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Dragon Ring
Nadine is a special young woman. She is the daughter of the man who transformed the small nation of Guatemala into the world's largest and most powerful corporation. Nadine is an expert at virtual-reality applications, and when she goes undercover to find her father's killers, she discovers a power within the Earth that can transform civilization - or destroy entire cities. She must face the juggernaut of corporate greed and secrecy to stop an experiment that could have cataclysmic consequences. Although she is a skeptic, Nadine is finding that the magic claimed by mystics for centuries has real roots, and combining this mystical energy with virtual-reality control gives her the only tool that can stop the impending catastrophe . but at a great cost. She has awakened a beast within her own spirit that threatens to consume her. Dragon Ring is Lettie Prell's first novel.
- GenresFantasy
252 pages, Paperback
First published May 23, 2008
About the author
Lettie Prell
23 books34 followersLettie Prell is a science fiction writer. Her stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Apex Magazine, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Her work has been reprinted in anthologies, including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018, Rich Horton's The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2018 Edition, and Neil Clarke's The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Two.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 6, 2009
This is a fun one. Southwest flavor with a girl who becomes a dragon. And what a surprise how uninhibited dragons are!
July 6, 2022
This little indie sci-fi book was a weird ride. It seemed like Lettie Prell wanted to write a book that covered every stop between advanced technology and metaphysics. Kind of a cool concept, but with all of the ideas packed inside, Dragon Ring ended up feeling unfocused with all of the ideas packed inside.
Nadine is a virtual-reality expert (cool) in the corporate state of Guatemala (okay), but it doesn't come up much except to land her a job interview with AEI, the secretive energy corporation that might have murdered her father (hm) and might also have uncovered a new energy source from the Earth itself (wowza). This energy is scientific, but it's also magical, and different characters have different approaches to dealing with it. Nadine's cousin sees it as a primal power that should not be tamed; Three Crows understands it as an engineering problem; and Norman bridges both views by developing a suit that can let you see auras by plugging into your chakras.
Then Nadine gets and the book jumps right off the deep end. You know, a normal book plot. I do give Dragon Ring credit for just going for it, but I don't think it really earned the epic scope. At least I never knew what was coming next.
The writing is fine, but a bit stilted at times. I never found the characters to be very fleshed out, either. Nadine is set up as a young genius, but she comes off very naive as soon as she leaves Guatemala and goes to the States. Her entire dynamic with Three Crows feels off, since she acts like a teenager (I think she is one?) and needs to have everything explained to her. (Shouldn't a virtual reality expert who has graduated college and has access to the entire internet from her VR dock in her bed know where Tahiti is, or how rental cars work?) But alas, that doesn't stop her and Three Crows from getting it on and having a whole romance, complete with the totally unnecessary jealousy drama when the 17-year-old Maria is introduced and starts flirting shamelessly with Three Crows. The horniness in this book is frankly uncomfortable, between Nadine and Norman needing to personally attach the chakra sensors to Nadine's naked body. (And of course Norman, the one Asian character, is "painfully shy".) Also, there were many characters that were introduced that I think I was supposed to care about but just really didn't: Pascal, Maria, Nadine's mom, Norman, even Juan Carlos. I felt like I only ever got to know Nadine and Three Crows, and these other characters were just window dressing.
All in all, this is very much an author's first novel put out by an indie publisher. The writing was OK, the book was decently entertaining, and it certainly had ambition. But it was a bit too broad in scope to be entirely satisfying, and the characters and weird sex stuff brought it down.
Nadine is a virtual-reality expert (cool) in the corporate state of Guatemala (okay), but it doesn't come up much except to land her a job interview with AEI, the secretive energy corporation that might have murdered her father (hm) and might also have uncovered a new energy source from the Earth itself (wowza). This energy is scientific, but it's also magical, and different characters have different approaches to dealing with it. Nadine's cousin sees it as a primal power that should not be tamed; Three Crows understands it as an engineering problem; and Norman bridges both views by developing a suit that can let you see auras by plugging into your chakras.
Then Nadine gets and the book jumps right off the deep end. You know, a normal book plot. I do give Dragon Ring credit for just going for it, but I don't think it really earned the epic scope. At least I never knew what was coming next.
The writing is fine, but a bit stilted at times. I never found the characters to be very fleshed out, either. Nadine is set up as a young genius, but she comes off very naive as soon as she leaves Guatemala and goes to the States. Her entire dynamic with Three Crows feels off, since she acts like a teenager (I think she is one?) and needs to have everything explained to her. (Shouldn't a virtual reality expert who has graduated college and has access to the entire internet from her VR dock in her bed know where Tahiti is, or how rental cars work?) But alas, that doesn't stop her and Three Crows from getting it on and having a whole romance, complete with the totally unnecessary jealousy drama when the 17-year-old Maria is introduced and starts flirting shamelessly with Three Crows. The horniness in this book is frankly uncomfortable, between Nadine and Norman needing to personally attach the chakra sensors to Nadine's naked body. (And of course Norman, the one Asian character, is "painfully shy".) Also, there were many characters that were introduced that I think I was supposed to care about but just really didn't: Pascal, Maria, Nadine's mom, Norman, even Juan Carlos. I felt like I only ever got to know Nadine and Three Crows, and these other characters were just window dressing.
All in all, this is very much an author's first novel put out by an indie publisher. The writing was OK, the book was decently entertaining, and it certainly had ambition. But it was a bit too broad in scope to be entirely satisfying, and the characters and weird sex stuff brought it down.
July 3, 2009
The Dragon Ring by Lettie Prell is such an original book. I’ve never read anything quite like it before. It’s mostly science-fiction with a little fantasy mixed in. The story starts in the not too distant future, possibly a hundred years from now, in the country of Guatemala. The whole country has just become the largest corporation in the world, with the guidance of a very innovative man.
The daughter of this innovative man is a child prodigy, and she is the main character in the novel. Nadine, a very smart half-Latina, is not only gifted in math, but she also has the ability to move outside of her body, projecting her consciousness to distant locations—as well as seeing flashes of the future. She is afraid of these abilities and refuses to use them after becoming frightened of her experiences as a child. Years later, she is thrown into a wild situation involving a project that her father was working on that will change the entire world, or perhaps destroy it.
Nadine, along with a young Native American scientist/engineer named Three Crows, and her cousin, Juan Carlos, plus a few other interesting characters must figure out what’s going on and intervene before a terrible calamity befalls the world.
The originality of the story is what really stood out for me. Lettie Prell mixes science, new age theories, an extremely inventive storyline, and a touch of magic to create a thoroughly enjoyable book. The ending totally surprised me and I had no idea it was coming. If you’re looking for something a little different with a unique view of what the future may bring, check out The Dragon Ring by Lettie Prell.
Paul Genesse
Author of The Dragon Hunters
www.paulgenesse.com
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews