Last night, I read and finished Dungeons & Dragons: A Druid’s Call by E.K. Johnston. It was a prequel to the 2023 D&D movie that told the story of the tiefling druid Doric, and I had mixed thoughts. On the one hand, it revealed her surprisingly dark and brutally tragic backstory, but, on the other hand, it also never really presented a specific antagonist, and it never really showed off anything special to D&D that wasn’t in the movie (outside of one thing I’ll touch on in the next paragraph). I agree with a review I read online–it felt like a YA novel and a fantasy novel, and, while the former element was done very well, the latter was not.
After Doric leaves the village of the wood elves who raised her, she goes to a convenient Magic Druid School, and she excels therein (she’s a protagonist, so she has to be the best), but none of the characters there really clicked as much as the wood elves did, and yet they took up a bulk of the book. Some of the movie connections also felt forced, acting like an advertisement for a movie that most people picking up a prequel book for would already be going to see regardless. (Although it does make some lines from Simon the Sorcerer much funnier in retrospect.) It did flow well, and anti-tiefling speciesism was just as heartbreaking as it was clearly intended to be. I was happy to see a few D&D species show up that were not in the movie, but they did unfortunately feel arbitrary–Jowenys, one of the characters, would not be any different were she a kobold or an elf or a gnome instead of a firbolg.
So, my thoughts were mixed. I would recommend it if you watched the movie and liked Doric’s character (AKA one of the only competent characters in that great movie), or if you really like Magic School YAs that really don’t focus on the things anyone actually wants to see from a Magic School YA (like learning magic). If you want the book because you were concerned watching the movie that Doric was able to Wild Shape into an owlbear even though druids in D&D are only technically able to transform into Beasts and owlbears are monstrosities, well, Johnston does reference that concern, and she gives it appropriate Meaning and Poignance, but it’s not really explained in a way that really satisfies the people who were probably concerned about that in the first place (although, honestly, who cares?).
EDIT: I just finished D&D: A Darkened Wish by B. Dave Walters, a Dungeons & Dragons graphic novel. It wasn’t as good as other D&D media I’ve read–I think one or two more chapters would have done wonders–but it was certainly worth the price I paid for a used copy. Technically, I also bought both this graphic novel and A Druid’s Call with gift cards from a blood donation, so it was definitely worth it in that way–some little bonuses for doing a good deed. (And yes, summarized, I did buy the books with my blood.)