"The Merchant of Death" is the opening novel out of a series of ten in "The Pendragon Adventures," in which the main protagonist, Bobby Pendragon, essentially tries to prevent the destruction of the pathways between territories, or dimensions interconnecting the universe. This novel is written by DJ Machale, and was originally copyrighted in September of 2002. Technically, this book is classified as fantasy, but I would add it to the category of speculative fiction due to the fact that this book, along with the rest of the series largely revolve around science, Utopian and dystopian, and apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction. From all of that, I would say that the general subject matter in this novel would be the fight for total control/power and how it affects society for the better or worse. Also it would be important to know that the antagonist in the story has almost every power you can think of. MacHale does a great job at his effort to make Saint Dane (the aforementioned antagonist) the literal Devil of the universe. The general plot in this novel focuses over Bobby Pendragon, a seemingly normal fourteen year old boy, and his travels between the territory/planet Denduron and his home Second Earth.Bobby is taken to Denduron with the help of his Uncle Preston, who fights for peace in the universe and is hoping that Bobby can help aid him with his efforts to prevent the oncoming civil war between the two different inhabitants of the planet...The Bedoowan and the Milago. One of the more focused themes in this novel is that power can corrupt the purest heart. I say this, because both the tribes on the territory Denduron are unreasonably corrupted from their fight for ultimate power, and control over one another.
The story is told from the words of the diary Bobby is forced to keep over the course of his journey(s). He writes these journal entries in first person format though. All in all, the style of narrative makes for an interesting, fresh sense of reading. The intended audience for "The Merchant of Death" and the rest of the series are mainly teenage boys, but the book would be very relatable to many teenage girls as well, due to a main female protagonists that accompanies Bobby throughout the book/series. As I said before, the general subject field that this novel is classified in is Fantasy, but I would also consider the book to fall on speculative fiction, and for the same aforementioned reasons. MacHale does a great job of keeping the reader interested by the his buildup of the plot. From the start of the book, he reveals that Denduron is on the verge of war, and as the story develops (rather quickly might I add) the two tribes grow closer and closer towards a bloodshed. In nearly every chapter, a new problem is introduced to the equation making the solving of the overall problem more difficult for Bobby and his alliances. MacHale uses a somewhat unique style of writing to help appeal to his intended audience. He writes this book with a very casual undertone for a book so largely based off the pressures of society, oncoming war, and the fight for domination. Also you uses lots of comical/humorous dialect between characters to help the reader relate to the story. Personally I thought his writing style was very effective, due to the fact that it was simply unique, but done so with the careful precision to eliminate any sort of estrangement the reader might've felt while reading the novel.
Honestly, this book didn't challenge me in any way to think differently about something/anything. I felt no change in thought about what is going on in my life due to reading this book. Part of the problem with books about speculative fiction is that they are difficult to tie into reality due to the fact that they are, well, speculative. This novel kind of reminded me of Stoneheart in the fact that there is a lot going on all throughout the story at the plot continues to intensify when you think it can't anymore, until the end of the book.
Honestly, I liked the book, largely because of the unusualness of the plot line, and the ideas the story focuses on in general. The book was well written, and I was impressed by how MacHale captured the essence of thought coming from Bobby with the narrative coming from the format of a journal. I would recommend this book to somebody who enjoys long series, and who enjoys lots of "time continuum-type" novels...focusing on the fabric that is time and space. I would not however recommend this novel or series to anybody who doesn't enjoy science fiction, because that there is a lot dialect and thought based around how the story/journey is possible.
Steven Ø'Connell
12/17/13
Rating *** 3/5
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