Ryan’s Random Rawr XD Reviews: Pendragon: Journal of an Adventure Through Time

The cover of The Merchant of Death. The first book in the Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale.

D.J. MacHale


Ryan Lingerfelt


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Books are an important part of many people’s day to day lives. Pendragon: Journal of an Adventure Through Time and Space shows a certain mastery of writing throughout its ten books. Something that remains interesting throughout the reading. With loveable characters and interesting worlds, author D.J. MacHale presents a ten book story that captured the hearts of many.


The book Bobby Pendragon’s journey through the territories of Halla, which is everything that ever was or ever will be, with help from friends he had and he meets along the way. Bobby is shoved into the role of being the leader of the group of the people who can travel between territories. He at first rejects the role, fighting to get back to his old life. He eventually accepts it, realizing this is the only hope he has of getting back to his old life. He has a internal conflict of how he blames the bad that comes on himself, how he is not fit to be a leader. Bobby is realistic in his struggles and strengths, not being the best leader but never giving up. Characters across the series continue to be as intriguing. Bobby’s friends from his home, Mark and Courtney, help him in his journey, but they are not excused from making mistakes either. Courtney has a moment of weakness, she isn’t as good at sports as she was before. This leads to her being selfish, ignoring Bobby’s advice and setting into motion a horrible chain of events, all to prove to herself that she’s still capable. It’s important to write characters as people would appear in real life, flawed but strong. 

D.J. MacHale
The cover of The Soldiers of Halla. The last book in the Pendragon series.

Each new world is packed with interesting characters, customs, conflicts, and locations that create a clear and realistic vision for the story’s setting. There are countless small things in each book that make the worlds feel real, games the citizens play that are touched on in the background, slang they use, and more. The most interesting example of this is Cloral, a world covered entirely in water with only artificial land for humans to live on. While Bobby only directly views a small amount of it, through others he learns a lot about how this world functions. The same can be said for every territory in the books. Without a strong world, the books would undoubtedly fall flat, most of the stories being based on where he is.


After the world-building comes to the stories these worlds support. Each book has its own unique and thrilling plot. Each one bringing in new They’re all well developed and thought-provoking while still easy to understand. Although the stories are able to stand on their own, they each also do something to advance the bigger plot. For instance, events from the fourth book directly connect to events in the tenth. The stories are not flat. They’re well developed, with little things that connect every book together. There are layers in the conflicts making it seem incredibly real. It is not just one main conflict with nothing else to add to it. There are multiple arcs across all the books which all connect to one big arc. The stories are realistic, this is what would happen if it was real.


Overall it is not perfect, nothing is. But the product is not affected by the flaws. Pendragon is a book among books in the world of literature. Anyone would be able to tell the endless amount of time and care went into each book in the series. The world and characters are real and easy to get lost in. Pendragon is absolutely worth the read no matter whether you think you’ll like it or not.