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Black Water (2004)
(aka: Pendragon Black Water)

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"Just when fifteen-year-old Bobby Pendragon thinks he understands his purpose as a Traveler — to protect the territories of Halla from the evil Saint Dane — he is faced with an impossible choice.

The inhabitants of Eelong are in danger of being wiped out by a mysterious plague. The only way Bobby can stop it is to bring the antidote from another territory. Since moving items between territories is forbidden by the Traveler rules, if Bobby chooses to save Eelong he could endanger himself, his friends, and the future of every other being in Halla."

Black Water is the 5th book in The Pendragon Adventure, featuring Bobby and Kasha, the Traveler from Eelong. Gunny, Spader, and Loor also make appearances.


Tropes:

  • Duel to the Death: During an imprisonment, Bobby and another gar - a human on Eelong that's almost-but-not-quite-normal intelligence - get thrown into an arena, tossed a knife, and made to fight each other. Bobby wins, but ends up not having to kill him, thankfully.
  • Fantastic Vermin: Eelong's society is in large part determined by the tang - large-taloned, ostrich-dinosaur-like creatures with red eyes that haunt the jungles they live in. Eelong's dominant species so far as they know is thus made up of Cat Folk who evolved to climb trees and build their homes in them, and humans are seen as closer to prey animals or cows ecologically speaking, since they're more helpless before the tangs.
  • Formula-Breaking Episode: This book switches up the formula in a number of ways. The easiest one to add is that the dominant species on Eelong are finally not humans, but feline Cat Folk, and humans are actually an allegedly subservient, non-sentient species, analogous to apes or parrots.
  • Made a Slave: Bobby gets trapped and stuck in a gar cage/prison for more than a month, and finds it very uncomfortable.
  • Race Against the Clock: The finale involves trying to reach the titular place before the sun rises.
  • Shout-Out: In setting and message, Eelong has a lot in common with a certain Planet of the Apes, and draws a lot of specific things from both its first movie and its second in terms of beats, locations, and themes.
  • The Worf Effect: Bobby wins his duel to the death mentioned above, but he notes that despite having tried hard, he still only won because his opponent was half-starved and kind of crazy.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: Mark and Courtney go to Eelong to help Bobby and spend several weeks there. Before returning, they wrack their brains for a plausible excuse of where they've been, then discover they've only been gone for half an hour.

Alternative Title(s): Pendragon Black Water

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