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.

Krynn in the NEW New Age

 Finished Dragons of the Vanished Moon by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis in the comfort of my own recliner this afternoon. 

One thing I found myself pondering, and unless they release another Annotated version, I'll likely never know, is if this on is again drawing from Mr. Hickman's Mormon root and giving us a parable of maybe Revelation. 

As we found out at the end of the last volume, The One God is really Takhisis, who used the reshaping of the D&D multiverse at the end of 2nd Edition to move it somewhere else, right around the time Chaos got banished. 

We open on Mina and her Queen sort of killing Palin and Dalamar. Sort of, because their spirits remain attached to the bodies, which now amble around. Tasslehoff and Conundrum manage to use the Device of Time Journeying to go back, and wind up in Krynn's actual past, meeting such folks as Huma, before winding up in Sanction after Raistlin's arrival, and then springing forward. We find out this is a plot by both the soul of Raistlin himself and the missing 20 Gods currently trying to figure out where Krynn ran off to. 

And it gets ugly. Malys, the great red dragon over;lord dies, the Qualinesti and Silvanesti join together, just in time for the minotaurs to invade Silvaneti territory...Tasslehoff, ends up grabbing Odylia and Gerard and taking them to where the dragons of good are trapped, freeing them in time to save the elves from destruction by Ogre. 

And then, in Sanction we watch how the old Gods return yet again and the fates thereof.

There is one main trilogy that follows this one (I ordered copies, but they aren't here yet), and it was insteresting how many of the problems in there are foreshadowed here. Galdar tries to get Mina to see the people worship and love her, not Takhisis. Similar problems arise in the next trilogy. 

I remembered more or less how this one ended, but there's a hell of a lot of pathos and tragedy in the closing moments. A much better read than what I remember.

Oh, so that's what's going on.

 Finished Dragons of a Lost Star (book 2 of the War of Souls trilogy) today, and it's improved over my memory of my last reading of it. 

We open on the great green dragon Beryl attacking the Citadel of Light, where Palin and Tasslehoff wind up walking off the silver staircase and somehow ending up in Dalamar's tower, which had been in Palanthis, but now floats around Wayreth. (Don't ask. Krynn's physics are nuts.) Palin and Dalamar want Tasslehoff to go back and get stepped on. Tasslehoff doesn't like this, and escapes through a chimney.

Mina and her army are on the move, and taking over Solamnic strongholds. 

Qualinesti falls, but takes Beryl with it. 

Goldmoon, following a river of the dead (who are sucking everyone's magic), winds up in Solanthus, the meeting her former pupil Mina at Dalamar's tower, where (spoiler alert for a 2 decade old book) we find out the One God of Mina is actually Takhesis. 

Now the fun part here is, having read this when it came out, I noticed all the lovely foreshadowing on this read through, which made me very happy. Doesn't change that the timeline on Krynn is FUBAR.

Krynn in the new age

 As a bit of explanation, spent the past week moving, which has curtailed my time to do things, like write reviews on here. 

Dragons of a Fallen Sun picks up roughly 30 years after Dragons of the Summer Flame, in what was referred to as the Fifth Age. (As I gather, the sales of this era were horrid. That they introduced a whole new set of rules to accompany the setting following the departure of the Gods didn't help.)We open on a bit of setting, as we learn the Knights of Neraka (formerly the Knights of Takhesis) now occupy a bunch of land that used to belong to the "good" races, while the Solamnic Knights now occupy some of the "bad areas". Silvanesti is under a magical dome, Qualinesti is occupied. Into this, Tasslehoff Burrfoot (last seen dying under the heel of Chaos [or sitting by a forge with Flint in the afterlife]) warps in, having used the Device of Time Travel to come forward for Caramon's funeral. 

Which, along with the appearance of Mina (think Joan d'Arc, with a shaved head and amber eyes and healing unseen in the Fifth Age) sets the plot in motion. Mina starts by taking over a division of Knights in the name of the One True God, and leads them on a few really campaigns to take ground the Knights of Neraka have coveted, gaining converts among everyone she encounters, including Silvanoshi, King of Silvanost, son of Porthos and Alhana. 

In the mean time, Tasslehoff is running around finding the survivors of the War of the Lance, including Goldmoon, Laurana, and Jenna. (Palin, son of Caramon, accompanies him, as does Solamnic Gerard.) With magic fading, Palin tries to the use the device to go back in time, only to find there is no past before Chaos was banished. 

Goldmoon has been restored to her youth. She's also beginning to find out the dead have not moved on, and indeed are eating magic. Beryl, a big dragon is coming to destroy everything. 

There's a lot more politicking in here than in previous volumes, and it's obvious that the authors have been writing together for a very long time. It's also fairly easy to construe this book, and really, the series as a whole as an apology for Summer Flame. Having last read this as it released, I know most of the surprises coming up later on, but I still found myself sucked back in wondering how this is all going to work out in the end. 

Really well written. 

It's too damn hot

Much as I remember hating Dragons of Summer Flame by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman the one and only time I read it previously, it wasn't nearly as bad the second time around. This doesn't mean I liked it that much, but , much like the previous rereads of other RPG fiction that once annoyed me, it didn't fill me with bitterness this time around. Mostly.

 So, we open on the Drak Paladin order, the Knights of Takhisis, setting ground on the island of the Irda, a long lost race that in prior times were cursed to become Ogres. The Irda are exceptionally xenophobic, and decide to crack the legendary Greygem open to power a shield over their island. (Background here. In game materials, the Dwarven god, Reorx,  was tricked into containing Chaos, father of the Gods in a gem. It managed to to create chaos in its wake, before vanishing into history.) Needless to say, this is a really bad idea, as Chaos is freed and begins his threat to destroy the world of his children. 

Which brings us to some of the Children of the Heroes of the Lance, particularly Palin, son of Tika and Caramon; Steel Brightblade, son of Sturm and Kitiara; and Usha, supposedly the half Irda daughter of Raistlin. Steel is a Knight, Palin is a White Robe wizard. They end up running through the world together after Palin is captured by the Knights. They end up being joined by Tasslehoff and Usha as the book goes on. 

We get minor updates on other surviving Heroes of the Lance, and the return of a supposedly dead Hero, last seen sleeping in the Abyss. 

And, by the end, alomst everyone is dead, Chaos is banished, and Krynn enters a new age without Gods. 

So, I remember half the reason I hated this had to do with the chump death of a fan favorite. It's still annoying. However, I can say with the amount of crap going on in here, it probably would have worked better as a trilogy, rather than as one big long epic, bouncing around between characters we barely get to know and some major plot points we don't get to see.While I understand it was written to revise the ruleset for the setting (the game itself had undergone a few class revisions that were not present in the setting; they also made a whole new system specifically for the so called 5th Age that as near as I can tell flopped like a lead balloon), I also can't help but remember the next trilogy in the setting pretty much retcons the heck out of this book. 

Yeah, for what it is, it's an ok read, but honestly, it has no real audience, since people who don't read fantasy or know about DragonLance won't read it, and most fans of the series will hate it.

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.

Dulak

 It took some time, but I finished Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis's The Annotated Legends, which for a while was their last DragonLance book. (Sort of. The Annotated version was released after their return, but the three books annotated in here were the last they wrote in the setting for several years.)

I'll be honest, while I enjoy this trilogy, it doesn't change the fact the themes tend to hold a mirror up to things I'd rather not ponder half the time. 

The trilogy is focused on the relationship between the twins Raistlin and Caramon, who were very prominent in the Chronicles. As Raistlin took on the black robes of evil and became "The Master of Past and Present"at the end of that trilogy, the twins have drifted apart by the start of these, which start roughly two years after, as Caramon, the big warrior has fallen to alcoholism. In the meantime, Raistlin is busy manipulating Crysania, a Cleric of Paladine (who's likely to take over the church when Elistan dies.) Mind you, the twin's half-sister, Kitiara, is busy plotting her own war, which ends up getting the plot going. 

You see, Raistlin's entire plan in this is to take Cryania back 500 or so years to the Cataclysm, then jump her ahead 100 years to a point where she'll be the only cleric in the world. Thus the Queen of Darkness will be weak enough for Raistlin to defeat and take her place as a god. (The trick being the portal to the Plane of the Abyss can only be opened by a powerful mage of evil and a powerful cleric of good.) 

Crysania believes she can redeem Raistlin, which leads her into some of the most hubristic acts a good character can make. And she pays for it, and eventually sees her faults, but it takes 3 books. Caramon spends 3 books getting sober, getting in shape, and eventually becoming his own person. Raistlin spends 3 books reaching the zenith of his power, and then finding out exactly how empty his desire is. Kitiara spends 3 books plotting to help the winner. And Tasslehoff, who ends up back in time against all proscriptions against created races going back, spends 3 books being comic relief, even if he is the force that ends up grounding the rather lofty nature of everyone else's Hero Journeys. (Races created by chaos are not supposed to be allowed to go back in time, since they allow time to be changed. Although, had Tas not gone back, the series would have ended at the end of book 2, since that's when the mountain Zhaman exploded with Raistlin's mentor in it.)(Yes, time travel and paradox play a large role, particularly in the second volume. The third volume shows us first the results of Raistlin's victory, then shows us how they shift it to a more optimal timeline. It's like Back to the Future, without a DeLorean.) 

But yes, the focus on everyone's hubris and personality flaws is painful all the way around, even with a "happy ending". In terms of the Annotations, Ms. Weis doesn't say as much in the book as she did in the Chronicles, while Mr. Hickman expands quite a bit on Campbell and his view of the characters, and how all of this sets up the further revealed cosmology in the next trilogy after the horrible book. Still worth reading.

Shirak

 And we finish the Lost Chronicles with Dragons of The Hourglass Mage, again written by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. This one concerns Raistlin, the Mage twin of Caramon, whom in the context of this story was last seen in Palanthus prior to appearing in Neraka during the finale. As such, there's a large gap they're covering here. 

Given these were written in the late 00's, Raistlin's fate was well known prior to this, thanks to the trilogy set after the original Chronicles, as well as the War of Souls trilogy. (As I recall, Raistlin didn't play much of a part in the Chaos War that came between Legends and War of Souls. I only ever read that one volume once, and had to remind myself that I think book burning is an abhorrent practice. Maybe I'll try reading it again eventually, since I know they went and fixed the worst of it.)

Anyway, here we have the Gold skinned Mage with pupils like hourglasses changing from Red Robes of Neutrality to the Black Robes of Evil not long after leaving his companions to drown in the Blood Sea. From here, he discovers the endless scheming among the forces of Darkness, including his half-sister Kitiara; Emperor Arakis's witch, Iolanthe; The Nightlord; the Council of Mages, et cetera. As such, most of what Raitlin does in here is to do as a Kender tells him early on, "Change the Darkness". Raistlin knows if Tahkisis wins, he'll have to beg her for scraps, instead of being able to live independently, which is, at this point in the chronology, his entire goal. (That his goal becomes to depose the Gods themselves and take over is a story for the next blog entry, as I'll be starting Legends next.)

On one hand, this gets interesting, since it does a deep dive into Raistlin's pact with Fistandantilus, which becomes a major focus of the second book of Legends, pretty much solving a riddle that pops up in that volume. (Sort of. We'll return here next time.) On the other hand, it's still fun in its own right, trying to shed light on characters introduced wholesale into the plot that weren't part of the original story. This volume, moreso than it's immediate predecessor, also feels much more like part of the original, as we follow events we know part of from a different viewpoint, showing us how certain events came to happen. 

I am concerned for my memory though, since I thought this book dived in to the whole "Black Robes restoring the Tower of High Sorcery of Ishtar", but that may be The Dark Disciple trilogy. (It's been years.)

At any rate, it's a good finish to the trilogy that fills in many gaps left by the original trilogy, and really helps express the odd nature of it's main character.

Toasty

 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.

Rewind

 Having just finished the Chronicles trilogy by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis, I picked up Dragons of Dwarven Depths, Book 1 of the Lost Chronicles. This trilogy was written after most of the rest of the official novels, and really only serves to cover things that got left on the editing room floor in the original trilogy. (Indeed, one of the annotations in the original mentions the finale of this one... So I assume that while they wrote this out, they had old material to go off of to do so.)

We pick up not long after the original trilogy ends, after Goldmoon and Riverwind's marriage. Tanis Half Elven and Flint the dwarf head south of Pax Tharkas to find the legendary home of the mountain dwarves, Thorbardin. The twins, Raistlin and Cameron drag Sturm, the human knight along with them to Skullcap, since Raistlin is convinced the key to the long ago sealed off Thorbardin lies there. 

Of course, this sets off Tika and Tasslehoff, who follow behind the twins and the paladin. 

Sturm finds a helmet in Skullcap that winds up containing a Dwarf ghost who possesses him, this leading everyone to Thorbardin. The refugees they left behind start following the trail blazed as the red dragons start attacking their cave sanctuaries. (It should be noted here that Verminaard, who died in the battle of Pax Tharkas, is now being impersonated by a Draconian who wants to be a Dragon Highlord.)

Anyway, everyone in Thorbardin gets involved in Dwarven politics. Flint and Pike the dwarf together go to quest for the legendary Hammar of Kharas, which Sturm also wants, since it was used to forge the legendary Dragonlances.

Since we all know how this all eventually plays out, the ending is not a particular surprise; it's still a lot of fun to see how the Dwarves react to the return of Reorx and finally getting a tale of what happened in the gaps between books.

Not quite LOTR

 More years ago that I feel like counting, a friend of mine convinced me to read Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis's Dungeons & Dragons tie in series. Mind you, being a geek for a very long time, I was aware of them, but I never got around to reading them. (Frankly, in High School I was much more into Ravenloft than some of the other Fantasy worlds. Although I did enjoy Dark Sun.)

Anyway, I fell in love a decade or so after they were released. 

Then, back in 2004, I happened to meet Ms. Weis at Origins here in Columbus, and she signed a copy of The Annotated Chronicles for me. 

For those not versed in such geek esoterica, DragonLance is/was a D&D setting on the world of Krynn. Basic high fantasy, but unlike other worlds, Dragons played a much bigger role in the world. They also made changes to playable races, such as turning Halflings into Kender, Gnomes into engineers, and of course, Draconians, horribly transformed baby metallic dragons shaped into humanoid forms. 

In the annotations, the original authors and a few developers chime in with the world building they did prior too the novels and the modules that came out of the story. Indeed, they mention a seminar on Tolkien and Campbell as inspirations for the general flow of the novels. 

As this is an omnibus with annotations, let's start with book 1, Dragons of the Autumn Twilight. This gives us some standard D&D tropes, such as all the major characters meeting in an inn. (Minus Kitiara, whom we meet late in book 2. Her shadow is long, however, as she is both Tanis Half Elven's former lover and half sister to Caramon and Raistlin.) In Krynn, the Gods have been gone since the Cataclysm. Into the bar, and a reunion of the characters walk two barbarians with proof of the Gods' return. Adventure ensues.

In book 2, Dragons of the Winter Night, more adventure ensues, as the party splits in twain after the Evil Dragons attack the city of Tarsis. 

In Book 3, Dragons of the Spring Dawning, adventure ensues as the Good dragons return and the party mostly gets back together. 

(This is the short version. The plot is a bit involved to accurately summarize in the space I have.)

Specific plot points still hit all the right notes, as two deaths occur that, while foreshadowed, still are hard to get through, particularly the paladin, who starts off as an unlikable character but becomes a much more engaging character the longer it goes on. The gnomes, with their catapults and nets in place of stairs or elevators remain a fun part. (Indeed, one of the excerpts in the annotations mentions the Gnomes trying to light the entrance to their volcanic home, first by dropping steel into the magma, pouring water from the glacial lake to cool down the hall, then building a big fan to try to clear the steam.) Fizban, the crazed magician, Lord Soth, the scene stealing Death Knight...

The annotations also talk about when the novels catch up with the game materials and contain a few author confessions where they discuss how they would have written a few scenes differently. There's also a revelation about how much of the set up of the return of the Gods was based on the foundations of the Mormon church.

So, on the off chance you like fantasy and D&D and haven't read these, start with the originals, then read the annotated version, since there be spoilers in the side texts.