Raise your hand if you love the film Willow. I know there are lots of you otherwise Disney wouldn’t be dusting it off and bringing it back with new small-screen stories. But I’m not here to talk about the new. I’m here to talk about the past, a painful, painful past.
Now, raise your had if you tied to read the trilogy of novels written by George Lucas and Chris Claremont that provided a sequel to the popular 80s film. Fewer of you. That’s to be expected. Lastly, raise your hand if you actually finished that trilogy. What? Is that crickets I hear? I thought as much.
I owned multiple copies of the first book. Many purchased it for me based on the many amazing elements that were put into this literary endeavor. First, it was supposed be the tale of the beloved baby, Elora Danan, grown up. Everyone knew how much I loved that movie and the idea of giving me more of the story seemed like such a great idea at the time. Second there was the artwork, simplistic yet detailed with many of the earmarks of mid-90s fantasy. Characters had a Boris Vallejo quality while still showing the feminine character as heroic. Plus, there was a dragon on one. Thanks artist Ciruelo Cabral for the artwork. I think I stared at the cover longer than I actually spent reading the book. Third, this was 1995. We still believed in George Lucas as a writer. This was before the dark time of the prequels. And this was a post-X-men Phoenix Saga world. We had complete faith in Chris Claremont’s ability to give us something featuring our favorite characters and make it epic.
I can’t give you an actual review of these books because, despite trying many, many times, I NEVER FINISHED EVEN THE FIRST ONE. About every 5 year starting in 1996 or 1997 through my college years I tried. Each time I read I made it a little farther in the first novel and every just that little bit would take me a weirdly long amount of time. I can give you a little synopsis of what I read: Willow has a dream of riding on talking dragon, sees a baby Elora again, and then some critical characters are killed off. That’s just the first two chapters and that’s as far as I ever got.
I looked the novel up on Wikipedia and whoever wrote the entry must have made it about as far as I did because their synopsis is just a longer version of what I just gave in the above paragraph. This book did not get great reviews.
So why? Why was is such a let-down? Why can’t I get beyond chapter 2? Did anybody? Did anyone finish the whole series? Were they satisfied with the ending? No. Really. I want to know because I feel like this story is a valuable waiting for writers to share. Please comment below if you have an answer. Thanks
Here’s a link to the first book’s front cover:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Moon_(novel)#/media/File:Shadow_Moon_(novel).jpg