Book review of Pendragon: The Merchant of Death by D.J. Machale

Pendragon
Book one: The Merchant of Death
By D.J. Machale

The Merchant of Death is book one of the well-written young adult novel by D.J. Machale. It is adventure and fantasy.

Bobby Pendragon is your typical, but popular thirteen-year-old boy. His Uncle Press asks for his help, and even though he has a big game that he’s already late for, he agrees because it is family. Except his uncle never said there was a shape changing Saint Dane with grandiose dreams of bringing destruction, nor that the next town over was just a waylay station to a whole other realm.

Arriving at Denduron, his uncle is captured by the knights working for Kagan, an evil dictator, and Bobby is left to recuperate from their mad chase down a snow slope and hopefully get some answers with Osa and Loor. Like his Uncle Press and like Bobby, they are travelers. Bobby’s no hero or warrior. He wants to go home, but there’s the matter of his uncle’s pending execution, the unjust treatment of the Milago, and the mysterious task that started this fiasco.

Meanwhile back at home, Mark, his best friend, has had his own encounter. After Bobby never shows up for the game, Osa visits him during the dead of night and gives him a ring. No dream and it’s not just a ring. Rather it is a one-way transport device and Bobby’s first journal comes through. If Mark is to believe this craziness, Courtney, the bringer of great first kisses can substantiate it. They go to Bobby’s house. It’s gone, his family is gone, and except for memories, all physical and documented evidence of their existence is gone.

As a grandmother, I could see how teenagers would enjoy reading these books. There’s not a lot of explanation to what’s happening, but I’d read it just to be entertained. Have fun with the quigs that guard the portals.