First published in 2014, The Eye of Zoltar is the third entry into the The Last Dragonslayer series by Jasper Fforde, chronicling the continuing adventures of Jennifer Strange an her companions at the Kazam, and the fate of the UnUnited Kingdom.
After bringing back Big Magic and saving dragons from extinction in the first book; then stopping the monopolization of magic's return (and preventing the takeover of the Kingdom of Hereford from the already-despotic King Snodd IV by an even more despotic magician) in book two; sixteen year old Jennifer Strange thought she might catch a break... or at the very least she could go back to trying to run Kazam, the UnUnited Kingdom's premiere employment agency for wizards, sorcerers, and soothsayers.
But fate has other things in store for the errant Dragonslayer and savior of magic. Jennifer's actions have caught the eye of the Mighty Shandar, architect of the now-shattered Dragonpact and the single most powerful wizard to ever live. With Dragons on the loose again Shandar is obligated to return the eighteen dray-weights of gold he once charged for "solving the Dragon problem" — and one thing Shandar doesn't do is refunds. He vows to destroy the dragons once and for all unless Jennifer brings him the Eye of Zoltar, a legendary jewel last seen around the neck of an apocryphal air pirate based out of the fantastically lethal Cambrian Empire. With no other recourse, Jennifer accepts this challenge.
Refusing to call it a quest, Jennifer sets out to search for the jewel with the aid of the young dragon Colin (whose life hangs in the balance) and trainee magician Perkins (who Jennifer may or may not be dating). On the orders of King Snodd IV, Jennifer is also forced to take along the hideously spoilt Princess Shazza — who has been bodyswapped with a lowly maid by her sorcerous mother Queen Mimosa in a last-ditch effort to instill a sense of humility in the future ruler of Hereford.
Now the only thing that stands in Jennifer's way is a perilous trek across the Cambrian Empire with a predicted 50% fatality index as calculated by Addie, a ten year-old Cambrian native and Jennifer's hired guide. Jennifer & Co. will have to battle persnickety kidnappers and ruthless warlords with an eye for vintage cars, outwit a passel of adrenaline-seeking Jeopardy Tourists, and avoid the region's deadly megafauna just for starters. Then they'll need to make her way to the war-torn Empty Quarter, climb to the peak of Cadair Idris, find the Leviathan's Graveyard, locate the Eye, and bring it to Shandar.
Many people have visited the mountain, but none have ever returned. Perhaps the legends of Sky Pirate Morgan and the Leviathans are true — or perhaps the clouds that shroud the summit of Cadair Idris hide a far deeper secret. Soon enough, Jennifer and her companions find themselves fighting an enemy they couldn't have imagined as they work to unravel a nefarious plot centuries in the making. It isn't just dragons on the line this time. It's not just Jennifer and her friends who are in danger. Everything they know and love could disappear if they fail, and they're up against the greatest threat the UnUnited Kingdom has ever faced...
The Eye of Zoltar is followed by The Great Troll War, the fourth book in the series.
Tropes in The Eye of Zoltar:
- Age-Gap Romance: Zig-Zagged — Jennifer and Perkins are both teens, but Perkins starts to suffer from a bad case of Younger Than They Look once he starts casting spells fueled by his lifespan. He's still mentally a teenager, but winds up looking like a man in his twenties, then forties, then fifties... Jennifer even worries that their apparent age difference is getting to be "a teensy-weensy bit inappropriate."
- Angel Unaware: Gabby, one of Addie's professional associates, is implied to be one of the angels working overtime in the Cambrian Empire. He's never seen without a huge backpack to disguise his wings, and he helps Jennifer out of several otherwise hopeless jams.
- An Arm and a Leg: The Princess loses a hand while defending the caravan from the onslaught of Hollow Men. Jennifer gives her the Helping Hand™ as an Artificial Limb.
- Blessed with Suck: Perkins is a "Burner", a magician who can't channel ambient magic currents the way other wizards can; his spells are fueled by his life force. He's capable of casting incredibly powerful magic on the fly because he isn't limited by the amount of magic he can draw from the environment (which remains at a historic low-ebb), but at the cost of years off his life. Jennifer notes that "Some of the finest magicians on the planet had been Burners, who did one fantastic, game-changing feat of magic and then they were gone."
- Cast from Lifespan: Perkins has to perform some incredibly powerful feats of magic once they get across the border into the Cambrian Empire (like turning a dragon into rubber and performing a full "Genetic Reset" on someone suffering from a magical overdose), and it takes years off his life at a time. He later reveals to Jennifer that this is always how he's cast magic; he's a "Burner," someone who can't draw on the world's ambient magical energies and instead must use his own life force to power his spells.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Not that Jennifer's adventures in The Last Dragonslayer and The Song of the Quarkbeast didn't operate on high stakes with a certain element of mortal danger, but there was always an underlying tone of fun and irreverence to them. The Eye of Zoltar goes a lot darker. The book starts with Jennifer traveling to the Cambrian empire with Perkins (who she may or may not be dating) and their dragon friend Colin to recover a magical artifact and save the day, all while babysitting a spoiled princess stuck in a maid's body — a dangerous endeavor, yes, but it could still be great fun. But over the course of the adventure Jennifer is forced to offer up her freedom as collateral for Colin's transmogrified rubber body; watch as Perkins siphons off his own life force to protect their party before he's utterly disintegrated by a last powerful spell; and lose part of her foot in an epic battle. And finally when she thinks she's won, that the dragons are safe from Shandar and all her sacrifices will have been meaningful, she learn that Trolls have overrun the Troll Wall and swept across the UnUnited Kingdom with Shandar's aid, the Kingdom of Snodd has fallen and and the royal family has been slaughtered. The last part Jennifer learns when she witnesses the spoiled princess stuck in a maid's body (who lost a hand while valiantly defending Jennifer) feel the pain of her original body dying miles and miles away in Hereford.
- Cool Car: After The Once Magnificent Boo "borrows" Jennifer's orange Volkswagen to fly a captured Tralfamosaur back across the border, Jennifer picks out a new car from the basement parking garage of Zambini Towers — a gorgeous Bugatti Royale. It's such a Cool Car that upon driving it into the Cambrian empire, the car is immediately seized by the Emperor Tharv of the Cambrian Empire. Jennifer is issued a voucher for the value of the Bugatti, promising her a vehicle of equivalent value if she brings the voucher to Cambrianopolis.Inside, it was sumptuously comfortable; outside, the hood was so long that in misty weather it was hard to see the radiator ornament. I chose the car partly because it started pretty much the first time, party because it looked nice, but mostly because it was the biggest.
- Covers Always Lie: The UK hardback cover art depicts Jennifer's orange Volkswagen Beetle as bright blue, while the Russian cover shows it as purple.
- Devolution Device: When Ralph overdoses on magic and is in danger of getting magically turned inside out and dying a horrible death, Perkins performs a complicated bit of magic called a "Genetic Master Reset." This purges all the magic from his system, with the side effect of turning him into an australopithecine. Apparently it was either that or a rabbit."That's an Australopithecine," I said. "What Perkins did was a Genetic Master Reset. The only way to release Ralph from the spells was a complete scouring of anything that made him Ralph. And since Ralph was human, a master reset brought him back to the first thing that would eventually turn out to be Ralph that wasn't quite human."
"You turned Ralph into a caveman?" said Curtis, staring accusingly at Perkins. - Dismemberment Is Cheap: Jennifer bluffs the border guard into believing the hairy, manly Helping Hand™ she's using as a "power steering" assistant on the Bugatti is her own, spinning a story about how the owner died in an accident and his salvageable body parts were attached to needy amputees. Later, after the Princess loses a hand in battle, Jennifer gives her the Helping Hand as a perfectly serviceable prosthetic.
- Dragons Prefer Princesses: Invoked — Feldspar Axiom Firebreath IV is interviewed for the job of guarding a princess in a tower and defending her from unworthy suitors.
- Elephant Graveyard: The legendary Leviathan's graveyard, where the massive, lighter-than-air creatures go to die.
- Expospeak Gag: A running gag — instead of admitting there is no plan, Jennifer will say something like:"How about this," I said. "We modify our plans with regard to ongoing facts as they become known to us, then re-modify them as the situation unfolds."
"You mean wake it all up as we go along?" asked Perkins.
"Right." - Fantastic Drug: Curtis, one of the jeopardy tourists Jennifer and Perkins encounter in The Cambrian Empire, asks them for some recreational spells he can get high on with his travel companions. Jennifer tells him "no" flat out, but later Curtis' friend Ralph gets into Perkins' suitcases an overdoses on magic."So listen, I know you run Kazam, so got any S? Y'know, something to while away the dull evenings between bouts of excitement and terror?"
"S?"
"Spells," he said in a low voice. "The weirder the better, but none of that 'changing into animals' stuff because it can totally mess with your head."
He laughed in a clumsy attempt to charm me. The use of magic for recreational purposes was stupid, dangerous, and irresponsible. Supplying mind- or body-altering spells to idiots like Curtis would also have you drummed out of the magic industry quicker than you could say zork.
"No," I said, "and here's why: You'll start with something simple like a Pollyanna Stone that tells you what you want to hear. Pretty soon you'll move on to stronger and heavier spells that promote unrealistic levels of optimism and self-delusion. After that you'll be always looking for the next spell, and when the spells lose their power you'll be lost, frightened, and bewildered, and your life will tip into a downward spiral of recrimination and despair."
"Okay, okay," he said, backing away from my icy stare. "I only asked. Boy, some people are so square." - Fictional Document: Several new and interesting publications are mentioned during Jennifer's jaunt to the dangerous Cambrian Empire:
- Enjoy the Unspoiled Charms of the Cambrian Empire Without Death or Serious Injury
- Death and Injury Avoidance Techniques for the Discerning Traveler in the Western Kingdom
- Miller's Guide to Kidnappable Personages
- Forced Transformation: After Colin takes a direct hit to his wing from the Cambrian Empire's anti-aircraft artillery, Perkins transforms him into rubber to save him from a deadly fall. Unfortunately, he's stuck in that form until the spell wears off. And the impact causes his new rubber body to go bouncing off miles and miles away from where he "landed," leaving him essentially lost to Jennifer & Co.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: Queen Mimosa body-swaps the spoiled Princess Shazza with Laura Scrubb — one of the palace's indentured orphan servants — in order to teach the princess some humility.
- Giant Flyer: Leviathans are lighter-than-air creatures "the size of a smallish passenger jet" native to the Cambrian Empire. They can camouflage themselves so well they appear nearly invisible. They feed by swooping down on flocks of birds and bugs (and tourists), gulping down everything light enough to get sucked into their gaping, tooth-lined mouths.
- Helping Hands: Lady Mawgon lends Jennifer a disembodied hand to help with steering the Bugatti, but that's not all it can do; kneading bread, copying letters, taking dogs for a walk are all tasks Helping Hand™ is capable of.A Helping Hand™ is Memory Pre-Loaded with every dexterous act imaginable, from mending barometers to building box-girder bridges. With a pair of them, you could play Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto, which is seriously hard. More relevant now, a Helping Hand™ can wield a sword as expertly as if it were conducting open-heart surgery — which are not as unrelated as one might think.
- The High Queen: Queen Mimosa Snodd née Jones, the wife of King Snodd and his better half in every sense of the word. She is described as beautiful, intelligent, and compassionate — everything King Snodd isn't. Jennifer also mentions her self-sacrificing nature; Mimosa agreed to give up her career as a middle-ranked sorceress to marry the spoiled, despotic King Snodd in order to temper his worst impulses and bear royal heirs that would hopefully turn out less awful than their father.
- Insistent Terminology: Any time another character calls Jennifer's mission to locate the Eye of Zoltar a "quest," she emphatically denies that it is. Quests come with exorbitant fees from the Questing Federation oversight body, and a higher fatality rate than "searches" or "journeys." At the end of the book, she upgrades their mission to an official quest.I’d been an idiot to think that this journey was anything but a quest. Searches were nice and soft and cuddly and no one needed to be killed. A quest always demanded the death of a trusted friend and one or more ethical dilemmas.
- Instant Messenger Pigeon: Jennifer and her comrades at Kazam make use of high speed "homing snails" to communicate messages over long distances. Pigeons are mentioned to be too unreliable:Homing snails were one of wizard Moobin's recent discoveries. He had found that all snails have the capacity to do over one hundred miles per hour and find a location with pinpoint accuracy, but didn't because they were horribly lazy and couldn't be bothered. By rewriting a motivating spell commonly used by TV fitness instructors, communication by homing snail was entirely possible — and snails were more reliable than pigeons, which were easily distracted.
- Just Whistle: After saving Jennifer, Addie, and the Princess from the second wave of Hollow Men, Ralph-the-australopithecine (and newly minted Leviathan taming sky pirate) gives Jennifer a whistle made from the tooth of a Leviathan that she can use to summon him if she's ever in danger.
- Literal Transformative Experience: Invoked — Queen Mimosa body-swaps Princess Shazza with a lowly palace servant in order to teach the spoilt princess humility and responsibility. While initially distraught over the transformation, the Princess quickly learns the values of teamwork and trust while on her expedition with Jennifer.
- Living Clothes: Shandar is able to animate suits to do his bidding. They're called "Hollow Men", and they're great for doing heavy lifting, bodyguard work, manual labor, and murdering anyone who discovers Shandar's guanolite factory in the Cambrian Empire.
- MacGuffin Title: Jennifer gets sent on a journey (not a quest, mind you) to locate the fabled Eye of Zoltar, a magnificent jewel with magical powers.
- Muggle Born of Mages: Downplayed with Princess Shazza. Her mother is Queen Mimosa Jones, a formerly middle-ranked sorceress (now retired), and her father is the decidedly un-magical King Snodd. The Princess did not inherit her mother's magical gifts and what's more she seems to look down on magic practitioners (though to be fair she looks down on everyone). Nothing is known about whether her younger brother, Crown Prince Steve, inherited their mother's talents.
- Naked People Are Funny: After Ralph is de-evolved into an australopithecine, he spends the rest of the book totally nude (save for a woman's hand bag he picks up later). Everyone who encounters him asks if he knows that his "thingy" is showing.
- Prophecy Twist: Kevin Zipp's prophecies always seem to come true, just in a way no-one expects. In the first chapters he foresees that the "aggressor" of the next Troll War will be the victor, that the babies he's predicting the future of "won't last the week," and that Perkins will grow old in the Cambrian Empire:
- Jennifer thought the "aggressor" would be King Snodd IV, who was gearing up another campaign to attack the trolls. While she visits the Cambrian Empire, the Trolls launch a surprise attack that decimates the UnUnited Kingdoms.
- The children Kevin predicted wouldn't survive the week all die in the first wave of Troll attacks, possibly eaten by the trolls.
- Perkins turns out to be a "Burner" who can only Cast from Lifespan. He trades away years of his life for powerful feats of magic to get Jennifer and the party out of increasingly perilous situations, and his physical body ages to match those lost years. After a few days he looks like an elderly man with grey hair and wrinkles, until he finally casts a spell so strong it uses up the remaining ten or so years of his life and evaporates his body on the spot.
- Speedy Snail: The "Homing Snails" Jennifer and Co. use as Instant Messenger Pigeons can travel at speeds exceeding 100 miles an hour.
- Spoiled Brat: Princess Shazza of the Kingdom of Snodd. Despite her mother's influence, the Princess is incredibly conceited, spoiled, and lazy. It gets to the point that Queen Mimosa takes the drastic step of body-swapping the Princess with an orphan servant in a last-ditch effort to teach her some humility.
- Stealth Pun: The adjective "Cambrian" can mean either
"of, relating to, or being the earliest geologic period of the Paleozoic era or the corresponding system of rocks marked by fossils of nearly every major invertebrate animal group" or "Welsh." The Cambrian Empire of the book is situated in Wales and populated by tribes named after geological eras. - Synchronization: Downplayed — Princess Shazza gets bodyswapped with indentured orphan servant Laura Scrubb, and at first it seems that they aren't connected at all. But at the end of the book the Princess can feel when Laura, who is still in the Princess' body, is killed in the attack on Snodd Castle.
- Theme Naming: The "tribes" of the Cambrian Empire are named after geologic eras — there're the Silurians, the Devonians, the Ordovicians, etc...
- Younger Than They Look: Perkins is only in his teens, but once he starts using Cast from Lifespan magic in the Cambrian Empire he looks older and older as greater feats of magic are called for. For example, casting a "Genetic Master Reset" on a jeopardy tourist overdosing on magic costs him ten years of his life, taking him from a "spotty-faced eighteen year old" to a "handsome man in his late twenties." By the end of the book Perkins looks like he's in his fifties before casting a spell so powerful it evaporates him on the spot, using up the last ten years of his life.
