SuperHeroBooks - The Dragon Pool (Hellboy)

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Manufacturer: Pocket Star

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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781416507857
ISBN: 141650785X
Label: Pocket Star
Manufacturer: Pocket Star
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: 2007-03-27
Publisher: Pocket Star
Studio: Pocket Star

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Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: Super Reader
Comment: The Dragon Pool is not up to the standard of the more recent entries in the series. The writing is not as good, particularly earlier on, and it seems a little sketchy for 350 odd pages.

Hellboy has more than one girlfriend that likes to dig up old monsters, it seems, and having discovered something not human this one asks him for help after discovering here be dragons (one big Chinese worm one, lots of smaller instances of the zombie variety).

Liz is taking some time out, so it is Big Red, Abe, the Professor and some grunts that get to go and play with monsters, and cover Chinese military types, as well as a village of dragonish people.

(call it 3.25 perhaps)
3 out of 5

Customer Rating:

Summary: More meat less Filler....
Comment: I was smart enough to quit reading this book. This book stunk. It was Golden going through the motions. Don't read Baltimore it's the same thing. He makes you wait until the end of the book before there is any action. So you have to read through all of the filler before you get to the meat of the supposed story.
Save your money and buy the earlier stuff or anything in the future that Golden isn't involved with. I think the publisher misjudges the age group on this character. Also, how hard is to put a description of the characters at the beginning of each book along with their paticular back stories, instead of wasting my time weaving that into the story. How many times do I have to endure this. Every author on the planet has done this with long series. I'm tired of reading how Liz has run away from the BPRD on numerous occaisions.
This was a waste of my time that I'll never get back. I WILL NEVER BUY ANYTHING CHRISTOPER GOLDEN DOES! It's unintelligent, formulaic and it has no plot, so predictability doesn't apply.

Customer Rating:

Summary: I just didn't like it.
Comment: I prefer the graphic novels to the traditional novels, but that might be a little unfair. It is harder to describe a scene than to draw it. Still, this book just didn't meet my expectations. HB's "girlfriend" (also found in The Lost Army) isn't a particularly sympathetic character. I actually found her quite annoying. Hellboy's father Trevor Bruttholm(sp?) is also written badly, acting one way one moment, and in somewhat inconsistant way the next. He doesn't come across as the brilliant man he is repeatedly stated to be. The plot itself is okay, but it just seems to go on for about 60 pages too long, and you can see many of the plot developments coming a mile away. That might be alright if the writing drew me in a bit better, but it doesn't.

So, if you are a big HB fan, and have loved Golden's other work, it might be worth giving this one a try, but I can't reccomend it. Try borrowing from a friend rather than purchasing it.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Just about tolerable
Comment: I was quite looking forward to reading this book since I am a fan of Hellboy and I like pulpy hokum in a universe where anything can happen. Imagine how disappointed I was when The Dragon Pool turned out to be meandering and slow and not really that spectacular.

An old girlfriend of HB's (not Liz, she's hardly in this) is in trouble in Tibet when she disturbs the lair of the tomb of the sacrificial chamber of the god of the Dragon King or some such nonsense. Basically, Hellboy, Abe and Co. go to Tibet, beat up the Dragon and that's it. But in between there's loads of filler and stuff that could be cut away and affect the story in no way whatsoever. There's also a lot of flashback to some old case that Hellboy worked on that means absolutely nothing and simply shouldn't be there.

I really wanted to put the book down but I never quit a book and stick with it till the end always. But it was so boring and completely unexciting. If they want me to buy more Hellboy books they better damn well write them better than this!

Customer Rating:

Summary: A pleasure to read
Comment: Christopher Golden, as usual, writes another Hellboy novel that you won't want to put down till the very end. If you were a fan of the romance between Hellboy and Anastasia Bransfield in "The Lost Army", then you'll be as excited as I was when it continues again five years later. There were no illustrations throughout the book by Mike Mignola this time, and though I did miss them, this book is still a definite must read for any Hellboy fan.

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Editorial Reviews:

Hellboy, a bloodred, cloven-hoofed demon raised by the United States government, is a top field agent for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. He questions the unknown -- then beats it into submission.

In the upper reaches of the Himalayas, Hellboy's ex-girlfriend, archaeologist Anastasia Bransfield, believes she has found the location of the legendary "Dragon King Pool" -- thought to be the ancient dwelling of an evil dragon who inflicted horrific devastation on the land and its people. Every year the villagers would sacrifice a child to placate the beast, until one day an unlikely hero fought the dragon and won, bringing peace and prosperity to the land.

But Anastasia's triumph at her discovery is short-lived. Soon unearthly creatures are seen lurking around the dig site, someone is sabotaging the excavation with dire results, and the young daughter of one of the dig leaders goes missing. It looks like a job for Hellboy -- but his toughest challenge might be putting his past with Anastasia behind him....