Review
"Dive gleefully into this book and take your time." —Jonja.net
About the Author
Kenneth Che-Tew Eng is a screenplay writer, novelist, and the author of The 0th Dimension. He lives in Bayside, New York.
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Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate
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348 pages
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2005 Apr 1
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
104 of 106 people found the following review helpful
By
Ryan Thompson
on March 7, 2007
"Interesting. The force of gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared on this planet, but not in space. I wonder if 'Space' really exists?"
This is the first line of dialogue, and the rest of the book reads the same: like a joke, but without a punchline. Trying to be witty, trying to be creative, trying to be philosophical, but instead resulting in a fiery ball of disaster under the massive ego of an Asian-supremacist furry fetishist with a persecution complex. Eng is notoriously known by professors and students alike for his insane outbursts in college and taking himself far, far more seriously than anyone describing a script about an anthropomorphic mantis fighting a pegasus ever should. And this book is not just taken seriously, but taken as something of pride which Eng feared would by stolen by other authors seeking to leech off his brilliance before he could attain the glorious title of "Published Author." But then, is it really an accomplishment to publish a book when you have to actually pay the publisher to do it?
Enough about the author, the book is terrible. It seems to grasp the idea of a beginning, middle, and ending, but little else about the art of storytelling. Its attempts at creativity are akin to a five year-old having a massive battle with his action figures: he grabbed a bunch of other people's archetypes and put them in a bizarre configuration of events imitating his favorite books and movies. And like a child going on about how his dinosaur from the distant future is about to fight a ghost cowboy, the kid is rarely coherent and really only amusing themselves. The points where it tries to wax philosophically are silly enough to make even a child roll their eyes. The dialogue is stiff and hackneyed, riddled with lines you couldn't say aloud with gagging. People whip out books and start reading to one another in the middle of fight scenes.
Obnoxious, worthless, [...]. Avoid it at all costs, no matter how many negative reviews he deletes.
This is the first line of dialogue, and the rest of the book reads the same: like a joke, but without a punchline. Trying to be witty, trying to be creative, trying to be philosophical, but instead resulting in a fiery ball of disaster under the massive ego of an Asian-supremacist furry fetishist with a persecution complex. Eng is notoriously known by professors and students alike for his insane outbursts in college and taking himself far, far more seriously than anyone describing a script about an anthropomorphic mantis fighting a pegasus ever should. And this book is not just taken seriously, but taken as something of pride which Eng feared would by stolen by other authors seeking to leech off his brilliance before he could attain the glorious title of "Published Author." But then, is it really an accomplishment to publish a book when you have to actually pay the publisher to do it?
Enough about the author, the book is terrible. It seems to grasp the idea of a beginning, middle, and ending, but little else about the art of storytelling. Its attempts at creativity are akin to a five year-old having a massive battle with his action figures: he grabbed a bunch of other people's archetypes and put them in a bizarre configuration of events imitating his favorite books and movies. And like a child going on about how his dinosaur from the distant future is about to fight a ghost cowboy, the kid is rarely coherent and really only amusing themselves. The points where it tries to wax philosophically are silly enough to make even a child roll their eyes. The dialogue is stiff and hackneyed, riddled with lines you couldn't say aloud with gagging. People whip out books and start reading to one another in the middle of fight scenes.
Obnoxious, worthless, [...]. Avoid it at all costs, no matter how many negative reviews he deletes.
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84 of 87 people found the following review helpful
By
The Scathing Pen
on August 3, 2006
I'm going to have to go against the overwhelming number of positive reviews for this work and say that I didn't really enjoy it as much as everyone else did. It was basically a rehash of the old fantasy/dragons template with a pseudo-science fiction twist. The author had some pretty interesting ideas in this book, but all of them were poorly-conceived and clumsily-executed. Not to mention that the characters and setting, while initially surprising, quickly and permanently settled into the stale tropes that had been mined so recently by other works such as Eragon.
The main character is Dennagon, your standard sword-wielding fantasy protagonist who works as some sort of guard. His Maguffin object is the fabled Lexicon, a magic/technological item that is supposed to have infinite knowledge. Opposing him in this quest is robot dragon known as Drekkenoth, who wishes to destroy the Lexicon to prevent knowledge from coming into the world. Over the course of the story, Dennagon develops allies to help him combat the evil Drekkenoth.
These characters, needless to say, are flat. Dennagon is a wide-eyed seeker of knowledge while Drekkenoth is a soulless, eternally-manipulative evil mastermind. Attempts to develop them are vain at best and chances are the author doesn't really consider them to be living, breathing dwellers of his fictional `World'.
The only compliment I can sincerely offer to this piece is that it addresses many interesting philosophical points. It addresses them clumsily, robotically, and without any flair for elocution or even anything more than flat dissertations. But they are interesting, and unique for a fantasy work.
All in all, Dragon: Lexicon Triumvirate is simply not in the ranks of Tolkien, or Isaac Asimov, or Terry Pratchett, even. It's not Douglas Adams or J.K. Rowling or Diana Wynne Jones. In fact, it's barely as good as Christopher Paolini's Eragon trilogy. Personally, I would recommend either one of those authors over this one, because Dragon: Lexicon Triumvirate is simply a bland, boring book.
The main character is Dennagon, your standard sword-wielding fantasy protagonist who works as some sort of guard. His Maguffin object is the fabled Lexicon, a magic/technological item that is supposed to have infinite knowledge. Opposing him in this quest is robot dragon known as Drekkenoth, who wishes to destroy the Lexicon to prevent knowledge from coming into the world. Over the course of the story, Dennagon develops allies to help him combat the evil Drekkenoth.
These characters, needless to say, are flat. Dennagon is a wide-eyed seeker of knowledge while Drekkenoth is a soulless, eternally-manipulative evil mastermind. Attempts to develop them are vain at best and chances are the author doesn't really consider them to be living, breathing dwellers of his fictional `World'.
The only compliment I can sincerely offer to this piece is that it addresses many interesting philosophical points. It addresses them clumsily, robotically, and without any flair for elocution or even anything more than flat dissertations. But they are interesting, and unique for a fantasy work.
All in all, Dragon: Lexicon Triumvirate is simply not in the ranks of Tolkien, or Isaac Asimov, or Terry Pratchett, even. It's not Douglas Adams or J.K. Rowling or Diana Wynne Jones. In fact, it's barely as good as Christopher Paolini's Eragon trilogy. Personally, I would recommend either one of those authors over this one, because Dragon: Lexicon Triumvirate is simply a bland, boring book.
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70 of 72 people found the following review helpful
By
Joanne
on July 30, 2005
Straight to it: DLT, one star out of five; plot is slow and thick; characters are too "far out;" writing style undeveloped; settings are unbelievable (even for fantasy); cover is (pardon this word) "cheesy;" one good thing about it (pointed out by Jerry Wright aka "Mr. Bewildered") is that the book itself is well done, with good binding and paper, unfortunately for the writer, thought, that part has nothing to do with him.
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