Dragon Ring [Paperback]

Lettie Prell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 23, 2008

Nadine is a special young woman. She is the daughter of the man who transformed the small nation of Guatemala into the world's largest and most powerful corporation. Nadine is an expert at virtual-reality applications, and when she goes undercover to find her father's killers, she discovers a power within the Earth that can transform civilization - or destroy entire cities. She must face the juggernaut of corporate greed and secrecy to stop an experiment that could have cataclysmic consequences. Although she is a skeptic, Nadine is finding that the magic claimed by mystics for centuries has real roots, and combining this mystical energy with virtual-reality control gives her the only tool that can stop the impending catastrophe . but at a great cost. She has awakened a beast within her own spirit that threatens to consume her. Dragon Ring is Lettie Prell's first novel.

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Flying Pen Press LLC (May 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979588960
• ISBN-13: 978-0979588969
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,841,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lettie Prell is the author of Dragon Ring (Flying Pen Press, 2008). Her stories have appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, The Lorelei Signal, the A Time To... anthology (volume 3), and elsewhere. She also edited Samuel R. Delany's interview with Joanna Russ, which appeared in The WisCon Chronicles Volume 1 (Aqueduct Press). Her poetry was featured in the Iowa Drama Workshop production, Kali Ma, and has been published in Pangaia and Kai Han.

She is currently the editor of the Broadsheet, the web magazine of Broad Universe, an organization of science fiction, fantasy and horror writers devoted to the works of women writers in those genres. She lives in Des Moines with her writer husband, John Domini, their dog Woody and cat Laverne. Her website is www.lettieprell.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The 21st-Century woman -- is a world-saving dragon!, May 25, 2008

By 

John Domini (Des Moines, IA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dragon Ring (Paperback)

Lettie Prell's fantasy-sf combines video gaming, outlaw roadrunning, and human-reptile shape-shifting to provide multiple entertainments. There's everything from the emotional connections afforded by a young woman's coming of age to the spinal chill of looming worldwide energy breakdown (sound familiar?). Showing no small imagination, this debut novelist takes us deep into the spirit and brainstem of a semi-magical Guatemalan, just out of adolescence, wrestling with secrets both occult and corporate, some out her own family. She and Nicola Tesla -- if she can manage to make the supernatural connections necessary, amid falling in love and eluding a grim multinational security force -- may provide a way out of global collapse, Finding out the answer makes for ring indeed: clangorous and whirling, and undeniable fun.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Those glorious golden age sci-fi pulp magazines have now been reincarnated, October 9, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dragon Ring (Paperback)

Those glorious golden age sci-fi pulp magazines have now been reincarnated with the introduction of five trade paperback science fiction novels of galactic adventure, save-the-world suspense, and the merged technologies of magic and science. "Dragon Ring" is Lettie Prell's original story that mixes magic, science, and murder in a riveting read from first page to last. With their brightly colored 'pulp magazine' style covers, all five of these new titles from Flying Pen Press are enthusiastically recommended for fantasy and science fiction enthusiasts, and would make enduringly popular addition to community library collections.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great First Novel, September 5, 2008

By 

Chris Gerrib - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dragon Ring (Paperback)

I met Lettie Prell at Wiscon. She was selling copies of her first novel, Dragon Ring, at a launch party for the book. I'm a sucker for authors selling their books, so I took a flyer and bought a copy. I'm glad I did.

Dragon Ring is the story of Nadine Xitumul-Washington, a half-Guatemalan, half-American girl. She lives with her family in Guatemala, which has become a corporate-owned country, and quite prosperous. Nadine's mother is attuned to native spirituality, specifically Mayan, and Nadine shows some tendencies as well. However, Nadine is more interested in modern technology and virtual reality.

The story starts a bit slowly at first, as Nadine explores then rejects her Mayan sprit powers, but do pay attention to the story told to Nadine in Chapter 1. It starts to pick up when her father, Cypress, is killed. He had become involved, to the point of being an absentee father, in a somewhat mysterious US-based company called AEI, developing a free-energy device. When Nadine graduates from college, she applies for a job at the same company, and starts investigating what they are really up to.

This is where the story gets good, and picks up a lot. Since the plot is basically a science fiction mystery, I can't discuss it further, other than to say there's a cameo by Nikola Tesla. Ms. Prell weaves together an interesting tale of magic, science and aliens, creating if you will a unified theory of these three items.

I truly enjoyed Dragon Ring, and look forward to more works from Ms. Prell.