4 out of 4 stars
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The Pygmy Dragon: Shapeshifter Dragon Legends Book 1 by Marc Secchia drew me in as soon as I saw the artwork on the book cover – a striking bronze beautiful woman in the process of transmuting into a dragon. According to the author's biography on Amazon.com, he is ‘a South African-born dragon masquerading as an author, who loves writing about dragons and Africa…’. As improbable as that sound, after reading this book I believe him. However, this fantasy novel is not set in Africa, but rather an Island-World created just for this story. Not surprisingly, this story is one where we expect the hero to rise from obscurity and defeat a great evil that threatens the entire world. What we get is a novel that takes this clichéd premise and gives us a genuinely fun reading experience.
I was highly impressed by Secchia’s storytelling prowess. I was invested in the story from the first page of the prologue to the last page of the 34th and final chapter. This novel is actually a copy of a scroll written by Pip’úrth’l-iòlall-Yò’oótha, most commonly referred to as Pip. Pip recounts how she ended up living in a Zoo caged with a humongous ape after she was captured during a raid on her Pygmy village by ‘the big people’. The Pygmy people are characterized as being short, dark-skinned people. This is reminiscent of the Trans-Atlantic chattel slave trade because the ‘big people’ are white persons who consider the pygmy as wild beast. I was upset with the ‘big people’ who were obviously not ‘big’ enough to realize that humans can be drastically different with regards to Skin complexion and cultural expressions.
After years of living in the zoo, Pip is hungry to be acknowledged as a human being. However, when she is rescued by the red dragon Zardon, she soon finds out that she is not just human. It is no spoiler to state that Pip can shapeshift into a bronze dragon. Pip is an amazing character that I will remember for years to come. Despite being abused for years, she was able to keep her good-natured personality. The other characters are also quite memorable. Unfortunately, I could not like most of them. All of them made fun of Pip’s short stature despite knowing that she has a Napoleon complex. The joke felt overused after a while and made some of them seem insensitive, especially Maylin, one of Pip’s human friends. The fact that I was able to garner feelings for the various character is a testimony of the author's character development skills.
There was nothing that I could complain about with regards to the formatting. Every chapter had a fun title. The flow of the story was not rushed, nor was it too slow. I am confident that this work was professionally edited because it was close to 400 pages long and I could not identify any major grammatical issue. I was pleased with the ending. I don’t want to give any spoilers, so I will just say that it was an ideal ending for the first book in a two book series.
In conclusion, I rate The Pygmy Dragon 4 out of 4 stars. I recommend this novel to all fantasy fiction enthusiasts.
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The Pygmy Dragon
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