The Prince of Shadow

September 10, 2001
In this likable fantasy adventure, the first of a multivolume saga with an Asian flavor (reinforced by the samurai-like warriors on the crude if effective dust jacket), Benjamin often resorts to good luck to pull his hero out of trouble. Llesho is only seven, the youngest of the royal family of Thebin, when the Harn, a fierce and unsophisticated warrior people, murder his sister and parents, the king and queen, and sell him and his six older brothers into slavery. Confined for years to Pearl Island, where he proves himself an adept pearl diver, Llesho doesn't realize his brothers are still alive until the ghost of an elderly adviser appears during a dive and gives him a black pearl, squeezing it into a small bead and inserting it into a dental cavity where it will be undetectable. Mindful of his noble background and yearning to find his brothers, Llesho volunteers for gladiator school as the first step toward freedom. He studies with several teachers who seem to appreciate his special character, but one, Markko, has evil designs on him. The teenage Llesho eventually battles Markko, leads an army and reaches the kingdom of Shan, where he locates two of his brothers in a slave market. Despite a somewhat plodding style (torpor especially sets in during the war scenes) and superficial characterization, the vivid fantasy elements revive the plot whenever it slips too far into the doldrums. Lacking any sexual episodes, this coming-of-age story will appeal to younger readers as well as to those with more traditional tastes in boyish adventure tales.