Customer Reviews

Sea Hag (World of Crystal Walls, No 1)

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The subtitle of this book is "The World of Crystal Walls" and the front of the book says it is "a great new series". But, unfortunately, this is a series of one.

Which is really disheartening, because it's an excellent adventure novel and coming-of-age story! The main character is a young man named Dennis, who is a prince and who is accompanied by Chester, a small eight-legged robot who has been Dennis's companion, tutor, mentor and confidant since birth and who seems to know and see a lot more than he lets on.

In the first part of the story, Dennis leaves his father's small kingdom to find adventure in the world. He does this after he finds out that his father was originally an ordinary fisherman who bargained with the Sea Hag, gaining a kingdom and crystal palace in exchange for his first-born son (Dennis). As Dennis goes out in the world, he finds quite a bit more adventure and weirdness than he bargained for, the love of a beautiful woman, and the self-confidence and wisdom that he lacked when he left his father's palace. Eventually he and his companion Chester go back to confront the Sea Hag and win back his wife Aria, whom the Sea Hag had kidnapped.

If you are used to Drake's Hammer's Slammers series, this is a very different type of book. In Hammer's Slammers, Drake goes to a fair amount of effort to explain the technology in the story. In _The Sea Hag_, the characters live in a world where the original settlers have long since died, leaving some very high-tech artifacts that the world's current inhabitants really don't understand. There is also a lot of native weirdness (what is the Sea Hag, anyway?). Sometimes the things that unexpectedly come out of nowhere or the plot lines that loop back from the beginning and very justly and poetically tie the entire story together remind me of some of Simon R. Green's novels.

What will be familiar to many of Drake's fans is the emotional and mental evolution of a fairly sheltered and naive person as they face truly lethal threats. Dennis finds out that yes, he truly does have what it takes. He also comes to realize that many things such as appearance, pride and acclaim are not that important compared to self-respect, self-knowledge and the companionship of those he loves and trusts.

Nietzsche wrote "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." David Drake's books show characters that live this struggle and learn what it means to look into the abyss and see the abyss look back. This book is no exception.

(Now, if he had just explained what's the deal with Chester? How about that black-and-white baton? Were Rakastava, Mother Grimes, Malduanan, and Malbawn things that naturally occurred on that world, or were they the product some long-forgotten technology, or hybrids, or???? And what WAS the Sea Hag?????)