The One-Eyed Dragon by Brian C. Petroziello

Megawatts · Post by **Megawatts** » April 23, 2006, 09:11:26 PM

I enjoyed the entire story from its beginning to its end. It was well written, easy to follow, held my interest, and had a good storyline. The initial setting, present day China, Shanghai, gave the story an old mystic feel, but the story happened in modern times and the mixture of old and new came alive. Lu screamed ‘Curse of the dragon’ and the hair on Bennett’s neck stood up. And Bennett didn’t know why! Nice touch indicating that an un-natural force, hidden, had come alive. Bennett slipped into alleys and side streets to evade government patrols. If Lu was the most noted tattoo artist in Shanghai, other sailors would have been waiting for his service, since the story indicated much merchant shipping to Shanghai. Lu’s parlor would have had more traffic going in and out of it! But that is a moot point and it doesn’t steal from the story. The dragon comes alive on the Starling when it kills for the first time. As the Starling works its way to the Big Apple, the dragon kills in ports of call. The detective are baffled by the fire, and the story gives a real sense of a mystery happening. The hunt for the dragon, the talk with the wino, and the detective work to track down Bennett, fitted well into the story. The ending was fitting and unfolded itself without an unusual twist, and the ending worked. I had to think about the odor of sulfur and why it was introduced. The only conclusion that I came to was: sulfur dust is very explosive and has a low ignition temperature. A fire enhanced by sulfur will do great damage such as exploding a car as per the story suggests. The dust would cling to the car and under heat it would explode. Nice touch and since I don’t know 'nothing' about dragons a scientific sense of realism was added with the sulfur. The story was well written and the sentence balance themselves out and flowed together giving me an image of the events as I read without stumbling of words. I can learn things from this story and will re-read it a few times. I give this story an A+