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4.0étoiles sur 5
Much less engaging than the first entry in the series, Jui 30 2004
The Book of Water, the second novel in the Dragon Quartet, is an exceedingly different novel than its predecessor The Book of Water. This is largely explained by the fact that the setting has changed from the Germanies of 913 to an African country in the year 2013. Admittedly, I was deeply rooted into the Middle Ages account of the first book and very much in harmony with young Erde and the Dragon Earth. So, so much seemed to happen in that novel. The Book of Water is exact same number of pages, but very little seemed to happen this time around. The new Dragon Guide we meet here is also very difficult to like, and that above all else diminished the impact of this novel for me personally. Erde went about everything with complete sincerity, but this new Guide, despite Erde's (not to mention two dragons') influences upon him, does not seem to have a sincere bone in his body.When the world was created, four dragons (Earth, Water, Fire, and Air) were created to do the work, after which point they went to ground, to sleep until this world they had created ended. Now, the dragons are reawakening, answering a summons they do not yet understand and remembering only bits and pieces of their own history. Each of the four books in the series gives us a newly reawakened dragon and his/her Dragon Guide. Water is the older sister of Earth, and her special dragon ability is shape-shifting. Earth and Erde have responded to a summons and jumped from 913 to 2013 to join forces with Water and her guide. N'doch is Erde's exact opposite; there is always a culture clash when a baron's daughter from 913 meets up with a street-smart dreamer from an environmentally abused earth of 2013, but N'doch can never seem to get his head together. In the first several chapters (and this becomes increasingly annoying to the reader), he thinks his introduction to Erde and the two dragons is some kind of Candid Camera setup, and he oftentimes has the remarkable ability to forget, despite the proximity of his new companions, that dragons actually exist - and not just during those times that Water has shape-shifted herself into the image of a human. Each time you think he finally sees the light, he returns to the same selfish person interested only in his own future and dreams, never fully accepting his responsibilities as a dragon guide. Very little actually happens here, and the action of the second half of the novel is just a little too far "out there" for my tastes. Erde was in constant danger and surrounded by incredibly important acts and events in the first novel, but our main characters here just seem to bumble around, oftentimes with no real sense of purpose, and hide on a few occasions. Without the steadying influence of Erde and Earth, this novel might have developed into a true free-or-all. The author made things a little worse than they could have been by choosing to present N'doch's story from a third person present tense. This seems an entirely unnecessary and sometimes clumsy way to distinguish between the remarkably different perspectives of N'doch and Erde. Thank goodness for Erde's dreams, I must add, as they retain for the reader a strong link to the events still going on in her own time of 913 - that is where the true action and suspense in this series lies - at least so far.
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