The Dungeoneers
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
An action-packed, funny, and unexpected middle grade fantasy-adventure from the acclaimed author of Sidekicked.
The world is not a fair place, and Colm Candorly knows it. While his parents and eight sisters seem content living on a lowly cobbler's earnings, Colm can't help but feel that everyone has the right to a more comfortable life. It's just a question of how far you're willing to go to get it.
In an effort to help make ends meet, Colm uses his natural gift for pickpocketing to pilfer a pile of gold from the richer residents of town, but his actions place him at the mercy of a mysterious man named Finn Argos, a gilded-toothed, smooth-tongued rogue who gives Colm a choice: he can be punished for his thievery or he can become a member of Thwodin's Legions, a guild of dungeoneers who take what they want and live as they will. Colm soon finds himself part of a family of warriors, mages, and hunters, learning to work together in a quest to survive and, perhaps, to find a bit of treasure along the way.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a delightful deconstruction of role-playing clich s, Anderson (Minion) gives D&D-style dungeon-delving the Harry Potter approach, creating a school where promising young heroes are taught the finer tricks of the traditional fantasy smash and grab. As an apprentice rogue with Thwodin's Legion, Colm Candorly learns how to disarm traps, open locks, and survive in a hostile world, while befriending the rest of his training party: a stuttering mage, a nervous druid, and a female would-be barbarian. When the time comes to test their skills in an actual dungeon crawl, they're pushed to their limits, even as the Legion is rocked by a betrayal. Anderson's approach is both serious and tongue-in-cheek, balancing humor with life-and-death situations, such as when Colm's class is regaled with the horrible fates of unfortunate dungeoneers: "Impaled, drowned, burned, impaled, cursed, exploded, slashed, imploded, frozen, poisoned, turned to stone, turned to ash, turned into a chicken," starts the speech. It's an exciting, engaging tale that brings new life to one of the most common manifestations of the genre. Ages 8 12.
