The Silver Stair (Dragonlance Bridges of Time, Vol. 3) (Mass Market Paperback)

by Jean Rabe (Author) "The thick iron chains were uncomfortably heavy..." (more)
Key Phrases: other wraiths, celestial ladder, female elf, Silver Stair, Schallsea Island, Iryl Songbrook (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
For Goldmoon and her followers, Schallsea Island is a place of bright beginnings. In the shadow of the magical ruin called the Silver Stair, a translucent spiral that leads to visions and revelations, they have started construction on the Citadel of Light. For the first time since the Chaos War, the future looks promising.

But two forces challenge Goldmoon's plan to launch a new mystical order on Krynn -- one clad in the plate mail of a Solamnic Knight, the other hidden by mysterious magic and dark shadows.

Jean Rabe's novel tells the compelling tale of the struggle to preserve the Silver Stair and to prevent the dream of Schallsea Island from becoming a nightmare.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 314 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786913150
• ISBN-13: 978-0786913152
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #747,165 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better than her last books., October 12, 1999

By A Customer

This book was good and bad. I have a few bad things to say about it first. I didn't like how she broke her own rules of Krynn she put in her trilogy. Goldmoon was much to powerful for a world with more magic. It would probably take generations to get over the shock of the gods leaving and decades more of research to get clerical power. I understand a little magic, but it sounded as if she could beat Palin in a magical duel. Enough about magic, I found Gair's descent into evil much too quick and unrational. He didn't seem to have a reason to hate everybody all of a sudden. I haven't read the book in 6 moths, but if his reason was good I think I would remember it. Also, this isn't the best written book I have read it seemed too rushed. Now about the good parts in the book. It was a good fantasy with action, magic, and undead. A DL fan should read it, but I don't recoment it for anyone else. P.S. It was a good recovery for Jean Rabe after the FA trilogy. If she would have written another book like those I would have given up my faith in her.

2.0 out of 5 stars Frustrating characters, August 19, 2003

By	Christopher Ware (Fremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Having read Rabe's DRAGONS OF A NEW AGE trilogy and now this, I've come to the conclusion that she has a difficult time writing characters that act like actual people would. This tended to improve as the aforementioned trilogy progressed, but it was terrible in this book. What I mean by this is, if something strange or suspicious occurs, most people would stop and question it. However, Rabe's characters tend to blithely continue on with what they were doing and don't give it a second thought. Very very frustrating to read when you know that it needs to be questioned. It's as if Ms. Rabe just wants to get where she's going and she completely disregards the fact that she needs to make her characters act like normal people in order to make them believable. This makes it very difficult to become emotionally involved with either the characters or the story. I'm guessing that this is one of her early works because, by the third book of DRAGONS OF A NEW AGE, her characters were behaving more reasonably.

The other thing about this book that caused me to dislike it so much was the fact that her main elf character, Gair, didn't act like an elf at all. He was impatient, impetuous, and, for someone who claimed to be a scholar in the field of magic, tended to jump right in to doing something without even considering the consequences. These characteristics are all the complete opposite of those describing an elf. They are more along the lines of a human. If you're going to create a character and assign them a race and you want them to be believable, they have to have at least some of the characteristics of that race. Gair seemed to have none. I felt no sympathy for him whatsoever. I am sure this was not Rabe's intent, but she fell completely flat in attempting to make me connect with the character.

Finally, since Gair was such an integral part of the plot and Ms. Rabe was forcing him into acting so unlike an elf, the whole story just seemed to contrived. It was simply a way of establishing Goldmoon's Citadel of Light for use in subsequent books. A story had to be created to put these pieces into place. The bad characterization just made it blatantly obvious to the reader that the whole point of the book was to get to the ending point. Unfortunately, Rabe's handling of the characters just made the journey unpleasant and unbelievable.

It was a decent story, but nothing to get excited about. The execution could have been light years better. Unless you're a hardcore Dragonlance fan, you can probably skip this book and not miss much (if anything).

4.0 out of 5 stars Healing powers come back Krynn!!, October 19, 2002

By	Andy. Gillum (indian mound, tn) - See all my reviews

As a writer, Jean Rabe either runs hot or cold. There's no middle ground with her. Her novel Marquesta Kar-thon: I started reading & then quit. I'll go back & read it sometime. Her 5th Age trilogy was god-awful stupid.

On the other hand, her Dhamon trilogy - while I haven't read them yet - sounds promising. This book is very good. You know there's a threat to Goldmoon but you don't know where it's coming from until springs up. I was completely surprised.

The characters are well-developed, the plot's strong & it draws you in. The rules by which they recieve their clerical powers in this book actually makes sense unlike the rules they made for the wizards in the 5th Age. A good read.