Teldin Moore is back for more in The Radiant Dragon, book 4 of the Cloakmaster Cycle.
We open on a Reigar captain finding the fabled SpellJammer, only said Reigar isn't. She's really a space dragon who also has one of the Ultimate Helms that are supposed to allow a person to control the ship. Whatever said dragon sees on the ship leads to her reverting to her draconic form and destroying the ship she was captaining.
From there, we rejoin Teldin on his current Helm, a really understaffed ship that gets attacked by Illithid slavers, who happen to be hosting Estriss, last seen floating in the void a few books ago. (This series recycles characters so often, I feel like I'm watching a soap opera half the time. I half expect the last book to involved every dead character to be waiting on the SpellJammer.)
The Elves rescue Teldon and his Half-Elf navigator and Gnome engineer, who in turn wind up rescuing two Dracons and a Space Gypsy from a Beholder. The Elvish ship is piloted by Vallus Leafblower, last seen also two books ago on Toril. Speaking of Toril, we wind up briefly in Evermeet on Toril, as Vallus and the elves are trying to convince Teldin to go get the SpellJammer and bring it to bear on the Scro in the Unhuman War. The Scro, in the meantime, are trying to get the cloak themselves as well as bring a new weapon to bear from the prison world Armstice, where entire generations of goblinoids have lived in ice caves for generations following the first Unhuman War. And an elf joins the crew, na,ed Raven Moonbeam, who's a legend among the elves.
Anyway, we eventually all wind up on Armstice as the Swan Ship (the elvish ship Teldin sort of commands) has to make an emergency landing. We find out about the Insectare plotting with one of the clans of Bionoids (Elven creations that transform from Half Elf seemings to giant battle insects) to take out the Scro and the Elven fleet. And we find out who Raven really is.
There's a lot going on here, and it mostly hold together. If nothing else, we've at least been shown that the living ship that looks like a manta ray with a city on its back does indeed exist and a way to reach it eventually. Two more to go.
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