Centuries of wandering have taught the exiled dragon princess Shimmer that humans are beneath her notice. But she allows young Thorn to join her in the search for the evil witch Civet — and the quest to restore her dragon clan’s lost home.
This first novel in Laurence Yep’s Dragon tetralogy published in 1982 and the series concluded a decade later with Dragon War. The release of most of the series therefore overlaps with my childhood reading prime, yet I’d never read any of them. I do recall Yep’s name and seeing the books ubiquitously around, but for whatever reason they aren’t ones I ever chose to pick up. Maybe it’s because even then I tended more toward the horror side of fantasy, but I still loved other general fantasy built around folklore. I guess it’s also because I was also an oddball child who wasn’t ever particularly enamored with dinosaurs or dragons.
Fast-forward to present day and coming across a copy of Dragon of the Lost Sea in a thrift shop. I still could take or leave dragons. But I’m now much more curious about folklore from around the world, and curious to pick up and try big genre names that I’ve never taken the time to read. Our “Into the Wardrobe” feature could focus on revisiting personal childhood favorites again, but I also find it interesting to see whether books considered childhood favorites in their day still hold up today, or to an adult who might be reading it for the first time.
Dragon of the Lost Sea is a great example of the latter for me because I don’t think I would have particularly enjoyed or appreciated this book if I had read it back during childhood. But I certainly did now.
Starting the novel, I was immediately drawn into the world and the folk nature of the story being told. As the human, I expected Thorn to be the center of the novel, but gradually began to appreciate Shimmer as the protagonist and character we would see adapt and grow through the adventure unfolding.
Most of the novel is written from Shimmer’s first-person point-of-view (with only a couple of chapters from Thorn’s point-of-view rendered in italics.) This is a really interesting choice as it forces the reader into the perspectives of a more unfamiliar dragon rather than the young human who could be a stand-in for the reader. It’s a far more interesting choice too, and I adore how well Yep renders Shimmer’s personality through the text. As an exiled dragon princess leery of humanity, Shimmer is portrayed as somewhat wise, elderly, and cantankerous, not unlike an elderly human set in their ways. Yet, there is also a lot of indecision and impulsiveness to Shimmer that lean more toward immaturity.
This all makes sense as the reader begins to understand Shimmer’s background more, and an age that might be viewed as ancient from the view of a human, but very young from that of dragon-kin. Rather than the usual narrative of the young human learning from the experienced mentor, Dragon of the Lost Sea flips this more toward the dragon learning from the wisdom of the human, particularly in learning to be open to more possibilities.
The weakest parts of the novel are the central portions where I did feel they dragged a bit without significant progression of plot or characterization. I also remain at a loss regarding why Yep chose to write the two chapters from Thorn’s point of view rather than staying with Shimmer. They are beneficial in giving a chance to actually see Thorn’s thought process and intentions from the human side rather than through the filter of Shimmer, and that might also help to reassure younger readers as the conclusion approaches with the showdown with Civet and loyalties are seemingly put to the test. But these breaks really fracture the momentum of the novel in what appears to be an arbitrary fashion.
The conclusion of the novel benefits from strong characterization of Civet that raises a formerly one-dimensional to more complexity and empathy while also effectively bringing what has been a distant protagonist into direct influence. As a young reader I might have been annoyed by the ending which only partially resolves things while opening up what will become the future novels of the series, but I had no problem with this now.
I don’t know how the other novels of the series hold up to this debut, but Dragon of the Lost Sea certainly makes me want to continue checking them out. Forty-three years on, this is one that still holds up exceptionally well for young and old alike.
