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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stirring conclusion caters to fans..., June 19, 2002
This is it: the book that is supposed to bring the Fourth Age back to devotees of classic Dragonlance while at the same time maintaining the fans of Fifth Age. Since Dragons of Summer Flame, Weis and Hickman have left the world of Dragonlance to the less-than-capable hands of other authors and creators. This, then, is their attempt to right the wrongs perpetrated by those authors and return the world to the way it was...or rather, the way it was supposed to be. Without giving too much away, I think the authors succeeded in bringing back the flavor of the setting, and an appendix in the back explains the various timelines visited by Krynn. In addition to being a knock on the direction TSR took with the world, by implying that the Fifth Age was the result of a skew in the timeline, this book, and this series, rewrites history, so to speak. Dragons of Summer Flame was a conclusion of a sort, that in a way, ended the opportunity for the parent company to create a gaming world set after its events. TSR did so anyway and the result was the loss of many fans. Dragons of a Vanished Moon promises a beginning, and indeed, this novel, as well as a line of game products to be published by Sovereign Press, seem to show that the authors wish this world to be viable once again for adventures and gaming. However, this novel is good enough on its own merit, even to the non-roleplaying reader. Though the "big" mystery as to the identity of the One God was revealed in Lost Star, nevertheless, there are questions to be answered as to what exactly happened, and what can be and will be done to fix it. In this regard, however, the mysteries are not as deep, or maintained as long. The reader is not left hanging after every chapter, wishing to devour the next, but rather, they have a vague idea about what will happen, and are anticipating a grand climax. As a result, they must toil through the first 400 pages or so, of which, there were some moments, but overall, the storytelling is good, but not gripping. The conclusion may be worth it. That would, really, depend on the reader and how he feels about the direction taken by the author. This book was written seeking the approval of fans. It ties up several loose ends but remains open enough to allow possibilities to remain. It is not a book that stands on its own so much as it stands on the opinion of the public. That, I fear, will remain as divided as ever. But Krynn...Krynn is whole once more.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Close but no cigar., June 18, 2002
Weis and Hickman fail to fix the world of Krynn that was totally screwed up in their own Dragons of Summer Flame and numerous other forgettable books written by...authors riding on Weis/Hickman coattails. An optimist may finish this book and say "Well, it's half-fixed", but I prefer to consider it "still broken". I won't drop any spoilers but lets just say, Weis and Hickman leave more than enough dangling plot lines to enable Wizards of the Coast to flood the market with more Dragonlance books written by the above mentioned...authors such as Jean Rabe. So, if its quantity over quality you want, your world is gonna be a whole lot brighter soon. However, if you yearn for well written, satisfying stories such as the DL Chronicles, DL Legends, & the Legend of Huma, your hunger will go unsated. I hope Wizards of the Coast proves me wrong. We shall see.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Almost perfect, but not quite, September 19, 2002
When I first picked up and started to read the chronicles trilogy a couple of years ago, I immediately fell in love with the world that Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman portrayed, the battles between good and evil that were done in not just a political sense but also in a personal one connected with me emotionally, and was something I'll never forget. I found all the old heroes of the story to be extremely interesting and as I read on I began to like each and every one of them in their own way. I then proceeded to read Legends, and I immediately recognized that these authors had one of the best story writing skills I have ever read or heard of. At the end of the trilogy when my favorite character, Raistlin, was about to sacrifice himself to the dark queen I nearly cried, that was when I knew that these authors would be forever etched into my mind and heart as one of my favorites. So natuarally I was extremely anxious to read the newest "true" Dragonlance novels, and as such I wasn't dissapointed with its third and final novel, Dragons of a Vanished Moon. As many other reviewers have stated, I also was not a fan of the conclusion to Dragons of a Summer Flame, I felt that the gods leaving Krynn was an event so drastic that it resulted in creating a new world that old Dragonlace readers could barely even recognize, and in turn I beleive that the War of Souls trilogy as a whole was an apology to the readers for that catastrophe. Before I continue though I do wish to make a point known, I am not one of those people who live their lives in the past and wish for nothing more but fairy tale endings to everything they read, the unexpected and monumental finishes that these authors created in the past is the very same thing that caused me to both admire and appreciate their writing in the first place, I just simply believe that Dragons of a Summer Flame went in the wrong direction to the required change that Krynn needed so badly. Overall, I believe that Dragons of a Vanished Moon seemed to pick up the plot of the previous two books well enough, and though it seemed to me that the pace was quickened overall, I rather enjoyed the sense of urgency it produced. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman did an excellent job of producing a sense of doom that is engulfing the world and especially the Elf nations as they fight for their very existance in a land that is ruled by a god that hates and despises them. I found the whole chromatic dragon neutrality thing to be rather dissapointing and the abrupt turn of events at the end which resulted in the evil side being despearete and the good side being strong and on the point of winning to be rather anticlimatic, but the conclusion is more than worth it as we see the end of several eras and the beginning of a new era. I believe that Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman did as best of a job as they could to correct the mistakes that they made in Summer Flame, though certain characters never end up reaching the pinnacle point we all expected of them, for example Palin, Silvinoeshei, Alhana, and Odila and while other characters, especially Dalamar who betrayed all that we know him for, seemingly go against their own personalities to do something shockingly unexpected, I still believe the book was very entertaining from cover to cover, as it still has its own proof of quality writing that we expect from MW and TH, especially with Galdar and Gilthas's character develepment and the particular sadness that was beutifully orchestrated by Weis and Hickman and which is felt at the end by, in particular, the readers and fans that started from page 1 of the Chronicals trilogy. In the end the greatest quality, in my opinion, that these novels have brought back to the dragonlace world is the apparant rekindling of the passion and ambition that we all knew and loved back in the Fourth Age but was somehow missing in the grim and depressing Fifth Age of Krynn.
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