Erec Rex the Dragon’s Eye
posted in book challenge, adventure, middle grades, fantasy, book review, children's literature |*mild, but not overly detailed, spoilers follow
Erec Rex the Dragon’s Eye by Kaza Kingsley (2006)
Erec Rex, also known as Rick Ross, hails from New York City, New York on the planet Earth as we know it. Or at least he always thought he did until one day when he wakes up to find his mother missing and his thoughts cloudy.
For Erec’s whole life (which is to say twelve years), he’s experienced what he calls “cloudy thoughts”–thoughts which essentially compel him to perform a certain action. Erec has found that these thoughts generally arise when someone is in danger, and, on that note, he embarks to find his mother.
Armed with his one good eye, his glass eye, and his cloudy thoughts, he tracks his mother to her last known whereabouts–Grand Central Station. While Erec does not find his mother at Grand Central Station, he meets a girl named Bethany who has seen his mother and who has some ideas about where his mother may have gone.
Together, Erec and Bethany leave Upper Earth and enter a world beneath Grand Central Station–the Kingdom of the Keepers. They soon find that the Kingdom of the Keepers is a kingdom where magic has been kept (aptly named, no?) and still flows freely, whereas they have come from a world where magic has been lost.
As they begin adjusting to the magic around them, they find that they have entered the Kingdom of the Keepers just as a tournament is about to begin to decide the next three rulers of the lands. King Piter (as in Jupiter), Queen Posey (as in Poseiden) and King Pluto (as in Pluto) are purportedly in charge of the tournament. But, as they say, there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark (or Alypium, as the case may be), and the contestants keep getting hurt.
Erec’s special eyeglasses enable him to communicate with his imprisoned mother. However, he does not find conversations with her to be all that enlightening in helping him to understand his past; instead, he finds vague hints and blatant omissions. Nevertheless, he doggedly pursues gathering the materials (through the MagicNet and other means) that she says he needs in order to free her.
The time that Eric does not devote to planning his mother’s breakout he spends entering the tournament and navigating the various contests; Bethany enters as well. As they persevere through each contest, they discover latent talents and gain confidence in themselves and in their friendship.
With contests such as MONSTER (“multi option non stop to end race”), Pro and Contest, Tribaffleon and creatures such as minotaurs, wenwolfs, and sea serpents and objects such as a gravity-challenged castle, anibals, and Identdetectors (and let’s not forget nitrowisherine), there’s a great deal here to engage the mind, delight the senses, and jumpstart the imagination. Plus, Kingsley mixes in just the right amount of Greek, Roman, Celtic and Norse mythology to create some intertextuality as well as offering up age-old (and yet never outmoded) themes of justice, friendship, loyalty, and courage.
In the end, it’s not really the end, as Erec discovers he’s got twelve Herculean labors, errr, that is, quests to complete. The epilogue contains additional clues to his past and provides a compelling case for running straight out and jumping into Book 2, Erec Rex: The Monsters of Otherness.
For those who want to just “get a taste” of either book one or book two, sample chapters from each book are available at the official Eric Rex website. And Book 3, Erec Rex: The Search for Truth is scheduled for release in October (and the cover art has already been released)!
Kaza Kingsley also recently finished a blog tour, so you can find author interviews and more on numerous kidlit blogs. Or read more about this tour and her other wanderings at her own The Memory Mogul (life in the mind of a fantasy author) blog.
