With 53 days to go until The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is released on Netflix around the world, interest for the franchise for the world of Thra is at an all time high, which begins the questions for new and old fans of The Dark Crystal, where do I start? Do I need to read the books? Should I see the movie before seeing the show?
On previous episodes of Trial By Stone, Jaime and I discuss about it at length and thought it was worthy to bring up the discussion for the blog.
Over at The Crystal Shard: A Dark Crystal Fan Group which you can visit on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/CrystalShard, co-host of Trial By Stone and admin of the group Ethan UrSkaa has compiled a reading list on everything Dark Crystal.
A DARK CRYSTAL READING LIST
Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CrystalShard/permalink/2885037561507401/
• World of the Dark Crystal by Brian Froud – the Holy Scripture of The Dark Crystal
• Making the Dark Crystal by Christopher Finch – A Behind-the-Scenes book
• The Dark Crystal: Ultimate Visual History book by Caseen Gaines
• The Art and Making of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Nov 2019)
NOVELS
• The Dark Crystal novelization by A.C.H. Smith (Reprinted June 2019)
JM LEE’S DARK CRYSTAL QUADRILOGY
• Shadows of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee
• Song of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee
• Tides of the Dark Crystal by J.M Lee
• Flames of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee (August 27, 2019)
THE COMICS
• Power of the Dark Crystal – Official Sequel
• Beneath the Dark Crystal – The Sequel to the Sequel
• Age of Resistance (comic) – Prequel to Prequel (Sep 25, 2019)
MISC.
• Dark Crystal Artist Tribute
• Aughra’s Wisdom of Thra (Nov 2019)
• Heroes of the Resistance by J.M. Lee (Nov 2019)
• The Dark Crystal Tales by Cory Godbey
GRAPHIC NOVELS
• Creation Myths Volumes 1-3 – Origin of Aughra, Division of the urSkeks, and the mysterious Makrak creatures.
MANGA – 200 YEARS BEFORE THE FILM
• Legends of the Dark Crystal: The Garthim Wars
• Legends of the Dark Crystal: Trial By Fire
Overall there is a lot of books and comics that you can read based on The Dark Crystal that you can delve into.
I do believe with the show, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance will be a great entry point for anyone to watch and enjoy the show on its own.
Though if you want to understand the world and how it’s all established, especially with the world building and Gelfling clans then I would recommend The Dark Crystal: Creation Myths and J.M. Lee’s quadrilogy of books with Shadows, Song, Tides and Flames of The Dark Crystal respectively.
J.M. Lee’s books seem to tie-in a lot with The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance as there are many characters from the books and possible story elements that appear in the show as evident from the teaser trailer and also the recent character announcements with voice over artists involved.
So if you wanted to go as spoiler free as possible, then I would recommend hold off reading J.M. Lee’s books until after the show is out, but if you can’t wait, then go ahead and read them all, I ain’t going to stop you, and it gives you three days to read J.M. Lee’s fourth book ‘Flames of The Dark Crystal’ before Age of Resistance is released.
If you’ve read Creation Myths or J.M. Lee’s books then I would recommend to listen to previous episodes of The Gathering Songs, as we go through each book and break it down. You can find those episodes at https://darkcrystalpodcast.com/category/gatheringsongs and go through the back catalogue of shows to pass the time as we continue to anticipate the release of the show.
Also there’ll be a lot more comics and books coming out later this year that we’ll cover them on future episodes of Trial By Stone, so there’s a ton of Dark Crystal to look forward to beyond Age of Resistance.