Let’s take a look at the short trailer for the Graceling books.  As of this writing there are three – Graceling, Fire and Bitterblue.  Not familiar with Book Trailers?  Take a look at our handy Book Trailer Guide.

 

 

I love the look and feel of this trailer.  The very middle-ages themes and graphics, along with the battle music, bring an urgency to even such a short clip and makes the books seem exciting and filled with action.  We get the idea that the kingdoms are in peril and that there is one person who must unite them.  All good.

I’m not as excited about how the books themselves are presented.  Having read Kristin Cashore’s Graceling, I know that essentially that entire book is lost in the effort to present the fuller story arc.  Fire, which was promoted as a “companion” book to Graceling, has an entirely different character set save for our single Very Important Person – all of which is also lost.  Bitterblue presumably ties everything up in a bloody battle bow.

I wish the producers of the trailer had taken a little more time and explored each book just a little more thoroughly.  Another 30 seconds could have captured some of the feel of the individual books without sacrificing the larger theme, and possibly brought the most interesting part of the books – the Graces – into play.

As it is, this trailer makes me, as someone who has already read Graceling, want to read the other two installments.  But I’m not sure it would convince a brand new reader that there is anything new or different about this series of books compared to any other medieval fantasy series.

It definitely gets an A for style, but in the end I’ll give it a B- for overall effectiveness in convincing potential readers to pick up any of the three books.

Sue Millinocket
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