4 out of 4 stars
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Becoming the Dragon is a debut fantasy novel by Russian author Alex Sapegin. It follows a boy named Andy, who is transported to a fantasy world that seems to draw heavy inspiration from Tolkien's Middle-earth. Upon arrival, rather than be revered as a hero, he is captured and ridiculed, frequently avoiding death only through his own skill and quick thinking. Since he actually didn't become a dragon until about halfway through the book, I'll avoid talking about the circumstances of his transformation in detail, but at no point did this element feel shoehorned in.
It's important to note that this novel was translated from Russian. In my opinion, this was good for a fantasy novel, since it means its language isn't overly flowery and inaccessible, as seems to be common in the genre. The translation is clear and easy to understand, with minimal grammatical errors that tend to be clustered in the first few scenes. The Russian origin of this story did present some problems, however. Andy is implied to be an adolescent boy, and the novel reads much like one targeted towards children, but there is some relatively explicit content. There is one sex scene, and Sapegin also goes into detail describing female characters' busts at some points. The dissonance in tone was somewhat jarring. I can only attribute this to cultural differences.
Despite this, the fantastic world Andy found himself in was fleshed out in surprising detail. Though the book is overall very Eurocentric, cultures exist that are more than simple clones of real-world equivalents, including gnomes with glowing hair and a variety of types of magic users. Sapegin repeats the mistakes of many other male authors by including very few fully developed female characters, but this flaw wasn't enough to significantly break immersion.
The supporting cast, especially the main villain, was also developed thoroughly. I found myself motivated to keep reading, not just because of my investment in the characters' fates, but to continue learning more about the cultures and fantasy races living in Andy's new world. For the most part, information was delivered in an immersive way, though there were some chunks of exposition near the end of the novel that were given in the form of monologues.
Becoming the Dragon is an incredibly strong debut novel, and one I would recommend to avid fantasy lovers looking to start a new series. Due to the presence of some sexual content, however, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone younger than a high school student. Its worldbuilding and character development were strong, and it set up the next book in the sequel very well. For these reasons, I rate Becoming the Dragon 4 out of 4 stars.
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Becoming the Dragon
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I found the language to be far too casual for such an in-depth fantasy! It would have made sense for Andy to speak casually, but I would have preferred some variation in language for this world still stuck in the medieval era. Nonetheless, I appreciate reading your views!
