Nightfall, by Leletha
I need everyone to know about the Nightfall series. It's consumed my mind more thoroughly than any other story and been bouncing around my brain like a screensaver graphic for the past few years.
The premise of the story is, as the author tells you off the bat, Hiccup as "a crazy, feral dragon boy." Highlights include Astrid, (training to be) Chief of Berk; an original dragon language based on animal communication; and just about every single human having the same awed reaction to Toothless that you did.
It’s a complete canon rewrite of the HTTYD animated franchise, with three major installments and twelve short stories. The main cast is completely canon, but the characterization realizes the potential of each character more thoroughly than canon itself.
You will find the plots of the major stories familiar: Toothless and Hiccup trapped on Berk, with Astrid reaching out this time; Drago bringing battle to the Sanctuary and threatening Berk; Grimmel hunting Toothless to the hidden world. But for want of a nail, these plots take different forms. Nightfall is just a little more similar to the movies than the movies are to the Cressida Cowell books. While maintaining the coming-of-age shape, it tells a new story in its own right, of identity and belonging and what it means to be who you are.
Nightfall is explicitly not a romance, but it is a story suffused with love, and you feel it in your bones. (Or your heart, if you have one.) Villains are often characterized by consuming hatred or selfishness, and protagonists by empowering love. The bond between Hiccup and Toothless is that of platonic soulmates, one being in two bodies, never one without the other. The flock they come from is like one huge, diverse family. Astrid and Stoick make up a dynamic father-daughter duo that runs a colorful, crazy, wonderful Berk. You love the characters simply because they love each other, too.
The stories address some heavy themes, especially in the big installments, and handles them very maturely. The author takes parts of the movies such as the Red Death and Drago’s Bewilderbeast enslaving dragons and fully explores the implications thereof in her story. The characters are put in dark, dark places (sometimes literally, sometimes ironically). But it’s this willingness to delve into the ugly without shying away that allows her to write beautiful, triumphant comebacks from our protagonists.
Something special to me is that the author is willing to talk about the particulars of the story and the writing in extensive detail. It was a very fun and unique experience communicating with her as I finished each chapter The palpable effort and care she put into crafting the story, and the little things we talked about, contributed a lot to how much I enjoyed reading it.
I read this series over the span of a year, beginning when I was fifteen, and it left a huge impact on me as a writer and a reader. I think about Nightfall more often than I think about published series like Six of Crows (and I adore Six of Crows). The writing of the first installment is very beautiful, very powerful, and it only improves as the series progresses.
