When Eona hides her true name from her dragon, she is prevented from being able to fulfill her role in saving the empire. The interplay within this trio (none of whom are living as they were born) - their hopes for one another and the secrets all of them are keeping - is the most fascinating and unique part of “Eon.” Situations take on unspoken dimensions that depend on who knows what about whom.

This is all, of course, much to the frustration of the new Rat Dragoneye, Lord Ido, who had planned a coup based on his ascendancy.Īs she is thrust from lowly apprentice into the heart of court politics, Eona’s main guides are the Lady Dela, a “contraire,” or man living as a woman, and her bodyguard, Ryko, a eunuch. And to make it more confusing for Eona, all the other dragons bow to her dragon, making her the most important person in the kingdom after the emperor. Instead she is chosen by the long-missing Mirror Dragon, who is making her first appearance in 500 years. However, Eona is not the one chosen by the newly ascendant energy dragon, the Rat Dragon. But Eon is actually a 16-year-old girl, Eona, disguised - and even disabled as part of that disguise - by her master in a last-gasp attempt to regain his status as a dragon lord and to stop an attempted coup on the emperor by his brother. The reader knows how this will go: The orphan boy almost has to be The One, Goodman will slowly reveal her thrilling inventions through his limited viewpoint, and we can all sit at home happy that the boys and men are out there looking after us.

He is 12 years old and one of a field of candidates to be the next apprentice or Dragoneye, a person who can commune with and direct one of the 12 “energy dragons.” So far, so familiar. The eponymous hero, Eon, resembles the protagonists of shelf-loads of fantasy series. While there are many set pieces familiar from previous fantasy series, Goodman has freshened up creaking plot devices to produce a slow-building work that over and over again challenges reader expectations. “Eon: Dragoneye Reborn,” the first half of Australian Alison Goodman’s planned two-volume, Asian-influenced dragon-based series, is wonderful, with its whirlwind of gender exploration, imperial ambition, dragon lore and dissection of nature versus nurture.

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