Title: Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate (Hardcover)
Author: Kenneth Che-Tew Eng
Publisher:DNA Press
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Boy, where to start with this one. First off, I don’t think I have read a book this imaginative in a long time. The Author seemed to have no limits when he started out to write this story.
It begins with a Dragon named Dennagon, he is a sentry that guards the dragon city of Drakemight. But he is no ordinary Dragon, he thirsts for knowledge and his dwelling is overcrowded with stacks of books that he has read over and over. The world in which Dennagon lives is not quite the Medieval/Fantasy world that we know from Tolkien. Rifts in time give an interesting mix of magic and technology. A world of Dragons and Paladins, but also a world of cybernetic beings (ergo Technodragons) with technology that seems very out of place in this world. Dennagon who is forced to become a dissident as the real evil in the land is the Dragon King Drekkenoth who looks to poison the minds of his fellow dragons and capture the source of all knowledge – The Lexicon.
The battle and journey begins to capture the Lexicon as he who holds all knowledge will be omniscient.
The author weaves the story together very well, the technology has its place in the story, but it never overwhelms. Ironically, magic and technology don’t play huge rolls, they are mere tools for the characters to use, but the story is more centered on the characters and their perceptions of the world around them. There is an amazing level of science and philosophy all mixed together as the characters engage is some very interesting discussions about life, science and the meaning of it all. There are no concrete answers to very philosophical questions posed in this book, but rather the author seems to what to engage the reader and get him/her to think about their perceptions of reality and perhaps even to challenge those perceptions.
There is an undercurrent in the story that wants to teach the reader that there is nothing in this universe that is gained without a price, knowledge gained cheaply, without the work and toil to gain that knowledge will untimely have a price to high to pay.
Putting all the science and philosophical discussions aside that indeed are very fascinating and does engage the reader in deep, thoughtful ways, what are we left with in this novel?
Action, action and even more action. As Dennegon and his fellow dissidents battle their rival enemies for the ultimate knowledge and control of everything, there are many battles that rage across a fantastic realm. There are varied landscapes of such imaginative scope that it leaves the reader dazzled as their own imagination tries to paint the pictures that the author is describing to them. One of my favorite areas was a river, but this was no ordinary river, this river floated above the ground and was a tube of water that ran within the contours of the land below it like a terrestrial bound river normally would. Inside this river were fish and aquatic plant life just you would find in any river. Even some of the characters get dazzled by what they come across in this land they live in. But as they travel, the author does indeed go out of his way to bring us to landscapes that would make any master sci-fi or fantasy writer proud.
Dennegon reminds me Mr. Worf from Star Trek, strong, honorable, intelligent, but somewhat curt when dealing with other characters. Lyconnel, Dennegon’s main companion and really the leader of the dissident group seems to always know more that she is letting on and has an air of wisdom around her that always makes you wonder about what her motivations are. Their journey together could have been deeper and there could have been more personal discoveries between the two, but never the less you come out feeling that their relationship is much deeper that either one really lets on.
Drekkenoth and his technodragons are evil incarnate, but not in the maniacal way that we may be used too. But rather they are evil in the cold, non emotional way that lets you know that there is no compromise, no mercy, no levy. Simple, pure evil that will use anything and anyone to get their way. But not like the “We are the Borg†non emotional evil that we see in Star Trek. There is emotion their, but it is self serving emotion, anger and rage that drives Drekkenoth to want to destroy anything and everything to obtain omniscience.
I am not giving anything away that the official synopsis doesn’t already describe to you, the story is so much deeper that I can describe here and you will have to read the book to make the journey yourself.
One more thing, the author obviously has an impressive vocabulary and I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I had to actually break out my dictionary to look up a couple of words that I did not know, this has not happened to me in a long time. But it served to expand my own vocabulary and I am sure it will expand yours as well. That is always a good thing.
If you like Sci-Fi and/or Fantasy or heck even philosophy, this book will satisfy any of those palates in my opinion. But for those that like their sci-fi to be well sci-fi, its here, but there is real science here as well and some of it can be difficult for those that know nothing of physics and some of the terminology that goes with it. But on the other hand, if you want to expand yourself and your mind, dive gleefully into this book and take your time. You will not only be entertained by the story, but you will learn something real and tangible as well.
Rating: 4.8 ultimate tomes of knowledge out of 5. A great read for those that like any of the Sci-Fi and/or Fantasy genres.
Who it’s for: I would stick with teens and older. There is no cursing or sexual references but a lot of the action scenes do involve well described violence (PG13 if you will).
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