So, finished Dragons of the Highlord Skies by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis, volume 2 of their Lost Chronicles today on lunch.
The premise, much like book 1, is to go fill in gaps in the narrative from the original Chronicles Trilogy, this time focusing on the women in Tanis's life, Kitiara uth Matar and Laurana. Although honestly, Laurana is not the focus of much of the narrative, beyond the final battle of the book, as her parts are overshadowed by Derek Crownguard, Knight of the Rose.
It works out, to my mind, since we see what we need from her.
But really, the focus is on Kitiara, whom we meet briefly in Dragons of Winter Night during Sturm Brightblade's finale. We do see more of her in book 3 and in the legends finale, but really, she's an enigma for much of the series.
Here, we see her as the commander of the Blue Army, waiting for the order to attack Solamnia. Her commander, Ariakis, has his own ideas, sending her to do busy work, like promoting Lord Toade to Dragon Lord over the Red Wing, trying to get Feal-Thas (the White Dragon Lord) on board with the plot to corrupt Derek with the Dragon Orb, and dealing with Ariakis's witch, Iolanthe. We do cross into familiar territory, as Kitiara was involved in the burning of Tarsis, so we get to see her one encounter with Laurana prior to the battle of the High Clerist's Tower in Palanthus. (Not that Laurana is aware of it.)
In terms of Laurana's story, we finally get more than a poem about how the Orb was recovered from Feal-Thas, including a wonderful use of prisms to melt the defenses around the ice castle. We also get a wonderful bit wherein Laurana finally accepts her destiny with a sacred ax.
And, we close on Kitiara escaping Neraka, accused of treason, after promising Takhisis that she would take up Lord Soth's challenge to join the war. Kitiara is a strong female character, and it's good to see her get her due. (She, like Laurana, has issues with being a lovesick ninny at various points in time.)
Yeah. Again, reading these prior to reading the originals would be bad, but they make for fun reading after.
Good review, though I think you are really unfair to Laurana by saying she has issues with being a lovesick ninny. For the most part her love was a source of strength and inspiration to her that helped her grow into such an amazing person and become the hero of the War of the Lance. She only really ever made one mistake because of her love (falling into Kitiara's trap), and even that decision was not objectively unreasonable on the information available to Laurana at the time.
ReplyDeleteIn particular she actually had really good reason to think that Kitiara was a honorable enemy who could be trusted to respect a truce given her own prior dealings with Kitiara at the High Clerist's Tower where Kitiara had behaved in a honorable manner and had not attacked her even when catching her in an extremely vulnerable position (alone, unarmed, and so exhausted from using the Dragon Orb that she was struggling just to keep standing). Logically if Kitiara had wanted to kill or capture her then Kitiara would have done so at the High Clerist's Tower, so the fact that Kitiara did not take advantage of Laurana's vulnerabilty there is strong evidence that Kitiara genuinely did not want to harm her.
Nor is the idea of a military commander in ancient or medieval warfare meeting with the enemy in person (and with few or no body guards) at all ridiculous. We see such meetings happen in ancient literature (think King Priam going in person behind Greek line to bargain for his son's body at the end of The Iliad. Priam is not treated as an idiot by the story for going in person to treat with the enemy) and more importantly there are also numerous historical examples of this practice as well. Saladin met with an emissary from the Assassins with only two bodyguards present, Hannibal Barca and Scipio Africanus met in person right before the Battle of Zama with each only having a single body guard present, and Harold Godwinson rode up to parley with the invading Norwegians with no body guards with him at all. Those men were all capable generals (indeed Hannibal and Scipio are considered two of the greatest generals in military history), so Laurana's in good company as a general who agreed to meet in person with the enemy.
Nor was it unreasonable for Laurana to want to go to Tanis when she thought he was dying. Even aside from her love for Tanis (and wanting to see a loved one before they die is hardly an absurd desire), Tanis was also the man who had saved her life in Tarsis and who led the mission that saved her people from genocide, and as such it was understandable that she felt she had a duty to try and comfort Tanis when he was dying. Moreover, since her army was in a good position at that time (fully supplied in a fortified port city with no significant enemy forces nearby), it was also understandable that she felt that in that moment Tanis needed her more than her army did. And of course if Kitiara had been telling the truth (which as discussed above Laurana had good reason to believe she was doing) then the disruption to Laurana's army would have been minimal. (Indeed most likely Laurana would have made the exchange and returned before anyone even knew she was gone.)
Thus while Laurana may have made a mistake that one time because of her love, it wasn't an unreasonable mistake and as such it's very unfair to call her a lovesick ninny over it.