Erec Rex

Delay of Book 3

It was reported on the book’s official website on September 21, 2008 that Simon and Schuster have purchased the Erec Rex series. It was also announced that the third book in the series will be delayed. Erec Rex and the Search For Truth was originally to be released in October 2008; it is now slated for release June 30, 2009. It was also revealed that the Erec Rex Series will contain 8 books. In preparation for the 3rd book coming out, the first two books will be re-released on March 28, 2009. The books will also be available in audio and e-book format.

Synopsis

The Dragon's Eye

A Synopsis of Erec Rex and the Dragon’s Eye

Life is not easy for twelve year old Erec Rex. His single mother works constantly, but can barely support her adopted kids. They’ve moved again, into an apartment so tiny that Erec sleeps with the washing machine. And worse, there is a strange force in Erec that makes him to do odd things. No matter how hard he fights it, his urge to obey grows until it is impossible to resist. Usually, it makes him do good things, like putting pillows at the bottom of stairs moments before his sister crashes down. But what if, someday, he is made to do something terrible?

Then one morning, Erec’s mother is missing. His power commands him to find her, taking him on an adventure that will change him forever. He meets Bethany, a kindred spirit who also lost both parents in a mysterious past. Together, they discover a magical world called Alypium, where the knowledge of magic is kept.

Things in Alypium are amiss: their King Piter is hypnotized, and his castle lies on its side. When Erec tries on his mother’s glasses, he finds he can see her wherever she is. She is a prisoner of a king named Pluto. Erec can not understand why Pluto would want her ... but secrets start to tumble out. Erec learns he was born in Alypium, and he may not be safe there. He is upset she has hidden so much from him, and loses trust in her.

His only hope to rescue his mother is to find ingredients for a formula to blast her free. While searching for them, he enters contests to choose the next three rulers of Alypium.

The contests, including the “Pro and Contest,” where they are reprimanded by movie characters, and the “Under Mine,” are challenging enough, but somebody is attacking the winners, making kids afraid to compete. Erec’s magical power helps him save friends from such things as swamp gas, attack fleas, and a minotaur.

Balthazar Ugry, not only evil, but with a terrible smell, seems to be the culprit. Just looking at him makes Erec tremble. What’s more, Erec discovers someone is planning to take over Alypium, as well as the other magical lands--Aorth and Ashona. Could this be Ugry as well?

When the blasting formula is ready, Erec crosses King Pluto’s deadly dungeons to save his mother, but he makes a mistake. He doubts her advice, and almost loses his life to the deadly destroyers and shadow demons.

Amazed he survived, he puts on the glasses to find he freed his mother. With renewed confidence in each other, they plan a strategy. If he becomes the next king, he can save Alypium from Ugry, and his family could come out of hiding.

Odds stacked against them, Erec and Bethany advance to the final contest, but something is not quite right. He must retrieve an eye from a ferocious dragon. King Pluto wants the eye, but Erec learns he must keep it. He escapes to the castle, where he is thrown into the clutches of his most deadly enemy.

Erec will not make the same mistake twice. He has learned from his previous failure in the dungeons, and now he prevails. He has gained understanding of himself and his magical power, solved the mysteries, and is ready to embark on a quest to become king. (See book two!)

The Monsters of Otherness

A Synopsis of Erec Rex and the Monsters of Otherness

Ever since Erec Rex returned home, his siblings Danny and Sammy have been acting strange. They follow him, staring like lost puppies. The shock of Erec and their mother missing must have been too much for them. Erec returns to Alypium to tackle the twelve trials necessary to become king. When Danny and Sammy follow him there against his mother’s wishes, Erec finds out they are impostors. The real Danny and Sammy have been kidnapped. Erec follows clues that lead him into the Green House, where President Inkle lives. He starts to believe the strange Hermit hanging around the castle might have something to do with the twin’s disappearance.

Erec wonders what harrowing escapade his first trial will be, and learns he has to . . . open a nestful of dragons eggs Not only are the eggs difficult to open , but feeding the dragon hatchlings stings his fingers. On top of searching for Danny and Sammy Erec is attempting to learn magic from his magic tutor Mr. Peebles.

To make matters worse, the annoying Balor and Damon Stain, through a loophole in the magical law, are competing against him. Balor hires teams of kids to open eggs, and it seems he will surely find whatever is hidden first. While erec opens the dragon eggs Bethany and Jack fight of the Stain triplets.

Erec’s next trial is to “defeat the monsters in otherness,” but he is not sure how to begin. He hears that two children are being held prisoner of terrible monsters called vogum in “Otherness,” the wild magical worlds outside of Alypium, and he realizes they might be Danny and Sammy. A “snail mail” love letter, written on a real snail shell from a secret admirer, turns into a correspondence that helps Erec wind his way through the perils of Otherness to find the twins.

Erec discovers the “monsters” are actually quite nice. In fact, Tina, his secret admirer, is a hydra herself. Baskania has massed an angry horde to “kill the hydras and save the children,” planning to kill the hydra and valkyries for his dark purposes. Erec stands before Tina and her people, arms outstretched, pleading with the mob that the hydras are good, but Baskania twists his words. In a last attempt, Erec holds up the Scroll of Truth he found in the first trial. Shots ring out, and Erec waits for the sting of arrow and bullets, but then there is silence.

The mob has dropped its arms, but Baskania vanishes. All seems lost, but Erec, using his dragon eye, finds Baskania just as he brought back one of his ancestors from the dead. With the help of this ancestor, and now the dragon eye he will take from Erec, Baskania will rule the world.

With the help of an ancestor of his own, and using what he has learned, Erec saves the day, though in the process discovers two dangerous secrets. Baskania is madder still, and more determined to kill Erec and take his dragon eye.

The Search for Truth

A Synopsis of Erec Rex and the Search for Truth

IN BOOK 3 OF THE EREC REX SERIES, Erec is faced with even more daunting tasks, choices, and dangers. Baskania is somehow getting information out of his friend, Oscar Felix. He can't trust his friend. When Erec goes to collect his quest, Baskania is there. He pulls the quest out of Al's Well, but it's torn. All it says is "get behind". Erec goes in search for the Well of Delphi so he may talk to the fates in person. He does so but the fates aren't much help, and just laugh and giggle like fangirls. Oscar suddenly shows up and demands to know how his father died. The fate tell him "Rosco killed him". But they're not alone. Balor Stain shows up just as Erec asks the fates who his father is. The fates become confused and think he means who is Balor's father. Balor turns out to be a clone of Baskania! The latest contest for Erec is to "get bee-hind and set it free". A Bee Hind is a mystical hind (deer) that attracts bees, not to mention the Substance. Erec must take this bee-hind from it's home and let it roam free to spread the Subtance all over the world. But the Bee-Hind is protecting a man, who had been a lackey of Baskania until he outsmarted him (he apparently did "something bad" to Ugry under Baskania's orders), and his son. If Erec removes the Bee-Hind, his new friends will be killed by a chimera. Erec eventually sets the Bee-Hind free, but instead of running away, he stays behind. He tells Bethany to go home, but she wont, even when he tries to trick her into leaving. Erec later saves the day by luring the chimera into a whole in the Substance, killing it. Erec's next task is to retrieve the five Awen from their mystical hiding places and unite them, a herculean undertaking that has laid waste to all those who have attempted it. Erec collects the Awen with the help of his friends, but the Twyth Boar is a trickier matter. The man who owned it once upon a time was now dead. Erec goes back in time to retrieve it, and discovers something truly shocking - he's one of the royal triplets! Erec goes back to his time and confronts King Piter, his father. Piter reveals that if Erec found out, the castle would collapse, which it promptly does. Erec goes to connect the Awen to the Twyth Boar. He gains perfect knowledge of all things, but gets rid of it to help fix the Substance. But the Boar comes back to him, though the intelligence does not. Erec and Bethany later discover that Baskania has kidnapped her brother. She goes to save him, but Baskania appears and captures her and demands to know her secret. Bethany, put under a spell, tells him that she is the prophesy and that she is the child of said prophesy. Erec saves Bethany in the end, but she is shot with an old spell. She's put in a deep sleep. After a day or so, a thought strikes Erec. He kisses her and she wakes up.