Review: I'm glad to have met Katarina
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 6, 2012
Sam Medina's Katarina the Dragonslayer and the Foebreaker's Curse is a strong debut novel that demonstrates not only sharp dialogue, but also a great power of what J.R.R. Tolkien called "sub-creation," the ability to make a detailed and complexly populated world for the reader to explore. Much like Tolkien's hobbits, Katarina uses her bravery and inner strength to compensate for her inexperience and small stature, and learns that she has an important role to play in the great sweep of events in her world.This is a classic and always pleasing structure of mythopoeia, traceable not only to Tolkien but to some of his sources such as Anglo-Saxon literature or the redoubtable Lord Dunsany. Yes, it has been done a lot, but it works exceptionally well here because Sam Medina is able to write with what fantasy essayist Lin Carter called "the genuine Elfland accent." Although Sam's characters (including many elves, a troll, an ogre, and several very frisky dragons)  do possess humor and irony (which Tolkien, a medievalist, didn't favor), they don't feel like contemporary personalities, but have that feeling of being mysteriously greater than you and me.This is only Sam's first novel, and in it we see already the beginnings of a great talent. (Sam illustrates the book also, and draws as well as he writes.) Overall, I'm glad to have met Katarina, and I know I will be staying with her adventures for a long time.