EP092: The Boy Who Yelled “Dragon!”

[Talia]

I liked the story very much, BUT I believe it wasn't really Escape Pod material... It was short, funny, and really for the kids. It WAS fun, but not in the Escape Pod way... Am I making any sense here?

I would tend to agree. To my mind it was more a children's story than it was a fantasy piece. The line between simplicity and predictability can be a narrow one to walk and I felt it fell just on the wrong side, which is not uncommon in child-oriented fiction.

I suppose one of the things that bothered me was both the dragon and the boy were pretty shallow, unoriginal characters. Outcast teenagers are a pretty common theme and neither of these characters had anything about them to set them apart from the other 1,000,000 teenage loner protagonists. Stock story + stock characters = not a ton of listening enjoyment for me, personally.  Yeah, I know, children's story shouldn't overanalyze and all that, but if there is to be an upswing of this type of story it will make me want to visit less.

It wasnt all bad, there were a few cute turns of phrase and a certain amount of amusement value. I've liked some of Mr. Resnick's other works I've heard. This story just grates.

Out of curiousity, I did a websearch for children's podcasts and it seems there are at least some children's fiction podcasts out there. A place such as that might be a somewhat better venue for stories such as this.

Not that there's anything wrong with Escape Pod continuing to run family-friendly tales. But I think its important not to use the fact that its a children's story to excuse weaker writing.  No offense to Mr. Resnick intended.

I'll second/third/whatever the recommendation of 'Brave Men Run,' though. Really excellent. One of the first podiobooks I ever read and got the hooked on the genre.

[FNH]

A great story, really enjoyed it.  MWS is an excellent reader, and you should continue to get him reading! 

I guess the story was predicatable to some extent, but thats the beauty, the craft in childrens writing.  Kids ( and me ) like to guess whats coming, and are generally tickled pink when they get it right.

The fact that the story only suggested that the boy would be shouting Dragon, appealed to me and was a nice twist. 

How many dragon stories is this now, three?  More please.  What are the odds on getting "Pern" short?

[Wolfger]

I think the best children's entertainment is that which has something for the adults too. Shrek. Cars. Wee Free Men. Not this story. Too simplistic and too short are just the top of my list of complaints. While I think it would be great if there was enough material and enough interest to spin off "Escape Pod Jr.", or some such, I hope to see far fewer of stories like this here. Even the previous children's story (don't recall the name, but the dragon raised by the bird) was far superior.

[DKT]

Even the previous children's story (don't recall the name, but the dragon raised by the bird) was far superior.

"Squonk the Dragon," I think.  Yeah, that one hit home with the idea of adoption and parenting.  Although, I did enjoy "The Boy Who Yelled Dragon," just maybe not as much.

[Unblinking]

Toward the bottom of my ranked list of EP Resnick pieces, I think.  Twas cute and fluffy, but the characters were all pretty much stock characters, and it didn't go anywhere I hadn't seen before.

And mostly it bugged me that the story didn't really relate to its namesake.  If you're going to take a previous story and give it a near-identical title, you really ought to take it somewhere original but still have a strong relation to the original.  This one didn't do that, in much a similar way as the recent EP episode "The Lady or the Tiger".  In both cases the new story came off as though the author had heard the title of the other story but had never actually read it to find out what it was about.  Presumably Mr. Resnick has read The Boy Who Cried Wolf, but that didn't really come through in the tenuous connection, going directly against the moral of the original without any comment upon this.