Customer Reviews

The Puppet King (Dragonlance Chaos Wars, Vol. 3)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a Dragonlance book, The Puppet King is one of the better ones. The story fits into the Dragonlance saga after "The Sacrifice" in the Second Generation, alongside Dragons of Summer Flame, and before the Fifth Age trilogy. Douglas Niles' strength seems to lie in planning involved and interesting military plots and tactics, and he continues that tradition here. The Puppet King reads like a chess game, with devious political plots being hatched left and right, and battles with smart manouevers lovingly described.

The drawback is that the characters become almost nothing more than chess pieces; two-dimensional figures who are armed only with enough characterization to carry out the plot. Douglas Niles was working with Dragonlance characters that Dragonlance fans have encountered elsewhere before, and it won't take too long to notice that readers get a better picture of what motivates Gilthas in a short story like Weis and Hickman's "The Sacrifice," than from the entire novel of The Puppet King. Also, the Puppet King is the first time Porthios has been given so much limelight in any book, but Niles hardly offers any new and interesting insight on the character. The antagonists like Rashas and Konnal were also two-dimensional, even maddeningly so, because most of the book describes their evil machinations without revealing enough of why they should be that evil and unwise.

All in all, the Puppet King does do a good job of describing the events in Qualinesti and Silvanesti before and during Dragons of Summer Flame. Readers who were wondering how these two areas of Krynn weathered the Chaos War will have their questions answered here.

Niles brings you right into action at the start of the book. I was immediately interested. Niles also made the bad guys so bad and annoying you wish you could just enter the book and slap them around. It is very well written. Lots of detail. The only semi-bad thing I notcied was how Porthios seemed to always defeat impossible odds. Douglas Niles wrote about Porthios and made him into a good charecter, when before he always seemed kind of mean and grouchy. I would have liked to hear more at the ending about what the elven nation was like after they won the war. The way that Niles wrote the battles make them intense and they seem to flow. He wrote the battles especially well.

This is easily the best written dragonlance book I've read in a long time, and even more easily the best book of the Chaos War Series. I mean it was just greatly done, excellent job by Douglas Niles. The action scenes were well put together, good word flow, description, everything was great! Very surprising for a Chaos War book, but I'm not complaining about that.

My only complaint is that things died too easy, but hey I can live with that.

Three of my favorite things were: the way it was set up, most DL books are chaotic but this one was well ordered with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Great Information on the elves, tons of things on how the Senate is held, how Qualinost is set up, good job there. And last, Niles was able to keep the characters (Gilthas, Alhana, Porthios, etc.) true to the way Weis and Hickman wrote them. He didn't advance the characters much, but he did keep them true, and that's more than I can say for most DL authors.

Final Thought: If you only buy one of the Chaos War Series Books then buy this one. Just make sure that you read "The Second Generation" by Weis and Hickman first, there's a short story in there that goes hand in hand with this one.

"The Puppet King" but Douglas Niles is a book full of action, politics, exitement, and everything else you could possibly want in a Dragonlance novel. This book is strangely set up, being that it is told like a story, but that doesnt take away from the read. The story itself follows many different points of view. It follows the exiled elf, Porthios. It follows the young and troubled Speaker of the Suns, Gilthas. And even follows the thoughts of a massive green dragon.

This book is full of Dragonlance goodness. Not only is the story an exciting read, but the characters are nicely developed. This book is set during the Chaos War, The same time as Margeret Wies'and Tracy Hickman's great book "Dragons of Summer Flame." It is nice to see the inner workings of the elven society, and see heroes rise up from unlikely places. This book is a must for any Dragonlance fan to read and enjoy.

To be honest, wasn't expecting much from this book. I only read it because I was hoping for more info about how Qualinesti handeled the Choas War. I was really inpressed. The plot is excellent, and apparently, I was the only one who liked the characters. Gilthnas was surprisingly well written, but I would have liked to see more emotion in him. I really like the parts about Gilthnas and his Kagonesti wife. I reccommend this book to everyone.

Well I have started reading these "Chaos Wars" books, "The Doom Brigade" being the first, this one the second. But as for TPK, this was an excellent book from beginning to end. It is actually told in "flashback" mode, but the only evidence of this is that the story tellers comment at the end of most chapters, which I think is a very nice touch. It is split into 3 sections, which is also nice because it gives the book a "larger" feel that what it is. Very action packed, and the characters are well developed. Overall a nice read. Only thing I didnt like was that it was pretty short (~300 pages). Im used to those R. Jordan books that are so long and detailed. There were definitely areas that Niles could have wrote more on, but I'm not going to hold that against him one bit. 2 thumbs up.

I've never once had the desire to comment on a book until I read this one. Not only is there battle after battle it also gives you a new insite on the character Porthios, who up until now was just kind of uptight. Even though I never had any real desire to read this book, I found out that it was well worth the time. I recommend this one to all Dragonlance fans. It is a must-read.

Alright to explain the title of my review. This book was a surprise for me because it is one of the few books that have a main political twist to it that I still actually enjoyed reading. The characters in this are great especially some of the ones that are hardly even in it. I don't want to give away to much but the title basically speaks for itself. Gilthas is a young elf being manipulated by Rashas an evil qualinesti senator.
Niles definitely knows how to develop his villains. I mean I actually ended up really hating Rashas and the silvanesti general. Even though this book may deal a lot with the political aspect of the elvish society there is still plenty of action. And not all of the politics are boring either. Niles is definitely one of the better authors in Dragonlance and this book is definitely worth the money/time spent on it.

The Background:

"The Sacrifice" is an excellent short story in the "Second Generation" book, one of which I have read over and over again. Weis and Hickman have provided an excellent setting for the story to be continued and developed further. Unfortunately, even though Douglas Niles is a good writer, the story lacks in certain areas to make "The Puppet King" a great book.

The Plot:

Firstly, the book should be titled "The Exiled King" rather than the puppet king, since most of the story centres around Porthios and his band of elves. There are too many battle scenes, and not enough political intrigue that one would expect from "The Puppet King". I was expecting something more of David Edding's "The Diamond Throne" political intrigues.

Development of Characters:

This is my major complaint about this book. I would like to see Gilthas developed from the young puppet to a conspirator and a manipulator of the master of puppet. I would like to see him gaining the trust of the young elves in the senate council (as Tanis suggested in "The Sacrifice") and slowly work their way for the better good. But that didn't happen. Gilthas character developed too little, and too late. Even Porthios's character didn't develop much throughout the book.

The Setting:

The book is mostly a stand-alone, it didn't tell much about Porthios and Alhana's story during the childbirth at Caramon's Inn. Throughout the book, Tanis only appears in about one paragraph, and Laurana a little bit more than that towards the end. I would love to see Caramon, Dalamar etc and the overlapping of events from other books (but from a different point of view) as well.

The Good Points:

There are many good points, most have been covered by other reviewers here so I won't repeat it. This book has good supporting characters like Samar, and Douglas Nile's way of story telling is always a plus. Most importantly, despite my comments above, this book still has the "magnet" effect - once you start reading, you just can't stop.

Conclusions:

I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed by the book, but that may be caused by my high expectations. Nonetheless, this book is still worth reading.

When I started this book, I never really expected it to be SO great because most of the books that are not main books for the Dragonlance series are not to good, but this book rivals some of the Chronocles and Legends. Gilthas became one of my favorite DL characters in this book, but when I first read about him in The Second Generation I hated him. The plot was exciting and left you wanting more. This book has the extreme priviledge of being one of the most worn and frayed on my bookshelf and I've had for less than a year!