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Title: Dragon’s Gold
Series: Kelvin of Rud #1
Author: Piers Anthony
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 248
Format: Digital Edition
| Synopsis: |
Kelvin has round ears. His father had round ears as well, but everyone else in the world has pointed ears. There is prophecy about a Round Ear but Kelvin has never given it a thought.
His father is killed by agents of the Queen of Rud, a Usurper. Kelvin and his younger sister Jon are now out in the Sadlands looking for dragon scale so as to pay the taxes that the Queen has instituted. Kelvin ends up killing a dragon on accident and on their way home with its scales, are captured by a bandit. Jon, who has been dressing up as a boy, is taken as well and sold to the Boy Mart. Kelvin heads to the town where the Boy Mart is with the intentions of somehow rescuing her.
Kelvin finds a magic glove in a tree and hooks up with a group of people who are opposed to slavery and to the Queen in General. Said group tries to buy Jon, but she has come to the attention of the wizard Zantanna and they are outbid. They end up buying another girl, a round ear who can astrally project herself if she eats dragon berries. Kelvin and the group waylay the agent of the wizard and rescue Jon.
Kelvin is setup to be the Roundear of Prophecy and the group begins making plans to overthrow the queen. They hire mercenaries and begin the attack. Kelvin gets captured, finds out his dad is alive and is from earth and has a lot of technology at his disposal. Big battles, people die, blah, blah, John Knight and the Queen disappear down a river which leads to the Flaw, an interdimensional tear.
Jon hooks up with the son of the leader of the revolutionary group and Kelvin hooks up with the roundear girl, Heln. The prophecy isn’t anywhere close to being fulfilled but as it is scattered all over the lands, no one has a complete version so nobody knows when it is finished or not.
| My Thoughts: |
I originally read this series back in the early 90’s. I remember it mainly because of the covers (not the one I have for this edition but the one I’ll be putting at the end) and because of the title names: Dragon’s Gold, Serpent’s Silver, Chimera’s Copper, Orc’s Opal and Mouvar’s Magic. I also have faint recollections of there being sleazy sexual undertones throughout them all. But when you are 15, what you consider a sleazy sexual undertone can be quite different from what you consider when at 40.
Sadly, I remembered correctly. Jon is almost raped when it is discovered she is a girl whilst imprisoned at the Boy Mart. It wasn’t graphic but considering that she is 14, the author seemed to enjoy stretching the scene out way more than was needed. From other Anthony books I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s a pervert and this just confirmed it. Heln was also raped but before we met her, so that particular scene wasn’t included. However, it was constantly alluded to every time she or Kelvin had a romantic thought towards the other.
I remember really enjoying the story and being fascinated by the plot and writing and thinking how good these were. Man, how I’ve grown up. This was terribly hackneyed and cliched crap. Ideas of how to forge ahead are written down like 2 players were playing Magic the Gathering, ie, one player puts down a card, then the second player puts down another card to counter it, etc. It was written that way! Ughh. Then you have people who can’t think militarily to save their life. Yes, lets march 4 days through open land to attack the capital instead of shipping down the river and being there in 8 hours. And it was written that way so one character COULD go down the river to advance a plot point. Ughh again.
The writing itself was pretty bad too. A lot of “then he said so she did” writing. Along the lines of the following (made up):
Kelvin ate the apple. Heln asked him if it was good. Kelvin said “Anything from your hands is good.” Heln blushed. This made Kelvin blush.
Needless to say, a teen probably wouldn’t notice it (I certainly didn’t back then) but any halfway competent adult will notice it right off. And a whole book like that?
I had all 5 books lined up to re-read, but after this one I think I’m going to pass on the other books. I seem to remember the sleaze increases as well. So au revoir!
Oh, here’s some of the covers as I remember them, not the crap this addition has:
★★☆☆☆
Ah Piers. I read so many of his books when I was a young teen. I just tried to re-read the immortality series and couldn’t get past the first book due to the treatment of women. I mean the author says women are strong and should be treated as such and then has a woman as a piece of property. It was just so sleazy in tone. My younger self didn’t think so but I cringed and then gave all the books in the series to the used library sale. I still want to try the space tyrant series again but now I admit to being apprehensive!
x The Captain
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The Space Tyrant. My memories of that are from this same time and I mainly remember rape. So proceed at your own peril 😦
I just hate it when something shows its age badly. The only good thing is it shows me that I’m maturing, even if against my will 😀
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My experience with Piers Anthony was a couple short stories many years ago and about all I remember is that they were sleazy so I haven’t read anything from him since.
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Yeah, sleazy seems to be the word of the day here concerning him
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I thought you were exaggerating things in your synopsis when you talked about round ears and all that so I looked it up on Goodreads and oh gosh it came as a surprise that you were completely serious. Guess this is another book you’ve saved me from reading.
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Nope, no exaggeration for this post. And since I enjoyed it so much as a teen, I can’t even use it for a “Surviving a Bad Book” post later this year.
Glad to have helped out 🙂
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I never heard of this series. I got fairly far into Xanth, but it did get more problematic as it went on. Guess the covers were the best part!
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Yeah, I remember these particularly well because my library had the first 3 and they all had embossed covers. So not only were they extra shiny, they stood out from the rest of the books if you touched them.
Thankfully I was never into puns, so I never ventured into Xanth territory…
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My husband enjoyed the Xanth books too. Now they are ruined for me because of what I learned about the author. I hate it when that happens.
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Covers look awsome, not a fan of rape… sad that book covers can misslead someone to thinking it will be a good book
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Sadly, it was books like this that gave Fantasy a cheap, tawdry name.
I’m just glad I don’t HAVE to slog through all 5 now 🙂
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I think I tried to get into Anthony with the novel Wielding a Red Sword, but I got so bogged down and uncomfortable that I stopped. Guess it’s a good thing I did.
Regarding Zahn and Thrawn, I was thinking about what you said. Maybe Zahn is writing for the new timeline to keep control of Thrawn (or as much control as he’s allowed), so that no one can ruin the character.
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In regards to Anthony. I don’t have any other books read/reviewed by him in my database. So any and all books were back in highschool and they obviously left me feeling bleah enough to not try other stuff by him. Doesn’t speak well of him does it?
And your idea about Zahn and Thrawn makes sense. When you create such an important character you’d think you’d want to some creative control. Because you KNOW some idiot hack writer would take Thrawn and turn him emo or something equally horrific…
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No, it doesn’t. I don’t recommend Wielding a Red Sword, either. Have you read any Poul Anderson books? I can’t remember reading much by him, but I don’t think I liked him much better than Anthony.
Yeah, as much as I dislike the new timeline, I would HATE to see someone other than Zahn writing for Thrawn for the EXACT reason you stated…
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Poul:
I enjoyed his Hoka stories but the few other things I read I was meh about. Not horrible, but meh.
The Hoka books were funny though 🙂
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I do like the older covers much better. At least they hint at some action.
Unnecessary naked guy on the last cover would probably indicate the book’s not for me, though.
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Darryl Sweet’s covers were always hit or miss for me. I wish they’d stuck with the guy who did the first 3 of these. Kelvin look totally badass with the 80’s tied back hair and weapons…
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A fixation with rape is never a good sign for a story, or an author…
Thanks for the warning! 🙂
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Yeah, can’t even consider recommending this to anyone…
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I’ll never try anything by this author after I read an article that talks about the child rape and other sleazy sexual stuff. Just as you mentioned, but I think some of his novels are more graphic even. Author seems like a pervert. No thanks.
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Yeah, some of his other books would definitely get my “sexually graphic” tag.
I just have no idea why the fixation on rape. It is very off-putting.
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Ah gosh the sleazy stuff sounds off-putting indeed. I really hate when authors have a fixation on rape (and yeah it would make me think the author was a perv too).
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Like I wrote to SavageDDT above (below?), books like this are what gave SFF its bad name back in the day. Poorly written, filled with junk.
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Yeah very true.
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It’s so interesting how our tastes change over the years especially compared to when we were teens. I really can’t appreciate a book when it seems like the author is getting off on writing about rape. I get it, it happens and sometimes it serves the plot well to have the uncomfortable conversation but it doesn’t sound like this book handles the situation very well. Interesting review.
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Yeah, re-reading this and unhauling the Brooks books made me realize I better be sure I want a book now before I buy it now.
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That’s a sad change in cover art. But since the content isn’t that remarkable, I guess the cover matches it well in the end. Since the book seems to be co-authored, maybe only one of the two is the real perv! A sense a mystery. The game is afoot!
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Well, considering his other books have left the same slimeball feeling in others, I’m guessing it’s him 😀
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