The King's Fifth
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| Author | Scott O'Dell |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's novel |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
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Publication date
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September 1966 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 272 pp (hardcover) |
| ISBN | (hardcover), (paperback) |
| OCLC | 301963 |
The King's Fifth (1966) is a children's historical novel by Scott O'Dell that was the inspiration for the cartoon TV series The Mysterious Cities of Gold. It describes, from the point of view of a teenage Spanish Conquistador, how the European search for gold in the New World of the Americas affected people's lives and minds.
The story takes place in a time when the Spanish adventurers known as Conquistadors roamed the New World of the Americas in search of the mythical gold treasures of the dethroned Native Americans.
The book was the inspiration for the 1982-1983 anime cartoon TV series The Mysterious Cities of Gold. The characters take their names from the book, the high-level quest is the same, and the "golden lake" scene from the book is also present in the cartoon, but the similarities end there (the cartoon has motifs of fantasy and science fiction). The cartoon is set in South America, whereas the expedition in the book explores California, in North America.
The book is also a slight influence in the Choose Your Own Adventure Time Machine's 1987 book Quest for the Cities of Gold, as the reader meets Esteban at different points.
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Wikipedia