The Dragon's Eye [Hardcover]

Joel Champetier (Author), Champetier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1999

It is the story of a secret agent on another planet, New China, whose mission is to bring back a turncoat from deep in the territory of an unfriendly colonial settlement -- or at least as much of him as possible. Filled with sharp and memorable characters and moments of surprise, this adventure is going to be one of the SF events of the year.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The setup for The Dragon's Eye is intriguing: the fifth habitable planet to be colonized by humans was not all that habitable; it lacked an abundance of natural resources, and its second sun beamed down poisonous ultraviolet rays causing burns and blindness. Overpopulated China was the only nation desperate enough to take on the challenge--and the debt--of colonizing it.

Over a hundred years later, secret agent Tanner arrives on New China on assignment to the European Enclave. He's got a couple of days to soak up information on local habits, politics, and personalities--then he disguises himself as Chinese and embarks on his mission to the interior with Hamakawa, a jaded Japanese agent. Along the way, they pick up Qingling, a New Chinese woman who falls for Tanner.

The Dragon's Eye is the first of French-Canadian Joel Champetier's novels to be translated into English. It starts off well, but in its quest to be both science fiction and political thriller it does justice to neither. The science fiction aspect could delve more into the cultural changes of the New Chinese and interactions with the Terrans who settle there. The hapless Tanner, Hamakawa, and Qingling can't quite hold our interest as characters in a better-plotted thriller would. Tanner's struggles with his biological disguise are interesting, but his character development isn't convincing.

While one can imagine The Dragon's Eye as better SF or better espionage, Champetier's New China and its political intrigue may be worth a look for those who like their SF with some action mixed in. --Bonnie Bouman

From Publishers Weekly

Champetier's first novel to be rendered into EnglishAa 1991 Canadian volume written in French and translated by the authorAtakes the myth of the superspy thrown into a strange world and inverts it. With his red hair, R?jean Tanner, a rookie secret agent for the Earth's European Bureau, is as conspicuous as a sunburn on New China, a planet over which the Dragon's Eye, a blue-white dwarf star, dictates everything from working hours to styles of dress. This blinding star's dangerous ultraviolet rays have kept Earth's Western countries from colonizing New China. Only the rural inhabitants of New China, who disdain birth control and are therefore desperate for real estate, have been interested in inhabiting it. The expense of interplanetary transportation, however, and of biotechnological research, has left New China so indebted to the industrialized nations of Earth that it cannot raise enough money to settle its loans and become completely independent from EarthAbut secessionism, and terrorism to spur it on, is in the air. After his superior is wounded during a secessionist attack, Tanner, cosmetically altered to look Chinese, embarks on a dangerous mission: with the help of Japanese agent Jay Hamakawa, he must find an important undercover agent who has stopped responding to the Bureau's messages. Champetier sometimes presents the speech of the New Chinese as pidgin English when the people are supposedly speaking Mandarin, and, though Tanner is described as a master of espionage, he and his cohorts often get into scrapes that common sense might have prevented. Yet Champetier adequately describes the culture and structure of New China, and eventually it becomes clear that this is less a tale of spy vs. spy than an exploratory journey into a foreign land.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 297 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312868820
• ISBN-13: 978-0312868826
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,353,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb!! Great Book!, July 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dragon's Eye (Hardcover)

Joel Champetier certaintly gives the reader a good reason to read this book. The way he intertwines the intrigue, politics, a long with good realization certaintly gives the reader a clear view of what's going on in the book. I certaintly enjoyed how he described the characters such as Hamakawa and Qingling. This book definately needs a full 5 stars.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unflinching look at the future & our place in the universe., May 30, 1999

By 

Edward Alexander Gerster "miamibooks" (South Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dragon's Eye (Hardcover)

Unique. This is quite a story--wrapped in layers of intrigue, politics and science--and told in a voice that makes even the most preposterous sound reasonable, and then like fact rather than fiction. The author goes to great lengths to draw the reader in, and is successful in creating something that is entertaining and thought provoking.

If you like the works of Stanislaw Lem or John Varley, then Champetier is an author you definitely should try. Not because this tale is derivative of their work in any way, but because the mental jumps he takes and plot twists are as intricate and finely wrought. Highly Recommended.