Kind of surprised the Sacred Timeline hasn't been destroyed at this point

 So, Dragons of Eternity showed up right after I finished the second volume up, so yay!

Let me start this by saying this volume is much better balanced than the previous installments. Again, we're dealing with time travel in a fantasy setting, which tends to get a bit confusing, particularly since the "present" setting is mostly unaffected by changes further in the past, with a caveat that the River of Time doesn't rise at all once, thus with one setting being roughly 5 years prior, and another 5 centuries prior (or so)...

On the other hand, it's a great opportunity for fan service, as Tanis ends up getting sent back to the dawn of the War of the Lance in the "Chaos Timeline" to serve as bait while Destina and Brother Kairn travel back to the Third Dragon War to try to fix what they screwed up in the last volume. 

Which means, we get treated to re-imagined moments from the first ever book in the entire series as Tanis and the original Heroes of the Lance meet at the Inn of the Last Home on the night Riverwind and Goldmoon show up with the Blue Crystal Staff, only this time in a world where Takhisis won the Third Dragon War and the other Gods are now returning to try to free the world. 

There are some really great moments in there, like Tasslehoff bludgeoning Flint with the Blue Crystal Staff to cure him of his heart problems and Fizban being Fizban. There are some really confusing moments, since going back to a period where you were alive replaces that you with current you, or the fact that the return to the Third Dragon War suggests that people who traveled there in book 2 aren't there when two others return to the period. There are also a few WTF moments in there, like when Chaos Time Caramon winds up hitching a ride with Zeboim to get to the High Clerist's Tower. 

They do leave the timeline opened ended, since Dalamar has foreseen the Chaos War and the "5th Age", although it's never quite defined if it will still come to pass by the end of this.

Honestly though, something Raistlin says partway through helps, about how even if they have no memories of what happened in the alternate timelines, their hearts will remember, which does better explain how the Companions managed to work together long enough to win the war. 

While I understand the current owners of the setting have no interest in publishing novels, this will likely be the end of the saga for a while. And it is a pretty good place to end.

One would think high fantasy wouldn't involve so much time travel

 Thanks to goodreads, I found out books 2 and 3 of the DragonLance Destinies Trilogy had been released. Which was mildly annoying, since I missed it. Anyway, just finished Dragons of Fate, which is book 2, with book three arriving at the library this afternoon. 

When we left off, Destina (a new character from the era post Legends but prior to 5th Age) had taken her current iteration of Tasslehoff back in time to to the night when the entire series started and took Raistlin and Sturm back further in time to the end of the 3rd Dragon War. Issue, of course being that with both a Kender and The Greygem (which holds Chaos), time can be changed, as Raistlin learned the hard way in Legends. 

Ugh. so, This younger version of Sturm meets Huma and Raistlin meet Magius, and Detina dn Tasslehoff get invol;ved in their own escapades in the past. In the 'present', Dalamar and Justinius seek to repair the Device of Time Traveling which broke during the trip back to Huma. Which in turn allows the authors to highlight how artificers work in the DragonLance setting, much like 5th Age brought sorcery into the Wizarding world. Of course, Tas winds up meeting the Gnomes of the era....

Anyway, this one, much like volume one, ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, as the Butterfly effect comes into play based on one action. 

While I enjoyed this one more than the first volume (among other things, the pacing is a lot better), and I enjoy watching Raistlin and Sturm gain an understanding of each other they never had in prior outings, it still feels a bit like the balance between pathos and comedy is a bit off here. I mean, Tas by himself is hysterical, but it just doesn't seem as meshed in with the meat of the story. Still worth reading for fans of the Lance.

D&D Multiverse?

 Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman have returned to Dragonlance with Dragons of Deceit, their first collaboration in this setting in several years. 

We open on Destina, a Solamnic Lady who's father dies at the battle of the High Clerist's Tower (where Sturm died in Book 2 of the original series.) As time progresses, her life falls apart, as the keep her father left her gets taken over by her Uncle, and she winds up losing everything.

Hearing tales in Palanthas of Tasslehoff's adventures (in Legends), Destina seeks first the Greygem (last seen in Summer Flame; however, this book is set before the Chaos War) in Thorbardin, and then seeks out Tasslehoff in Solace to get the Time Travel MacGuffin Device to go back in time to try to keep her father from dying. 

There's a hell of a lot of silliness, particularly since Destina's big plan to get Tas to cooperate involved her turning into a Kender, made more complicated by the Greygem also playing havoc with magic. 

By the end, two characters who were dead prior to the start of the book wind up with Tas and Destina in an major event prior to the Cataclysm, with folks in the present (of this book) looking on in horror as history rewrites itself. (With both the Greygem AND Tas in the past, time can be altered.)

While I was amused by the novel as a whole, I kind of wonder what path the authors are shooting for with this trilogy. I mean, there's Destina's narrative of accepting the death of her father, there's the whole if Chaos is back in the 3rd age, can they prevent the whole of the Chaos War later on, and another bit of two characters who sort of remember their fates but are honestly kind of as they were at the beginning of the entire world, and what could they do? 

While part of me is hoping they're retconning the entire Chaos War (it was seriously a painful read, and one gets the impression it was forced by TSR), I'm also wondering if we aren't going to wind up with the first D&D setting with a Multiverse of Madness.