This is the final book of the Chaos War series that I intend to read, and it is easily the best out of the bunch. While this is still one of the lesser tier books, fleshing out a corner of the broader mythology outlined in “Dragons of Summer Flame”, it manages to tell its own story without straying too far from the Dragonlance mold (like, for instance, “Tears of the Night Sky”). This is a story that ties together the mythology’s distant past, present calamity, and future potential in one violent swoop.
Since “Dragonlance” is essentially a gestalt mythology, with dozens of novels all connected in some way to a core sequence of events, there’s a bit of freedom in the telling of a given story. I like to think that a lesser-tier story like this one will work as long as it retains 80% or more of the established continuity. In other words, it can fudge some of the details, even contradict certain information, if it works well in the broad sense of the myth itself.
For example, in this novel, the Knights of Takhesis are more cruel and petty than they are in “Dragons of Summer Flame”. The Knights were seen as a massive new threat because they took up the nobility, respect, and conduct of the Knights of Solamnia and applied those virtues in service to the Dark Queen. Making them overtly evil or sinister dilutes the effect; the point was that the armies of Darkness had taken a page from the good guys, effectively stealing their thunder amongst the populace.
Granted, that was mostly true for a human populace, and the natives in this case are minotaurs. The minotaur culture is relatively well described, though it’s clear that the author is assuming that the reader is familiar with details mentioned in other Dragonlance novels. Instead, this book spends most of its time describing the struggle against the minions of Chaos. This makes a certain amount of sense, however, since one is unlikely to pick up this particular book without having read the core novels in the first place.
One other aspect of the novel that must be mentioned is its density. For a book barely past the 300 page mark, it is packed with material. In fact, it may be a little too burdensome for those looking for a leisurely read. It took me a little more than a week, and that’s a long time for a book of this size and genre.
Rating: 7/10
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