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Jenna of Erdovon: The Philosopher's Egg
..."Now, Do As Your Mother Says And Put On Something Nice For The Dragon." Life isn't easy when you're eleven years old---even if you're a princess of royal blood. Princess Jenna is raised from infancy to be docile and subservient, to accept whatever fate others decide for her. At a crucial moment, however, Jenna makes a choice for herself---and her life of adventure begins. Welcome to the planet of Erdovon, where magic lies just around the bend, if you choose to seek it. Islands fly above the clouds. A museum of magic unfolds from thin air. Dragons, both good and evil, obey the commands of sorcerers. Centaurs, Trolls and machine-building Ollogs live outside the law. And Fairies, helpless in the face of evil, seek help from the most unlikely of sources.
220 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 27, 2008
This book does have some good points and was not a chore to read, but I found the characters were hard to care about, and therefore I could put it down whenever it was convenient to do so--it wasn't really memorable or exciting. I should qualify that by saying I'm not this book's target audience because I'm not a child, so it may be that little kids would find it much more engaging and exciting.
The setting--an alternate fantasy world on another planet--seemed a bit forced and cliché, and the reader feels a bit beaten over the head with the fantasy elements to the point where the setting just doesn't seem very real. Only three pages in and we have been exposed to "casually" dropped information about the dual suns in the sky, the "dragonlets" flying around for no reason, a special stone that was lost for a thousand years but has just turned up in the yard, a random centaur, flying islands floating overhead, and exotic foods such as "spongeberries" mentioned.
How about our main characters: Two plucky kids--Armagan, an amateur magician, and Jenna, a sheltered yet inexplicably resourceful princess who is the subject of a prophecy--and their magical Fairy companion, Pippa, who can sense the presence of evil and conveniently steps in to save the day whenever the situation is beyond hope. The people really never felt very real to me; the main characters seemed detached from their feelings or seemed not to have any feelings. During battles, flights, captures, and adventures, I would normally expect a little mention of a pounding heart or a racing mind--some fear, some doubt, some despair--but mostly we're just told what's happening rather than experiencing it through someone's eyes.
The minor characters are even more one-dimensional. Cardboard evil monarchs; stupid, easily-fooled trolls; battle-hungry centaurs. It's unsatisfying for the heroes to beat them because they weren't there for anything but to get beaten in the first place. This trend toward having a detached storytelling style continues throughout, with the notable exception of some good dialogue. Some of the characters' conversations are very clever and realistic, especially the children. I wish the author had used dialogue more often to get through difficult patches, because he does seem to have an instinctive grasp on how to use characters' voices. Applause!
As for the narration, it suffered from what I call "adjectivitis"--a disease of flowering up descriptions by making the first draft's information more colorful rather than thinking about making a careful choice about what to describe and why. Phrases like "twisting her mouth into a cynical smirk" stuck out to me as overdone. The permutations for the word "said" were particularly cringe-worthy.
Examples: "Sorry," he half-apologized. (Sorry is an apology. We don't need to be told that.)
"Yikes!" he exclaimed. (Yes, that's an exclamation. We know.)
"Stop interrupting," she lectured. (Hmm, that's not really a lecture. More of a rebuke. But we know what it is without being told.)
Random infodumps are also not necessary, but there are lots of them in this book. Unnecessary detail distracts us and makes the writing sound more like the writer is still learning which world-building details he should include and which he should keep to himself.
And I suppose this happens a lot in fantasy, but some of the battles and the evolution of the characters' skills were a little bit unrealistic. For instance, at one point Jenna can deflect a sword and knock it out of her opponent's hand while RIDING with NO TRAINING. She also volunteers to fight a warrior centaur by herself. Fairies' Hero or not, she has little to no sword training and certainly none in those special cases. I'm afraid I can't swallow it, regardless of Fairy armor and being a Chosen One.
This book had some illustrations which might intrigue younger readers. They are intricately detailed and drawn by the author. They are also kind of disturbing. The shading and the attention to detail indicate that the artist has experience or training or both, but the drawings have weird inconsistencies about them that make them look like they're trying to be realistic without quite getting there--a lot like the writing. Everyone has a giant head.
Now for the compliments and recommendations.
Overall, I thought this book could easily be enjoyed by younger kids. Maybe even as one of those bedtime stories where the parents read a chapter every night before bed. It's a decent adventure story with a solid plot that goes forward in one direction without too many confusing branches, and the *concept* is likable even though I didn't care for the execution. Little kids who haven't seen these elements in plenty of other books might be excited and intrigued. It's kind of a fun book.
The technical editing was pretty good overall. The author used a non-standard font and one unusual punctuation style--he used "~~~" instead of dashes--and unfortunately doing this tends to make the book look amateurish to more experienced eyes. But I only caught two editing mistakes in the entire book--one a forgotten open quotation mark and one a failure to indent--and that's pretty good.
Anyway, overall I thought this book read not really like a polished, published novel, but more like an author who has a lot of promise but is still learning his craft. I also think that its main audience is too young, inexperienced, and/or, well, not anal enough to let these glitches get in their way of enjoying the book, even though I really didn't. Young children (and their parents) should give it a try, but otherwise I basically found it to be less than enjoyable.
The setting--an alternate fantasy world on another planet--seemed a bit forced and cliché, and the reader feels a bit beaten over the head with the fantasy elements to the point where the setting just doesn't seem very real. Only three pages in and we have been exposed to "casually" dropped information about the dual suns in the sky, the "dragonlets" flying around for no reason, a special stone that was lost for a thousand years but has just turned up in the yard, a random centaur, flying islands floating overhead, and exotic foods such as "spongeberries" mentioned.
How about our main characters: Two plucky kids--Armagan, an amateur magician, and Jenna, a sheltered yet inexplicably resourceful princess who is the subject of a prophecy--and their magical Fairy companion, Pippa, who can sense the presence of evil and conveniently steps in to save the day whenever the situation is beyond hope. The people really never felt very real to me; the main characters seemed detached from their feelings or seemed not to have any feelings. During battles, flights, captures, and adventures, I would normally expect a little mention of a pounding heart or a racing mind--some fear, some doubt, some despair--but mostly we're just told what's happening rather than experiencing it through someone's eyes.
The minor characters are even more one-dimensional. Cardboard evil monarchs; stupid, easily-fooled trolls; battle-hungry centaurs. It's unsatisfying for the heroes to beat them because they weren't there for anything but to get beaten in the first place. This trend toward having a detached storytelling style continues throughout, with the notable exception of some good dialogue. Some of the characters' conversations are very clever and realistic, especially the children. I wish the author had used dialogue more often to get through difficult patches, because he does seem to have an instinctive grasp on how to use characters' voices. Applause!
As for the narration, it suffered from what I call "adjectivitis"--a disease of flowering up descriptions by making the first draft's information more colorful rather than thinking about making a careful choice about what to describe and why. Phrases like "twisting her mouth into a cynical smirk" stuck out to me as overdone. The permutations for the word "said" were particularly cringe-worthy.
Examples: "Sorry," he half-apologized. (Sorry is an apology. We don't need to be told that.)
"Yikes!" he exclaimed. (Yes, that's an exclamation. We know.)
"Stop interrupting," she lectured. (Hmm, that's not really a lecture. More of a rebuke. But we know what it is without being told.)
Random infodumps are also not necessary, but there are lots of them in this book. Unnecessary detail distracts us and makes the writing sound more like the writer is still learning which world-building details he should include and which he should keep to himself.
And I suppose this happens a lot in fantasy, but some of the battles and the evolution of the characters' skills were a little bit unrealistic. For instance, at one point Jenna can deflect a sword and knock it out of her opponent's hand while RIDING with NO TRAINING. She also volunteers to fight a warrior centaur by herself. Fairies' Hero or not, she has little to no sword training and certainly none in those special cases. I'm afraid I can't swallow it, regardless of Fairy armor and being a Chosen One.
This book had some illustrations which might intrigue younger readers. They are intricately detailed and drawn by the author. They are also kind of disturbing. The shading and the attention to detail indicate that the artist has experience or training or both, but the drawings have weird inconsistencies about them that make them look like they're trying to be realistic without quite getting there--a lot like the writing. Everyone has a giant head.
Now for the compliments and recommendations.
Overall, I thought this book could easily be enjoyed by younger kids. Maybe even as one of those bedtime stories where the parents read a chapter every night before bed. It's a decent adventure story with a solid plot that goes forward in one direction without too many confusing branches, and the *concept* is likable even though I didn't care for the execution. Little kids who haven't seen these elements in plenty of other books might be excited and intrigued. It's kind of a fun book.
The technical editing was pretty good overall. The author used a non-standard font and one unusual punctuation style--he used "~~~" instead of dashes--and unfortunately doing this tends to make the book look amateurish to more experienced eyes. But I only caught two editing mistakes in the entire book--one a forgotten open quotation mark and one a failure to indent--and that's pretty good.
Anyway, overall I thought this book read not really like a polished, published novel, but more like an author who has a lot of promise but is still learning his craft. I also think that its main audience is too young, inexperienced, and/or, well, not anal enough to let these glitches get in their way of enjoying the book, even though I really didn't. Young children (and their parents) should give it a try, but otherwise I basically found it to be less than enjoyable.
August 23, 2014
Jenna's a princess and one day she finds out she's going to be fed to a dragon by her ever-loving parents, so she escapes and sets out on her own adventure, swinging her stick at the grass as she walks. She meets Armagan, an amateur magician, and they quest together for Jenna to fulfill her role as the Fairies' Hero (wearing her special armor and being accompanied by Pippa, a Fairy who can sense the presence of evil). They must vanquish evil wizard Dranak--difficult if your magic-user is only an apprentice!--and avoid the trolls and centaurs who want to make short work of our youthful heroes. But there are drawbacks to becoming the Fairies' Hero, and magic isn't the only powerful force in the world. . . .
I had a lot of trouble connecting to this story because even though the conversations between the characters were often well executed, the narration had a peculiar tendency to disconnect entirely from the characters and simply tell us who was doing what (especially during fight scenes). And even for a simplistic fairy-tale-like story, I felt the training the characters went through was insufficient for the battles they won. Jenna, for instance, was a completely sheltered princess who had zero experience outside her castle, and shortly after escaping, she's volunteering for (and succeeding at) a battle against a centaur. Her sword-fighting training involved swinging her walking stick at the grass--something she did to entertain herself, not with the thought that she would learn to use it in battle, but that's the explanation for why she's good with a sword--and Armagan's magic is just too convenient sometimes. I am also perplexed whenever you have a character who senses evil but then you ignore her warnings.
Sometimes this book felt like a showcase of fantasy/science fiction elements that the author wanted to feature in a story; the mythical creatures don't do very much (except the bad ones appear in the story simply to scoff at our heroes and then get beaten), and we get odd recitations of how things work and what kinds of creatures there are and fantastical setting bits that are extremely common (why have bugs flying around in a meadow when you can have tiny dragons? why not have extra moons? why not regularly refer to exotic foods so we'll know for sure we're not in familiar territory?). I think younger children might enjoy the book since its straightforward adventure is readable, but I didn't see much depth to it and found the characters difficult to connect to.
I had a lot of trouble connecting to this story because even though the conversations between the characters were often well executed, the narration had a peculiar tendency to disconnect entirely from the characters and simply tell us who was doing what (especially during fight scenes). And even for a simplistic fairy-tale-like story, I felt the training the characters went through was insufficient for the battles they won. Jenna, for instance, was a completely sheltered princess who had zero experience outside her castle, and shortly after escaping, she's volunteering for (and succeeding at) a battle against a centaur. Her sword-fighting training involved swinging her walking stick at the grass--something she did to entertain herself, not with the thought that she would learn to use it in battle, but that's the explanation for why she's good with a sword--and Armagan's magic is just too convenient sometimes. I am also perplexed whenever you have a character who senses evil but then you ignore her warnings.
Sometimes this book felt like a showcase of fantasy/science fiction elements that the author wanted to feature in a story; the mythical creatures don't do very much (except the bad ones appear in the story simply to scoff at our heroes and then get beaten), and we get odd recitations of how things work and what kinds of creatures there are and fantastical setting bits that are extremely common (why have bugs flying around in a meadow when you can have tiny dragons? why not have extra moons? why not regularly refer to exotic foods so we'll know for sure we're not in familiar territory?). I think younger children might enjoy the book since its straightforward adventure is readable, but I didn't see much depth to it and found the characters difficult to connect to.
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