This highly developed dragon fantasy has its roots in Chinese and Japanese history and culture, but it sports, as advertised, a well realized world of its own. To the outside world Eon is a 12 year old boy in training to be selected as a dragoneye apprentice. Each year one of the 12 energy dragons is ascendant and chooses an apprentice at an elaborate ceremony. To be a dragoneye entails giving something important away of yourself at the dragon's choosing. Dragoneyes wield the dragons power at the expense of their own life force. Eon is in fact a 16 year old girl whose Master has proclaimed her as a eunuch. She also has a crippled hip, which it turns out her master caused without her knowledge. Eon is chosen, not by the ascendant Rat dragon, but by the Mirror Dragon, which had disappeared 500 years earlier, and which is the largest and most powerful dragon. Eon becomes Lord Eon, co-ascendant dragoneye. This draws her into the corrupt Imperial court, with its factions. Women are forbidden from having anything to do with dragons and thus Eon must keep her secret closely. The other co- ascendant dragoneye is the formidable Lord Ido. Ido ends up killing off all the other dragoneyes, which I personally thought was a bit forward, as it tossed a millenia old system into history's dustbin. In any case Ido uncovers Eon's secret and seeks to absorb her power both carnally and on the energy plane. Eon grasps that the Mirror Dragon is female and that she shares its name Eona, and must dish the male aspect of herself , Eon. This sort of gender is a magical force thing would not have been to the liking of an existential feminist such as Simone de Beauvoir, however, as Eon is likely to handily outsell The Second Sex in 2009, I suppose we can let that slide. Speaking of sales, Penguin has moved the release on this book back to December because it felt that it didn't get the kind of pre-publication buzz it deserved. They are clearly hoping they have a Paolini level dragon book here. Eon is much better ...More