Just finished reading the latest edition of the fandom than will not die, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
To start off you have to understand this is NOT a Harry Potter novel. This is a special edition of the script for the play that is currently running over in the UK. While Rowling had a hand in creating the story, the official playwright is Jack Thorne.
The play picks up right where the books and movies left us off, with Harry sending his son off to Hogwarts for the first time. Right away things take a noticeably different turn than what one would have expected and then goes to some places that seem out of place for the stories that led to this point. I had heard that it read more like fan fiction than Rowling's style, and I do have to agree with that conclusion.
There was a noticeable amount of finding ways to include a great deal of characters and scenes that seemed to be there because it is stuff the fans would want to see. While the story itself is not bad all-in-all, there are some aspects that feel forced and a lot that seems to be in there just to give the fans their fangasms. A lot of it felt rushed (going through three years in just a hand full of scenes), especially in the beginning, leaving a feeling of plot holes being left and ideas that should have been resolved earlier in the timeline if one uses basic logic. If a family takes over three years to get around to dealing with problems like these, then that is one unhealthy family.
My curious nature, having done stage work and enjoying stage plays, left me really wanting to see the show mostly to see how they pull off all the needed effects on stage. You name a spell seen in the books and movies, it is most likely here. There is a fight scene where with everything in the room flying around. We have magic blasts flying every which way. We have the Patronus spell being used. We have Dementors flying about, doing their soul sucking. Poly Juice Potion being used. Ghosts and underwater scenes and just so much. I am actually more interested in learning the stage of it all than anything else at this point.
It was very clearly a project done for the fans. The die hard Harry Potter fans are most likely going to love it just because it is the official continuation of the story, but it is not going to draw new fan in nor does it give anything to pull in anyone who didn't like Harry Potter to begin with. I found it enjoyable enough, but it was nothing special and could have been much better.
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