The Golden Spider
"An imaginative tour de force. The Golden Spider.will knock your socks off"
—Nancy Etchemendy, author of the The Power of Un, winner of the Golden Duck Award for Children’s Science Fiction
"Dan Liberthson has woven a fascinating fantasy that takes his readers to intriguing new worlds."
— Andrea Stenn Stryer, author of Kami and the Yaks, winner of the Schneider Family Book Award
How You Get it: Order from Amazon.com in paperback, ($6.99) or on Kindle ($2.99) via the following link: Buy The Golden Spider at Amazon
What It's About: Jeremy Taylor’s life is crumbling. His beloved Grandpa has died, his little sister is ill, his parents just argue, and his best friend’s turned mean. What he doesn’t know is that a hostile cosmic force is causing all his troubles. But when a golden, spider-like alien takes Jeremy and his faithful cat, Cleopatra on a journey through Space and time, he learns he must fight to save himself, his family, and the whole world.
What's Inside: See Amazon.com for the opening chapters. Following is an exciting bit from later on, when Jeremy, helped by his wise and telepathic cat, Cleo, has found the Book of Life (Shaiféir al Shehn), for which he has searched far and wide. In the book is the Spell of Isis, which can send the Dark Dragon Ordúrrg-Zaikh back to its lair and spare Earth from its rage and destruction. The Dragon wants the book so Jeremy will never get the chance to read the spell and end its rampage . . .
The Dragon stalked forward, its roar exploding into caustic laughter. The floor rocked with each movement and the air trembled. Jeremy’s throat burned with the ammonia breath of the great beast. On each of its shining white teeth, through the red-tinged light, he saw his own face reflected.
A giant claw reached down slowly, not for Jeremy but for something on the floor in front of him. “Cleo!” he shouted, “watch out! It’s after the Shaiféir al Shehn!”
Cleopatra darted from beneath the shelves and crouched in front of Ordúrrg-Zaikh, snarling and spitting like a wildcat. The huge creature hesitated just long enough for Jeremy to dash forward and scoop up the book and the ankh. Then the Dragon moved.
As its massive tail whistled past, a great wind flung Jeremy back against the wall. Cleo leapt for the shelves with a wild yowl, trying to stay ahead of the surging tail, but it caught up to her in mid-air and smashed her like a bat crushing a softball. There was a sickening crunch, and she flew across the aisle and crashed in a jumble of falling boxes.
“Cleo!” Jeremy screamed, scrambling toward her. But the monstrous tail coiled and uncoiled again, whipping across the aisle. Jeremy dropped and rolled to the wall, the wind lashing at his hair and clothes. “Oh, Cleo!” he sobbed, “I’m so sorry. Please don’t die.”
The floor quaked as the monstrous reptile strode forward. Jeremy opened the Shaiféir al Shehn, but he was sobbing so hard that it slipped from his hands again. The beast bent toward him, its laughter swelling in the room. Like an inflamed sore, the huge red eye descended, while Jeremy clutched the book and curled against the wall.
From the start of this adventure, Jeremy had felt pulled in two directions, backward and forward. All his doubts about his own courage and goodness dragged him back, while his love for Sara and his family and friends pulled him forward.
Jeremy was the monkey in the middle of a wild tug of war, as if tied to thick braided ropes yanked ever harder by these negative and positive forces. If the positive rope broke, he would give up in defeat and Ordúrrg-Zaikh would win the world.
But because of Jeremy’s many small acts of courage since he’d first set out with Alaikin, the negative rope had worn thin, its braids parting one by one. Now, with the shock of losing Cleo, he felt the last strand of doubt snap, and was shot forward by a powerful new belief in himself. Defiance erupted within him, righteous rage against the Dragon.
Rolling away from the wall, he sprang to his feet and screamed into the massive snout of Ordúrrg-Zaikh, “You’ll have to kill me to get this book!” The words tore from his throat like a tiger’s roar. “You’ll have to kill me right now!”