Fast Forward Friday: The Part About the Dragon Was (Mostly) True, 12/15

Hey y’all! In contrast to Throwback Thursday, I like to use Fridays to look forward to an upcoming release that I’m excited about! Today’s (well… yesterday’s, if I hadn’t forgotten what day it was) is The Part About the Dragon Was (Mostly) True by Sean Gibson. If you like parodies and epic adventures, this may be for you too!
Expected Release: December 15, 2020

Why wait on this one?

• Right off the bat, this story style draws me in. The blurb gives a sense of camaraderie, like I’m being spoken to directly by Heloise the Bard (of renowned storytelling fame). If the writing style in the rest of the book is anything like that, I’m all about it.
• An epic adventure! Tolkien set the bar, and I love seeing new takes on familiar stories and plots by new authors. Any book with dragons is going to catch my attention, but include some wayward motley crew of travelers, joined only by one common purpose to save the land despite their humble origins? SOLD.
• The only way to improve upon the aforementioned theme, personally, is to throw a whole lot of tongue-in-cheek twists of the usual formula into the story. I absolutely adored the whole Champions of the Dragon series which was like a spoof on The Lord of the Rings. I get the sense that The Part About the Dragon was Mostly True will have a very similar flavor of humour and drama to it. Bucking expectations while also sticking to a familiar formula to create something (somewhat paradoxically) pretty original. And at the very least, entirely delightful.

Summary

Sure, you think you know the story of the fearsome red dragon, Dragonia. How it terrorized the village of Skendrick until a brave band of heroes answered the noble villagers’ call for aid. How nothing could stop those courageous souls from facing down the dragon. How they emerged victorious and laden with treasure.

But, even in a world filled with epic adventures and tales of derring-do, where dragons, goblins, and unlicensed prestidigitators run amok, legendary heroes don’t always know what they’re doing. Sometimes they’re clueless. Sometimes beleaguered townsfolk are more hapless than helpless. And orcs? They’re not always assholes, and sometimes they don’t actually want to eat your children.

Heloise the Bard, Erithea’s most renowned storyteller (at least, to hear her tell it), is here to set the record straight. See, it turns out adventuring isn’t easy, and true heroism is as rare as an articulate villager.

Having spent decades propagating this particular myth (which, incidentally, she wrote), she’s finally able to tell the real story—for which she just so happened to have a front-row seat.

Welcome to Erithea. I hope you brought a change of undergarments—things are going to get messy.