dramatic painted portrait of male protagonist, front and center, with a colorful background alluding to whatever new world or themes would be included in the book.
Unlike Harry Potter, the Pendragon books were never made into a series of blockbuster films - although sometime after the last novel was published, they did get some spin-offs and graphic novel adaptations. In hindsight, I'm somewhat glad that movies were never made, considering the track record of books I loved being made into shit movies at the time (I still can't forgive whoever destroyed my beloved Inkheart), and I always imagined Pendragon to be more of an animated show or comic more than a live-action movie. Okay, MAYBE I was obsessed with manga and anime a lot back then and ended up projecting it onto the series. I mean, they did make a manga of the Maximum Ride books so it wasn't like it wasn't impossible.
So some time in 2020, I was feeling a bit nostalgic and was reminiscing about books I had read growing up. I had already re-read Harry Potter back in 2017, but unfortunately Joanne decided to out herself as a TERF not long after that. So with that piece of my childhood swiftly murdered, as small of a piece as it was, I decided to see if maybe there were some other books from "back in the day" that held up over time. Seeing that Amazon had the entire Pendragon collection in alternate soft-cover editions, I figured I would just buy those as opposed to the tedious and expensive process of flying to my parents' home and excavating them from whatever mountain of shit has been piling up in my old bedroom. Now, in 2022, I've decided to finally actually start reading those books.
This past month, I finished the first installment of the series, The Merchant of Death. Upon opening the book and beginning the first few pages, I immediately was hit with "yep, this is a kid's book." The dialogue is a bit corny in that very 1990's sort of way that betrays the age of the very much adult author, despite being the first person perspective of a 14 year old boy. The writing, while not overly simplistic, is fitting for the 10-13 year old age range, and might be awkward for first time adult readers. However, despite the occasional cringey pun or terribly dated turn of phrase, Bobby Pendragon has a sense of humor, and while he has some very "chosen one" trope, Gary Stu-esque qualities, I personally found him to be likeable. The journals especially allow us to have a more direct window into his personality and emotional state, making it much easier to grow attached to him as a character.
For those not aware of the premise, the Pendragon Adventures are about Bobby learning he is a "Traveler" - a person destined to travel through time and space to different worlds, called territories, on the brink of a turning point. Bobby, with his predecessor, Uncle Press, and a second young traveler, Loor, are tasked with ensuring that these turning points don't result in the destruction of these territories. Another Traveler and the main villain, Saint Dane, is attempting to sabotage these efforts in an attempt to throw the entire universe into a state of chaos for his own personal ends. So yeah - it's very much like Kingdom Hearts, but much more grounded in traditional sci-fi tropes and concepts as opposed to the convoluted "hearts/darkness" dichotomy.
Travelers use a worm hole-type travel system called flumes to go from each territory, and upon arrival, they are to blend in with the customs and cultures native to that world. Bringing items from other territories or time-periods is not permitted - a rule that is a focal point for MoD. Essentially, the first world Bobby travels to is Denduron, which appears to have a high fantasy/medieval/European Dark Ages inspired theme where technology is set back thousands of years from the time period from which Bobby originates. The plot centers around two people groups, one of which (the Bedowan) has been historically oppressing the other (the Milago) through forced labor and poverty. This understandably fuels a violent uprising, where Bobby, Uncle Press, and Loor are caught in the middle.
The "journal" parts focus entirely on Bobby's point of view, for the most part, and they are laden with high-intensity action, suspense, plot-twists, and drama. Also, for a kid's series, there is a large amount of darker themes and violence. Literally within the first chapter, we get a taste of the extreme depth of Saint Dane's evil when, disguised as a police officer, he uses mind control powers to cause a houseless person to jump in front of a moving train. War, oppression, murder, and genocide are also very prominent themes in MoD, and based on my memory, exist throughout the entire series. Whether discussion of these themes hold up from the way my childhood self remembers them is something I will be discovering as I continue the remainder of the books.
We get intermittent breaks from the action through third person perspective vignettes that focus on Bobby's girlfriend, Courtney, and his long-time best friend, Mark Dimond. Both Courtney and Mark are still back on Bobby's territory, Second Earth, and are going through their own daily lives while trying to investigate the fate of their friend. One major discovery is that Bobby and all traces of his entire family and past life on Second Earth have seemingly faded from existence.
I plan on potentially writing an overall general review once I've finished all the books, but in the meantime, I've decided to do individual ramblings via vlogs, where I plan to maybe go deeper into the nuances of the writing and other criticisms I have about each book. I may link them all here - I'm not sure, but if I enjoy doing those, I may make them more of a routine thing. So far, it feels nice to have these kind of books to escape into while all the shit in the world is going to hell. Reading a little bit of the books every day before work kinda takes me back to my childhood when I'd watch anime and Transformer cartoons before school in the morning.
Unlike Harry Potter, the Pendragon books were never made into a series of blockbuster films - although sometime after the last novel was published, they did get some spin-offs and graphic novel adaptations. In hindsight, I'm somewhat glad that movies were never made, considering the track record of books I loved being made into shit movies at the time (I still can't forgive whoever destroyed my beloved Inkheart), and I always imagined Pendragon to be more of an animated show or comic more than a live-action movie. Okay, MAYBE I was obsessed with manga and anime a lot back then and ended up projecting it onto the series. I mean, they did make a manga of the Maximum Ride books so it wasn't like it wasn't impossible.
So some time in 2020, I was feeling a bit nostalgic and was reminiscing about books I had read growing up. I had already re-read Harry Potter back in 2017, but unfortunately Joanne decided to out herself as a TERF not long after that. So with that piece of my childhood swiftly murdered, as small of a piece as it was, I decided to see if maybe there were some other books from "back in the day" that held up over time. Seeing that Amazon had the entire Pendragon collection in alternate soft-cover editions, I figured I would just buy those as opposed to the tedious and expensive process of flying to my parents' home and excavating them from whatever mountain of shit has been piling up in my old bedroom. Now, in 2022, I've decided to finally actually start reading those books.
This past month, I finished the first installment of the series, The Merchant of Death. Upon opening the book and beginning the first few pages, I immediately was hit with "yep, this is a kid's book." The dialogue is a bit corny in that very 1990's sort of way that betrays the age of the very much adult author, despite being the first person perspective of a 14 year old boy. The writing, while not overly simplistic, is fitting for the 10-13 year old age range, and might be awkward for first time adult readers. However, despite the occasional cringey pun or terribly dated turn of phrase, Bobby Pendragon has a sense of humor, and while he has some very "chosen one" trope, Gary Stu-esque qualities, I personally found him to be likeable. The journals especially allow us to have a more direct window into his personality and emotional state, making it much easier to grow attached to him as a character.
For those not aware of the premise, the Pendragon Adventures are about Bobby learning he is a "Traveler" - a person destined to travel through time and space to different worlds, called territories, on the brink of a turning point. Bobby, with his predecessor, Uncle Press, and a second young traveler, Loor, are tasked with ensuring that these turning points don't result in the destruction of these territories. Another Traveler and the main villain, Saint Dane, is attempting to sabotage these efforts in an attempt to throw the entire universe into a state of chaos for his own personal ends. So yeah - it's very much like Kingdom Hearts, but much more grounded in traditional sci-fi tropes and concepts as opposed to the convoluted "hearts/darkness" dichotomy.
Travelers use a worm hole-type travel system called flumes to go from each territory, and upon arrival, they are to blend in with the customs and cultures native to that world. Bringing items from other territories or time-periods is not permitted - a rule that is a focal point for MoD. Essentially, the first world Bobby travels to is Denduron, which appears to have a high fantasy/medieval/European Dark Ages inspired theme where technology is set back thousands of years from the time period from which Bobby originates. The plot centers around two people groups, one of which (the Bedowan) has been historically oppressing the other (the Milago) through forced labor and poverty. This understandably fuels a violent uprising, where Bobby, Uncle Press, and Loor are caught in the middle.
The "journal" parts focus entirely on Bobby's point of view, for the most part, and they are laden with high-intensity action, suspense, plot-twists, and drama. Also, for a kid's series, there is a large amount of darker themes and violence. Literally within the first chapter, we get a taste of the extreme depth of Saint Dane's evil when, disguised as a police officer, he uses mind control powers to cause a houseless person to jump in front of a moving train. War, oppression, murder, and genocide are also very prominent themes in MoD, and based on my memory, exist throughout the entire series. Whether discussion of these themes hold up from the way my childhood self remembers them is something I will be discovering as I continue the remainder of the books.
We get intermittent breaks from the action through third person perspective vignettes that focus on Bobby's girlfriend, Courtney, and his long-time best friend, Mark Dimond. Both Courtney and Mark are still back on Bobby's territory, Second Earth, and are going through their own daily lives while trying to investigate the fate of their friend. One major discovery is that Bobby and all traces of his entire family and past life on Second Earth have seemingly faded from existence.
I plan on potentially writing an overall general review once I've finished all the books, but in the meantime, I've decided to do individual ramblings via vlogs, where I plan to maybe go deeper into the nuances of the writing and other criticisms I have about each book. I may link them all here - I'm not sure, but if I enjoy doing those, I may make them more of a routine thing. So far, it feels nice to have these kind of books to escape into while all the shit in the world is going to hell. Reading a little bit of the books every day before work kinda takes me back to my childhood when I'd watch anime and Transformer cartoons before school in the morning.
