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Two Pearls of Wisdom

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This book has been printed with 4 different titles. Make sure you have not read it. I was disappointed to find i purchased the same book with a different title. 1.Eon, 2.Eon:the dragoneye reborn, 3.Eon: rise of the dragoneye, and 4.the two pearls of wisdom are all the same book

A failed teacher driven by the desperation of a last chance to do the unspeakable, a lowly slave and her son despised because of his deformity from birth, a transvestite living as a court lady facing intolerance moderns cannot imagine, a spy for rebels who willingly became a eunuch, a royal heir raised in isolation among the women, and at the center of it all a crippled girl pretending to be a boy in order to become an apprentice dragoneye, to which only males are allowed under pain of the most horrible of deaths.... You call THIS an army?...

The bad guys don't stand a chance, but it is going to be "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life"!

Alison Goodman has done the impossible; she has imagined a fantasy world that is new and different in almost every respect! Based on Chinese and Japanese (but mostly Chinese from what I can see) history and culture and mythology, the Empire of the Celestial Dragons is quite a change from Medieval Europe or primitive barbarianism. The most dangerous thing in this universe is not the powerful magic but rather the treacherous court intrigue, which can kill you in so many more horrible ways.

From the very beginning Eon/Eona is under horrendous pressure and threat of death as she carefully navigates her twisted path, surrounded by intrigue and treachery. What separates good from evil in this world is a bit hazier than most: honor, loyalty, and the Chinese version of the Golden Rule. Honesty? Not so much. Living a double life makes Eon/Eona inclined to carefully ration her truthfulness, a practice that quite often leaves her poised on the knife-edge of disaster. Goodman also keeps her main character under almost continuous stress, whipsawing her emotions from joy to despair in the midst of a single thought, but (fortunately?) this age is too harsh to allow for the possibility of nervous breakdown; she must soldier on regardless.

As might be expected of the first book of a duology, there really isn't anything you could call an "ending"; rather, there is merely a pause in the action at a reasonably appropriate stopping place. Think of it as merely the halfway point in a single thousand-page novel,...

but it is going to be a frustratingly long wait for the second half: Eona: The Last Dragoneye!

Note: if my description of the good guys above triggers your PC alarm as it did mine, fear not; there is not a trace of PC idiocy anywhere in this novel. I think this might be because in this world where emperors have absolute control over life and death (so long as they do not lose the Mandate of Heaven) and class barriers are nearly unbreakable, there is no such thing as "rights", only "right" and the "might" which makes it. Here strong men rule over weak men, and men rule over women. Of course no one in his right mind would choose to live under such a system, but it does have the benefit of eliminating the whining and multiplying the gratitude.

Note: This book has been published under a couple of alternate titles: Eon: Dragoneye Reborn and Eon: Rise of the Dragoneye.