I don't know if I've ever publicly stated this
or not, but I'm going to do it right here if
I haven't. And if I have, then oh well. The Book
of Three is better than The Lord of the Rings.
The Chronicles of Bredain are better than The
Lord of the Rings, or better than what The Lord
of the Rings is, the single book in three volumes,
whatever. It's a fact. You can argue with me
if you want, but if you take this journey with
me, I mean, heck, if you've read Chronicles of
Bredain, or even just the Book of Three, you'll
know it to be true. Search your feelings, folks.
Search your feelings. Anyway, yeah, The Chronicles
of Bredain is better than Lord of the Rings.
I love Lord of the Rings. I love The Hobbit.
The Hobbit is also better than Lord of the Rings.
But, and Chronicles of Bredain is above The Hobbit
as well. It's more focused. It's, I mean, here's
the thing. It's a little bit unfair for me to
say that it's better because it came decades
later. And... Not that many decades. And it gave
the opportunity for Lloyd Alexander to grow up
with Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and other fantasy
series and think about the best way to write
a story that's similar to, but, and yeah, sure,
people can look at certain things in it and say,
oh, it's a ripoff or it's copying or whatever,
but he's doing it in such a different way that
it's so fresh. It's not almost unrecognizable.
It's that you don't care. It's like, yeah, it's
kind of like Lord of the Rings, I guess, but
I don't care because it's better. And in fact,
in this episode or in this chapter, chapter 10,
Durnaman, we actually get to see the formation
of the Fellowship of the Pig or the Fellowship
of the Assistant Pig Keeper. I'm not sure which
one flows better and which one I like better,
but it's definitely one of those two is going
on here. and it's a fact you can't really argue
with, I think. If you're not aware of, or you're
not reading the book, you're just finding this
and checking it out, thank you, first of all.
But second of all, let me real quick tell you,
we've got a little monster man, like Unto Golem,
whose name is Gergi, who is tagging along with
the group. We've got a noble, who's kind of a
failed noble, in Flitterflam, and he's imperfect,
so he's kind of maybe our poor emir. Gwydion
is dead. It's as if Aragorn had fallen in Lord
of the Rings instead. Our Frodo, our simple guy,
is Tarin. And Elanwe is... I'm not sure where
to put Elanwe. She's kind of like if Gollum and
Sam had a baby or something like that. She's
kind of the heart, the lodestar, the... I don't
know what. She's like this guiding light for
Tarn, which is super cool. And, you know, I'm
talking about Lord of the Rings the book, not
the movies. So she's not an Arwen, just because
she's a girl. She's, yeah, I mean, maybe more
like Sam and somebody else. Maybe throw a little
Mary and Pippin and Gandalf. Yeah, maybe like
Sam, Pippin, Gandalf kind of all rolled into
one, although she's not a wizard. But she doesn't
need to be. she still provides that guiding role,
and she has the chutzpah and the attitude and
the spunk to make things fun and funny and engaging,
and also she carries like a deep wisdom and knowledge
of secret things that Tarn has no idea of, and
the others also are ill -informed of, and she
carries that information, so she does kind of
perform that wizard -ish role, but she's also
a bit of a scamp. She also provides some comedic
moments, and not that Gandalf doesn't crack jokes,
but still, it's different. And in this chapter,
the four of them have decided, well, and Melengar,
but she's just, you know, a horse. All the Melengar
stans are foaming at the mouth and tearing, rending
their garments right now at me saying Melengar
is just a horse, which she is, you know, she's
a good horse. Anyway, but they've decided to
stick together and hold out, not hold out. They've
decided to stick together and take on both Gwydion's
mission. And Torrin's mission. And I think it's
pretty interesting. How they're doing that. Anyway.
So that's the formation of the fellowship. And
each of these four characters. And the horse.
Perform their distinct role. And they're coming
from different places. And they feel like. The
different characters. The different races. That
are joined together among the nine walkers. Or
the fellowship. Whatever. And I really do like
that. And I think it's. good on so many levels
it has a narrative it's very satisfying it just
feels very satisfying that like oh okay cool
these guys are all gonna go on an adventure together
and they're they have a quest now to journey
to do this stuff and they have you know a dual
quest which is interesting and the way that along
we fights to be included in the group the way
that fluter fights to kind of start the group
by saying, I'm going to stay with you. And the
way Gergi just says that he's going to come along
and help to save his own skin, but also to help
them however he can, it's a very natural way.
Also, I love Taran's guilt and his desire to
carry out Gwydion's mission because he got Gwydion
killed. when Spiral Castle was destroyed. And
he got Gwydion captured and taken to Spiral Castle.
So he feels responsible for that. He no longer
wishes for adventure. He's now kind of refusing
the call to adventure, or maybe lamenting that
he's taking it up, rather. We want to talk about
the Hero's Journey in this context. I'm not an
expert on the Hero's Journey, so... I might make
references to it, but it's not really my strong
suit, and probably I should refrain from that,
since I haven't studied it, and I don't really
intend to study it, and bring it into a lot of
my discussions, because when I speak more generally,
more broadly, is this a good story or not? Why?
Why not? How is it bad? How is it good? So anyway,
but he's now lamenting the fact that he wanted,
when he was at Cara Dalvin, to have all these
great things that he's now having, and it's not
so great. And I really do appreciate that. It's
not a cynicism and it's not a world weariness,
but there is an element of truth or like learning
the harsh truth of life, the harsh truths of
life in the Chronicles of Prydain that I find
beautiful. And to me, from my recollection, it's
done effortlessly or it feels effortless and
it's done without. bogging down the audience
in like depressing stories basically I also think
the length of the books being individual adventures
or episodes that build upon each other helps
it to feel nicer King Ghidorah helps it to feel
nicer um so I'm driving through Kentucky right
now and I just passed hopefully you can see it
in the video behind me there was a three -headed
golden dragon uh and obviously if it's not actually
King Ghidorah There was a T -Rex right there
you could just see. It's at least a reference
to King Ghidorah, and I find that charming and
wonderful. Hopefully I visit that sometime soon
this summer. Anyway, it's a lot of fun. Anyway,
getting back to it. It feels kind of effortless,
and it feels very real without being bogged down,
without being depressing. The smaller, isolated
episodes of the shorter books. I don't remember.
I think they're all like around eight hours long,
five to eight hours long. I don't know the page
count or the word count, rather. off the top
of my head. But I feel like they're shorter.
Five to eight hours sounds about right for these
books. Which would be 50 to 80 ,000 words. If
they are in fact those lengths. I believe the
average is like 10 ,000 words an hour. Anyway.
My point is they do what Lord of the Rings did,
but they do it better. And I'm really enjoying
seeing the journey. and seeing the journeys,
the parallel journeys that these characters are
all on, and it's really enjoyable. And it's not
entirely apparent what the arcs are, what the
journeys are that these characters are all on
right now, so Flutter, he has this issue with
rearranging the facts, and Taliesin, the chief
bard, understands that, had the insight, whatever.
and gave him this particular heart that he values
deeply and wants to protect and take care of,
even though it betrays him when he is less than
truthful, let's say. And that's interesting.
So, like, is he going to become an honest man?
Is he going to return to his kingdom? Is he going
to become, like, some sort of great war leader?
Because apparently he hasn't carved through,
what is it, like, walls of enemies or whatever?
Like, you know, what's his journey? We don't
know. Gergi? Can't tell yet. Is it maybe that
he's been cursed to be a monster as opposed to
a man and he's going to be turned back into one.
Into a man at the end of his journey. I don't
know. There's not enough information on Gergi
yet. But he is loyal and faithful and he's interested
in crunchings and munchings. That's about all
I got so far on Mr. Gergi. And a lot of me, this
actually just hit me in my little... Well, anyway,
as I was thinking about it, what these characters'
journeys are, Alana was being raised by Ahren,
and she has other relations who are not such
great people, and she doesn't want to be sent
back to them because she thinks they're bad,
and she, well, doesn't want to be bad like them.
And she kind of was being raised to turn into
an evil sorceress. And she mentions that in the
old... olden times, which is funny because this
is very long ago for us, but in the olden times
for them, her people, the women were all sword
maidens that fought alongside the men, which
is really cool. And actually, I found this out,
I think because of Pendragon Cycle, that the
Irish women actually used to go into battle as
well. They would wear, I think they wore it at
some point like these battle pants, like plaid
battle pants. And they would go with their swords
and maybe shields too. And they would fight.
And it's crazy. And it's cool because at some
point, Queen Guinevere, Arthur's wife, she ends
up, I don't remember if she actually ends up,
I think she ends up fighting a little bit in
one of the books. And it's super cool because
you get to learn about that. And then you see,
oh, this woman is proof of that. And it's really
neat. Anyway, so obviously. Uh, this is a, well,
not obvious. It's not obvious. Let me clarify.
This is Welsh with all the, Wales is, I think,
very far north, and I believe Ireland is to the
south. I'm really terrible at geography, but
I think that's true. But I'm saying, it's not
that Elanwy is Welsh, um, but that, uh, I'm sorry,
Elanwy is Welsh. She's from Welsh. You know,
this is a Welsh story. I'm saying it's not that
she's Irish, but there definitely could have
been, uh, Welsh, you know, sword women's, uh,
uh, sword maidens as well that I'm just unaware
of, like I know about a little bit of the history
of the Irish woman. But anyway, but like, she
has the potential to become an evil queen, an
evil witch, evil sorceress, whatever, like her
aunt Othrin, who she enjoys fighting, defies,
and like, runs around and does things that her
aunt wouldn't like. So, defying evil doesn't
make you good necessarily. It could just be that
she's evil, but with a different bent, or a different...
Kind of. So I find that to be interesting. And
Tarin, you know, he's this assistant pig keeper
right now. He's taking on the lead position of
the exposition, like the Aragorn role, like I
said before. Also the Frodo role, kind of. And
that hero's journey. I don't even think Tolkien
used the hero's journey. Anyway. Sorry, I must
stop referring to the hero's journey when I'm
ill -equipped to do that. Excuse me. um but he's
taking on that lead role so like will he become
a war leader is that his destiny is that what
he's going towards i don't know but it's interesting
to see that they're in the situations where they're
going to be dealing with battles and adventure
and you know running from enemies fighting enemies
whatever and see how this like mystic group of
a fellowship will do that Here's the thing, though.
I'm interested in each of their individual stories.
It helps that they're a smaller cast. The Nine
Walkers of Rivendell or whatever were a much
larger cast, and Bilbo and his 13 dwarf associates
with their crazy names, crazy silly names, and
their scant characterization, you know, they
didn't do it for me. Tarn and his crew, the Fellowship
of the Pig, or the Fellowship of the Assistant
Pig Keeper are doing it for me. I'm very much
invested in each of their individual stories
and where they're going and learning more about
their histories and their backstories because
we got an inkling of what each of them is about
and I'd like to know more. And Tarn is a complete
mystery so far. So far. Anyway, but yeah, this
is just like, it's a really exciting setup for
a story. And I feel kind of, in a way I feel
duped, and in a way I feel very good about this.
This is kind of like the L. Frank Baum structure
of a story where it's get your characters into
something, get them into something else, get
them into something else, get them into something
else, the end. And also kind of reminds me of
Feels Like With That. Add Escalation onto that,
the Lester De - formula, which he used for The
Bronze Man. Oh, Doc Savage. Doc Savage is The
Bronze Man. He was Lester Yance's character,
and he used this pulp formula for him, and his
like 6 ,000 word short stories, his 60 ,000 word
pulp novels, they're divided basically into quarters,
and each quarter you did something different,
and they built upon each other, and I very much
feel like that's the formula. or something like
the formula bomb use. Um, there's like a three
quarter way through. There's a big victory. Uh,
and then the last quarter is a really cool, like
showcase of all your characters at their peak
together, which is a lot of fun. It's like, I
call it, I refer to it as a big, I've talked
about it both in talking about the books and
also talking about the book, the structure of
the books with my daughter, um, who's 14. She's
a burgeoning author. Uh, I call it the, uh, the
victory March. So anyway, um, What's my point?
My point is that we kind of have now, at ten
chapters in, I don't know if we're actually at
the quarter mark or the third mark or whatever,
but it feels like we have this crew assembled,
we have this, we've been introduced to the dangers
of the world, to some of the heroes of the world,
to some of the good forces of the world, and
also we've assembled a cast and a crew who will
go through the rest of this adventure together,
and it feels like this was a great opening quarter
for them, or opening third for them. to assemble
into a team and take on a mission, and now they're
about to start on their journey, and it feels
really satisfying. They did it in less page count,
did it in less word count, did it with a smaller
cast of characters, and I care more deeply about
them. Sam to me is like a very flat character.
Frodo has a lot more characterization to him.
It's been a long time since I've listened to
Lord of the Rings, though, so I won't judge very
harshly now. But I will say just overall, my
impression after I finished Predain and, you
know, Book of Three on its own, I think, originally,
I thought, oh, this is much, like, this is better.
This is better. This is really interesting. Actually,
I think I waited to finish the whole series before
I made my judgment of, yeah, I think this is
actually better than Lord of the Rings. But I
would want to compare them a little more closely.
But not right now. Lord of the Rings has a lot
to get through. So we'll... And that's the thing.
It feels like it's a lot to get through, whereas
Predane, I feel like, yeah, I could do that.
I could listen to the Predane Chronicles. No
problem. But Lord of the Rings is like, oh, it's
just... I gotta push myself. I gotta be ready
for this. I gotta concentrate and focus and be
here. And it isn't that one is high art, or one's
highbrow and one's lowbrow. Lord of the Rings
lowbrow, or highbrow, Predane lowbrow. That's
not what it is. It's just, like, the presentation
and the style associated with them is so different.
that one is just more easily palatable. It's
still nutritious. It's not like you're eating
junk food. It's still the same great thing, but
it's presented in such a way that I think it
is superior in its presentation and in its overall
content. And I think I do stand by that. Lord
of the Rings and Tolkien's Legendarium in general
casts a very long shadow, though, and I think
that has overshadowed the Chronicles of Bredaim,
and I think that's too bad. I don't feel foolish
or silly or wrong for talking about the two series
in comparison to each other so much here, as
opposed to talking about the main content of
Chapter 10. Because Chapter 10 is a linchpin
chapter that has a lot of deeper stuff that I
don't remember. I'm not going to say it all pays
off later in this book or in the other books
or in the series at all. It has a lot of stuff
that's tying everything together and like really
setting us up in this world. So I feel like the
status quo changes that it's bringing and the
new normal that it's setting up for the book
and the trajectory that it's setting for the
rest of the book and the series, you could say
too, afford me the ability to freely talk about
things in this broader perspective while still
feeling like I've touched on the important things
from this chapter. However, this is not an exhaustive
chapter. review, breakdown, or examination at
all, and it won't be. That's not what I'm going
to do. I'm actually going to call it here because
I feel like I've said enough and been a lot of
interruptions, and I want to enjoy doing these
and not turn it into a slog for myself or something
unbearable that I have to do in a certain way.
I'm freeing myself up to do more short videos
or maybe some text posts. about some of the cool
stuff going on in Chapter 10, because there's
some really neat things that I want to talk about
more in depth, but not at the moment. So anyway,
I hope you enjoyed this. Check out my other reviews
of The Chronicles of Bredane. And also, I am
currently, it's May, no, April. I don't know
what day it is. I think it's April 22nd, April
23rd. I just got the cover art for my brother
-in -law, the line art. For my book, Mockwing
Mayhem, which features magical bugs battling
monsters, they protect children from the monsters
who would prey upon them, and a certain batch
of monsters, a bunch of mockwings, find out where
they live and go to their fort to kill them all,
and the grow bugs want that to not happen. They
come up with a plan, and it turns out that two
untested and untried grow bugs are going to try
to save their master, even though they should
be running and hiding. And they're going to battle
a Mokwing. And if they defeat it, great. But
bad news, there's still a whole bunch of other
Mokwings who could kill them. And we got to see
how they get through all of that. And anyway,
excuse me. I think it's a great book. I think
it's a lot of fun. I think it's a great first,
you know, debut middle grade novel. It's about
25 ,000 words, which I think is a respectable
length. And it's a lot of fun. It's a quick read.
A lot of cool things happen there. It's setting
up a world, not a trilogy, but a world full of
world building. And I have ideas already for
the sequels that I, well, I have an overall story
I want to do, but that overall arc for characters,
I want to pair with some really cool, fun adventures
that are going to show us different, unique aspects
of the throwback world. And anyway, that's Mock
Wing Mayhem. You can find out more by checking
out the links in the description, going to mgwingers
.com. You can sign up for my email list to get.
a free short story and some other bonuses about
the Mothman world, as well as a notice when it's
going to be live, when you can buy it. I'm planning
on recording the audio book myself and releasing
that as well as the digital ebook version and
the paperback on the same day, summer 2025. So
it's coming soon. I hope you enjoy it. I hope
you check it out. And again, I hope you enjoyed
this review and I will continue doing. chapter
-by -chapter reviews of the Book of Three, as
well as the rest of the Chronicles of Verdane,
and I'm also doing reviews of books that are
like Mockwing Mayhem. What does that mean? It
means books that, if you look at what makes up
Mockwing Mayhem, and you distill it down, and
you say, okay, there are other popular books
out right now, or that came out 10, 20 years
ago, whatever, that are popular fantasy books
for middle -grade audience, and you could say
they compare. Let's check them out. And I'm going
to read them and review them. And I have my Wings
of Fire review, which I think is already out
by the time that this review goes live. So I
hope you check that out already. If you haven't,
go back. I read book one of Wings of Fire, which
is called The Dragon at Prophecy. And you can
hear my full thoughts on the book there. I would
very much appreciate you checking that out. And
if you're a fan of Wings of Fire, I think you'll
like Mocking Mayhem a lot. If you're a fan of...
Chronicles of Bredan, I think there's a good
chance you'll like it a lot because it's a fantasy
adventure story with depth and cool stuff going
on with characters. Very much, it's not a comparison
like how Lord of the Rings and Bredan Chronicles
are a comparison to each other, but it is a comparison
in that it's fantasy with neat world building
and characters engaging in interesting character
development, kind of deep stories, themes are
being explored, and there's some cool action
as well. So anyway, I hope you check that out.
Until next time, folks, take care, be well, and
keep reading.