Book 5: Discover the Destroyer
Publishing Date: January 2000
Narrator: David
My rating:
The Everworld team are at the mercy of a dragon who has demanded they retrieve his stolen goods for him or else their replaced hearts will burn with dragon fire in six days. The team plus Senna (who is a witch and hasn’t had her heart replaced) travel to Fairy Land to earn their hearts back and attempt to trick, blackmail or bluff the leprechauns into giving the stolen goods back.
This novel completes the circle and we’re back to David’s narration now. This book goes deeper into David’s characterisation with the suggestion of child sex abuse being the reason he’s not as brave as he could be and not as strong a leader as he could be. I personally feel that David’s probably not the best leader; he doesn’t want to lead and he’s forced into the position by the rest of the team, but only when it suits them. Facing down a dragon? Here’s your sword David, go kill it. You go first.
This novel is really the first one where the team have an absolute goal and timeframe to complete it in. This makes it the easiest to read so far. The weird magic of EverWorld means that even though their hearts have been replaced by rubies, their blood still pumps. Senna’s heart wasn’t taken, because she’s a cold hearted bitch and the dragon would have had to replace it with a diamond, and he’s cheap, being a dragon obsessed with treasure. But Senna still tags along and creates chaos and attempts to turn the group against each other when it suits her. April really just needs to punch her in the face. I’m not fooled by Senna’s sympathetic act, she’s a user and she’s desperate and a control freak.
David’s second story was worth a go because of the nature of the quest and the amusing scenes such as a nymph infatuated by Jalil, but because of David’s tendency to hate himself and his perceived unworthiness to lead this rag-tag crew, it was still a little frustrating. He’ll never be classic leader material, but it sure does make him layered.
