The Dragon's Eye

by Joël Champetier

The Dragon’s Eye takes place nearly two hundred and fifty years in the future. Earth has expanded into space, and the colonization of extra-solar planets has begun. Not all nations have equal means, however, and China finds itself relegated to a barely-hospitable planet in a nearby double-star system. One of the stars is the Dragon’s Eye, a small but dangerous star whose intense radiations cause widespread blindness among the colonizing population. As is conditions weren’t harsh enough, New China is saddled by enormous debts. Rebellion rumors flow freely…

In the midst of all this arrives Réjean Tanner, an operative for an Earth intelligence agency. He quickly finds himself in enemy territory, tasked with retrieving a rogue agent… regardless if the agent is cooperative or not.

Genres: Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Joël Champetier was a French-Canadian science fiction and fantasy author. He began writing in 1981. His first fantasy novel, The Memory Lake, won the Grand Prix 1995 science fiction and Quebec fantastic and the Aurora Award for best novel, while his second, White Skin, was adapted for film. Besides his work as a writer and screenwriter, Joel Champetier was the editor of the magazine Solaris from 1999 until his death in May 2015.

Joël Champetier était un auteur Québécois de science-fiction et fantasy. Il a commencé à écrire en 1981. Son premier roman de fantasy, La mémoire du lac a remporté le Grand Prix de science-fiction et fantastique du Québec 1995 et le Prix Aurora pour le meilleur roman, tandis que son second, La peau blanche, a été adapté au cinéma. Outre son travail d'écrivain et de scénariste, Joël Champetier était le rédacteur en chef de la revue Solaris de 1999 jusqu'à sa mort en mai 2015.

Reviews

[Marsh "Bad Sci Fi" Bloom · Rating 2 out of 5]

I figured I was in for a ride with this one. Something about the oddly deflective reviews on the cover and the packaging of it. Sadly, not a bad sci fi ride in the really good sense of it. More the vaguely disquieting ride of Dan Brown attempting sci fi on a really bad day.

The book opens tediously. The characters are flat, a la Three Body Problem. What is at stake? I don't know. I keep trying to latch onto anything and it doesn't hold. 1/3 of the way through I re-read the first three chapters looking for any hint that this is satire. Anything? Anything? Such is my dedication to getting anything to latch onto as a point to anything. Why do the characters even care? I can't even tell that. Alas. We push on.

So we land on this planet where the 20th century earth is perfectly replicated. And, thanks for transporting me to the alien experience of... looking for parking in the rain near a concert hall. 300 years of social and technological advancement and... everything is exactly the same. There are hints this is intentional, True China or something, but if that's the case, it should all be alien to the MC. It should be throwback land far more completely for him to navigate. That culture should be infecting far more.

Say the line, Bart! Say it, say it ..... "don't look at the Dragon's Eye"

That's it, that's the entirety of the worldbuilding that isn't an exact copy of the geography, politics, and relationship of China to Hong Kong, including a stand-in for Guangdong. There is no reason this is a science fiction story. The inciting incident has to do with... sovereign debt. There's no way for the reader to anchor themselves to this place to enter the story exactly because it is exactly like the one we know, including the technology (buses and trains run on internal combustion engines) but it isn't that place. Forget it's that place, but keep reading. No no, forget it's that place. Don't look at the eye!

Anyway, here we are in the first three chapters where everything should be getting established and.... we are whisked from one place to another without any sense of what the MC imagines the bigger picture is. Nothing. Black hole. Things happen, sort of. But most important though the reader is successfully "kept in the dark" as a source of drama. Settle in, that's not going to change.

What does the MC THINK is going to happen? Can we know that? Nope. Apparently the drama is so fragile it would be drained of life to follow along with the point of any events. The events are going to unfold and you are gonna watch em.

So they unfold all right. We are treated to an embassy full of "agents" who... sort of have to pretend they aren't... but never take that seriously really, committing all kinds of security breaches. It's not an embassy, right?, if it's not functioning at least in part as a diplomatic outpost. No? The author seems to think an embassy is primarily a spook holding pen...with all the leCarre style leadership cynicism infecting everything. Oh, and of course we open with a few moments of Wesley Crusher-ism for our MC. Fan service for bad book readers.

While we're on the topic of agents, etc, the author, despite being an editor, never learned to avoid the slender yellow fruit writing tick. It's like water torture by the end. Who are we talking about? Why is this role important this paragraph to avoid using a name as opposed to the paragraph before? Hard enough reading this without getting jarred out of it like that just often enough to forget to expect it.

I have to say, though, the hollow sphere-like emptiness of the MC is surprisingly complex thing. We are following him closely, but, why is anything happening? Why is he doing anything? What does he think is going to happen? Why is he able to ignore the cold murderous violence attending events? Why isn't the fact of everyone on staff being ordered to exterminate some other elses (?) and some people refusing... or something, why isn't THAT the story? People having qualms and standing for something. Why isn't... No, just full steam ahead on what appears to be a little side quest. Not burying the lede there at all. Is he re-wired? Is he a machine? This isn't literature. Why is there such a disconnect between normal social realities and this MC going about his moment to moment? It's freaky disconnected in a way that only a few really bad books pull off. So kudos there.

Another gem this book pulls off, an MC who gets grumpy about not getting to bed when crap is completely shattering in the air off the fan. Grumpy about late transport, grumpy about not getting a blankee when the hospital is overrun. About all kinds of completely inappropriate to the situation things. This kind of thing cannot be written intentionally. It's to be treasured. The Gary Stu who is accidentally incredibly unlikeable for petty reasons. MWAH. Chef's kiss.

This is sci fi for no reason and the MC gets away with a disguise that shouldn't fool someone with 20th century technology. Just a bit written into a corner there. It's Dan Brown all right, where there are interstellar spaceships but everything is always the 1980s.

Once things are moving along a-pace, and the coincidences to keep things smoothed over are piling up, we only learn anything at all about the world through the author justifying events in the prose. And what details get dribbled out open up so many questions. A rigid command economy in the future, but... with untraceable cash as the currency of choice?

In conclusion, everyone in this book is cynical to the point of evil, except the MC who is barely there at all. This is a subgenre I'm calling Temu Bladerunner as written by Dan Brown.

[Dominic Bellavance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Une aventure assez étonnante. On se trouve sur une planète éloignée de la Terre, en Nouvelle-Chine, dans un environnement futuriste mais extrêmement pauvre qui nous rappelle un peu le décor de la télé-série Firefly. L'action déboule à 100 milles à l'heure. Une catastrophe se termine qu'une nouvelle se profile. J'ai adoré le personnage de Tanner et ceux qui l'entourent, bien que sa conquête féminine soit un peu "vide" côté personnalité et trop pleurnicharde à mon goût. Bref, un roman riche, bien construit et difficile à déposer.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled to get excited about a story that was essentially You Only Live Twice, but in space. Still, a competent translation of a work that originally appeared in French.

[Hyrum · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a spy story, it had all the required elements: a beautiful girl that tags along and falls for the protagonist, undercover missions and going into enemy territory, political intrigue, high-tech bio-disguises. As a spy thriller, it worked I guess. But I don't really like spy stories unless it's different than every other spy story.
I didn't care at all for any of the characters, but maybe it's just not my thing.
I loved several aspects of it.
1) the futuristic aspect with the feel of the 1990's. The story was written in the early days of the internet because the spies used internet boards to communicate. It was hilarious and is a good reminder that predicting the future is often tainted with current technology available at the time of writing. This worked for me because it was such a strange combination.
2) The world was interesting, all the Asian culture and multiple suns of the planet and how it combined.

Toward the end, I skipped a lot of the story, just to see how it finished, which was disappointing as expected. Overall, I'm glad I read it. The experience was interesting.

[Annie Bacon · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'aurais du lire du Joël Champetier bien avant! Je comprends désormais pourquoi il est célébré dans toute la communauté de l'imaginaire québécois! Son monde est original et bien bâti, son intrigue tissée serrée, et son écriture impeccable. J'en lirai d'autres, c'est certain!

[Brian Gaston · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the novel but had a little trouble relating to the characters.

[Robert Runte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joël Champetier's The Dragon's Eye (seamlessly translated by fellow novelist Jean-Louis Trudel ) is a crossover novel: the setting is hard sf, but the plot is pure spy thriller. The point of setting a spy thriller in an sf locale is that the reader is too removed in time and space to have ready-made, knee-jerk reactions to the political issues of the day. The point of plotting an sf novel as a spy thriller is that the reader is so caught up in the page-turning action that Champetier is able to sneak in all sorts of literary values that elevate this novel well above the norm for hard sf.

The action takes place on a planet of a binary star system, where the second sun pumps out such high levels of UV that all outdoor activity essentially comes to a standstill while its up. Since this significantly diminishes the desirability of this piece of stellar real estate, the world has been left to the Chinese to settle -- the Europeans and Japanese having grabbed off all the good planets. Setting the novel in New China was a refreshing change from the usual projections of Anglo-American culture that dominate our genre, and the sociological half of Champetier's world building is easily as significant and intriguing and believable as the physical setting. For example, without ever digressing from the heart-stopping action, Champetier has nevertheless managed to provide an excellent illustration -- one could almost say analysis -- of colonialism at the end of empire. When hard sf is successfully combined with social science fiction the interplay often gives rise, as here, to some of the very best our genre has to offer.

If the centrality of the setting is characteristic of Canadian sf, than so are the characterization and themes. Champetier's cast of double agents and hapless bystanders is pure Canadiana. Our protagonist may appear to be a typical Ian Fleming superspy, but he keeps fumbling the ball in typical Canadian fashion. Indeed, it is not even clear that he is fighting for the right side, because -- as with THE BOOK OF KNIGHTS -- Champetier's characters are adrift in a sea of moral ambiguity. In this spy novel, even the ends don't come close to justifying the means .

Similarly, Champetier characterizes the New Chinese as motivated by the desire to recreate the best of Imperial China, before the intrusion of Western and Japanese influence. This may strike some American reviewers as anachronistic or unconvincing, but anyone familiar with the history of New France knows that the colony was founded in part out of the desire to recreate in the new world a pure Christian France, unsullied by worldly and foreign influences. Thus, Champetier has merely projected a tiny aspect of Canadian history into a completely believable future, even though the setting is Chinese.

But let me reemphasize: this is a tightly written (and skillfully translated) novel that cannot be put down once it is picked up. If you ever needed proof that "Canadian" is not synonymous with "boring", this is a good place to start.

[Michèle · Rating 4 out of 5]

De mémoire, ca fait longtemps que j'ai lu ce roman!

Un bon livre de SF nous plonge dans un univers à la fois réaliste et fascinant Imaginez une étoile verte, émettant tant d'ultraviolets que sa contemplation rend aveugle (comme ici regarder le soleil directement pendant des heures), compagne d'une étoile normale. La planète de type terrestre abrite une société chinoise, rivale de la terre, qui compte bien des secrets que les terriens aimeraient savoir.

L'histoire suit un jeune agent terrien dont c'est la première mission (Réjean Tanner, doit réveiller une «taupe» infiltrée dans le gouvernement néo-chinois). Le roman de Joel renferme des descriptions impressionantes de la ville des us et coutumes (qui m'étaient familier vu que je revenais d'un long séjour en Chine quand j'ai lu ce roman!) du ciel vert quand l'oeil du Dragon (l'Étoile qui rend aveugle) y brille. Aspect pratique: le héros croise donc beaucoup de groupes d'aveugles dont des guides s'occupent. Pour éviter de la devenir, garder un calendrier qui rappelle les éphémérides de cette dangereuse étoile.

Le jeune homme va passer par une suite de déconvenues, de déceptions, de violences, de faux-fuyants et de trahison (sans oublier l'amour, il y a une très belle scène dans un train, sous le ciel vert.) Loin d'être un James Bond, il doutera de lui-même, de sa mission, de ses allégeances... ce qui le rend d'autant plus attachant, même s'il doit au cours de sa mission mettre la main à la pâte (entendre, le doigt sur la gachette) pour compléter une mission à la quelle il ne croit plus.

La fin est moins convenue que celle de bien des romans d'espionnage, elle est triste, mais laisse entrevoir des possibilités.

Joël Champetier a publié ce roman chez Tor Books (Dragon's Eye). Bref, je recommande pour les amateurs de SF et d'espionnage.

[Daphnar · Rating 1 out of 5]

A spy comes in from the cold on a Chinese dominant planet that suffers from intense periods of radiation. Perhaps better in French, an interesting planet and backstory but the actual plot was less than gripping.

[M.h. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Its an English translation of a French book about a future Chinese colony. Easy to read and not overtly offensive but not really good.

[CJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite slow to get into, I found, but once I was into the book a good 50+ pages I really enjoyed it.

[Bob Folker · Rating 1 out of 5]

Spy novel set in a future dystopia. Interesting setting, but didn't like the characters or the ending. Not recommended.