Dragons of a Lost Star (Dragonlance: The War of Souls, Volume II)

Happy Golden Week, everyone.

As promised, I’ve continued to make my way through Dragonlance’s War of Souls trilogy with Volume II, Dragons of a Lost Star. This was a book that I wasn’t expecting to deviate too much from its predecessors, given that the trilogy is structured as one continuous story and given how well-established both Weis and Hickman (W&H) were at the time they wrote this series. I suppose my expectation was met in terms of the overall quality. What I didn’t expect was for it to solve certain problems while introducing brand new ones to balance out the improvements. It also addresses the mysteries left over by Dragons of a Fallen Sun in a manner that, while not bad, did feel a bit disappointing.

I won’t bury the lead any longer. Let’s dive right in.

STATS

Title: Dragons of the Lost Star

Series: The War of Souls (Volume II)

Author(s): Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Genre: Fantasy (Epic)

First Printing: April 2001

Publisher: Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

SPOILER WARNING

Mild spoilers for Dragons of the Lost Star will be included throughout this review, through I will keep the first paragraph of each section as spoiler-free as possible. Heavy spoilers will be confined to clearly labelled sections.

I will not be including any spoilers for Dragons of a Vanished Moon, as I am writing this review prior to reading that title. However, there will be unmarked spoilers for Volume I of this series Dragons of a Fallen Sun, as well as other titles earlier in the Dragonlance chronology, particularly the Dragonlance Chronicles series (Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, and Dragons of Spring Dawning) and Dragons of Summer Flame. Those books fundamentally shape the world in which the War of Souls trilogy takes place, so I can’t really discuss this book without spoiling key elements from those ones.

If you don’t mind spoilers but haven't read Dragons of a Fallen Sun, I do recommend that you at least go back and read my review of that book, since there will be multiple points in this review where I refer back to what I said in that one.

STRUCTURE

In the interest of comparative analysis, we’ll cover the same points as Dragons of a Fallen Sun.

• Premise

• Rating

• Series Structure

• Target Audience

• Title

• Plot

• Character

• Worldbuilding & Exposition

• Prose & Editing

• Mysteries

PREMISE

From the back cover of the box set reprint of Dragons of a Lost Star (which, according to the publisher information inside the book, was printed sometime in 2003):

A mysterious force holds Krynn in thrall. A young woman, protected by her regiment if dark-armored knights, calls upon the might of an unknown god to bring victory to her army as it sweeps across the land. The souls of the dead rob the living of their magic. A dragon overlord threatens the very land the elves hold most dear.

Amidst the chaos, a band of brave and selfless heroes struggles against an immortal power that appears to thwart them at every turn. The encroaching darkness threatens to engulf all hope, all faith, all light.

Reaction

If the previous book’s premise was accurate because of its vagueness, this one drifts towards into dishonest marketing because it goes into detail. That first paragraph is on-point, yet it’s also just a recap of where the series stands at the end of Dragons of a Fallen Sun. The second makes it sound like this is a story of heroes uniting against evil. That simply isn’t the case. This is a story of a bunch of random people going about their personal stories as they deal with the events unleashed by Mina and Tasselhoff in the previous book. That's not a bad thing, but it isn’t what was promised on the back cover. This Premise makes the story sound a lot more focussed and cohesive than it actually is.

RATING: 7/10

I enjoyed Dragons of a Lost Star more than its predecessors, and it also corrects some of the major issues we previously covered. However, it brings new issues to the table. The final twist of this book also suffers from the same problem as Caraval, in that it is something that, while not terrible or nonsensical, is still the safest and least entertaining option. Overall, I think that this book is still a story that works well, even if it disappoints me personally at multiple points.

SERIES STRUCTURE (Heavy Spoilers)

Continuing on from what was set up in the previous book, Dragons of a Lost Star is very much a Volume II of a single story that just happens to be broken down into multiple books. It is also very clearly the middle chapter, dragging the story to an absolute low point. Unlike its predecessor, the events covered are framed in a way that makes for a satisfying, self-contained narrative. Most of the POV characters (emphasis on most) either start the story with or are quickly provided with a personal goal to fulfill by the end of the story, and all of them either succeed or fail by the end of it. I may come back and read Dragons of a Lost Star as a standalone novel someday.

At the same time, though, I can’t help but wonder if W&H hadn’t fully finalized their plans for the trilogy before Dragons of a Fallen Sun was finished. The way they address deal with certain characters and plot threads left over from the previous books feels awfully like the handling of Andarna in the first two books of The Empyrean. Previously important elements get shoved into boxes so that they can’t interfere with the narrative, while others are disposed of before the end of the book in a manner that feels less like an earned payoff and more like housekeeping. The most prominent examples are:

• Oh, no! Tasselhoff and Palin are trapped in the Citadel of Light while a vast swarm of dragons attacks, hunting specifically for them? It’s fine. The wizard Dalamar (who Tasselhoff was supposed to seek out in the first book, but kept getting waylaid) opens a portal to bring them to the Tower of High Sorcery, then locks them inside the tower with him. (Tasselhoff does eventually escape, but even then, this seems like it was done to help snip the next dangling thread.)

• Goldmoon ended the last book following the spirits of the dead to an unknown location … they just brought her to a major city controlled by a hero faction, where Tasselhoff then picks her up and guides her back to the Tower of High Sorcery, where she dies in the narrative equivalent to a Qucktime event.

• Remember Silvan, the elf prince protagonist who I despised in the last book? Well, he plays a significant role in the first 200 pages, but it’s only to facilitate Mina’s story, and then he just vanishes from the narrative entirely.

• Remember how magic not working was a big deal in the previous book? Here, all the spellcasting characters suddenly find themselves in situations where their magic works just fine, either because the dead can’t or won’t bother them or because the One God decided to give them a boost (more on that in Mysteries).

• Oh no! The time travel MacGufiin that Tasselhoff needs to go back in time broke at the end of the last book? It’s okay. There’s this gnome character who just happens to be following Goldmoon around for the whole book, and as soon as the broken pieces of the device are brought to him, he starts putting it back together?

• Oh, no! There are these dragon overlords looming in the background, ready to step in and ruin everyone’s day? It’s okay. The One God is now smiting them via Deus Ex. Machina to ensure they don’t interfere.

• Laurana, the Golden General, the badass elf warrior from Dragonlance Chronicles who wouldn’t dream of sitting out this narrative, is alive? Give her a heroic death at the end of the book.

It’s not like any of these elements are necessarily bad. I actually think the last one was set up and executed very well. It’s just that it feels like W&H realized too late that they made their story too complicated to fit into a trilogy and were hacking away at the narrative to simplify things for a resolution in Volume III.

TARGET AUDIENCE

I am very happy to say that the issue of audience confusion from the last book has been resolved. Dragons of a Lost Star assumes that you have read Dragons of a Fallen Sun, and it does not assume that you have read anything else. Exposition is trimmed way back and focusses on the most essential elements. While some emphasis is put on characters and elements from past books, it’s always done in a manner that stands on its own (such as with a dragonlance that pops up near the end of the book) or that only leans upon our investment in established characters (such as Laurana and Tasselhoff referencing their fallen comrades from Dragonlance Chronicles). Maybe someone more deeply connected to Dragonlance lore might take issue with the reveal of the One God’s identity, but for someone only casually acquainted or with no experience outside of this trilogy, I feel like even this mostly holds together.

TITLE (Heavy Spoilers)

I’m also happy to say that Dragons of a Lost Star makes a lot more sense than the title of the previous entry, though it is still a bit of a stretch.

The ‘lost star’ refers to a line at the end of Lauranna’s death scene.

The shadow of death fell over Laurana. She looked away from death, looking into the sun.

The strange sun, hanging in the sky. It seemed forlorn, bewildered … as though it had been lost.

… a lost star …

Something I didn’t touch on in the previous review is that one of the established changes to the setting since Dragons of a Summer Flame was to the moons. The world of Krynn typically has three moons. However, when the gods departed after the Chaos War, these three were replaced by a single moon. Combined with a line in a early scene about the sun not feeling as life-giving as it once did, this seems to imply that maybe Volume III will delve more into the mechanics of what exactly happened to the world when the gods departed.

Still, this title does feel a bit misrepresentative of what the story is actually about. Much like Onyx Storm, I think it would have been a very clever title if the story actually focused on the related ideas. Instead, it just feels forced.

As for the reference to dragons … well. We’ll get to that in Mysteries.

PLOT

The plot of Dragons of a Lost Star is must stronger than its predecessor. As mentioned above, most of the POV characters either start the story with or are quickly provided with some personal objective to fulfill, and they reach some form of resolution before the end of the book. The result is a narrative that, while suffering from the aforementioned issue of sidelining or snipping inconvenient elements, does ultimately feel satisfying.

One new issue that does arise here is that, even with the sidelining, there is simply WAY too much going on in this book. It makes most of the plot developments feel rushed or shallow. In previous books, I’ve judged this sort of thing very harshly, but I’m willing to cut it more slack here. These developments aren’t rushed or shallow because the story meandered or because massive amounts of focus were put into things that didn’t advance the story. Instead, so much was happening that events had to be compressed. It feels like these things would have been properly fleshed out if Dragons of a Lost Star were twice as long. So, while I do consider this a flaw, I don’t think it keeps the story from being great, rather than making it bad.

CHARACTER

Dragons of a Lost Star continues to juggle a large cast with a great deal of grace. Tertiary characters are distinct and memorable enough to easily keep track of at least their roles and dynamics with the most important characters. Most of the POV characters are given personal quests that, which not necessarily impacting the overall narrative, does at least give us something to get invested in for their personal journeyes.

Mina

While Mina’s presence looms over this narrative and drives most of the events, she gets less focus, especially after the first 200 pages. I think this is a function of the position we’ve reached in the trilogy. The previous book had to take time to explore how she converted the Knights of Neraka to her. Now that we already understand her role as a prophet, it simply doesn’t benefit the narrative to retread old ground.

One thing this story does add is some further exploration into Mina’s past, prior to her becoming the prophet of the One God. We already knew that Mina was formerly one of Goldmoon’s students, based on the prevoius book, but now we learn more about her relationship with Goldmoon and how that defined her journey. It’s not a deep exploration, but it does make her feel more well-rounded.

Galdar

Galdar remains true to his characterization from the previous book. He has a brief arc about finding true faith in the One God after seeing a certain miracle from Mina, but other than that, he really fades into the background. I think that this makes sense. Galdar is not the only POV character through whom we view Mina in this story, and since she gets less focus on top of that, it makes a lot of sense that his role would be reduced.

Silvanoshei Caladon (Heavy Spoilers)

Silvan was the worst character in the last book, and he’s the worst character in this one.

The same issue of plot-driven characterization is still present in full force here. Silvan’s arc for this book, if it can be called that, is his lovesick obsession with Mina, thanks to her saving his life and his kingdom in the previous book. This makes him incredibly paranoid and easy to manipulate. At the same time, he retains his noble idealism and work ethic, showing brief flashes of respect for the same people about whom he’s paranoid. There’s a way to make both of these characterizations work, but as it is, he just flipflops to whatever services the narrative. He’s a plot device in Mina’s story, rather than a character in his own.

Silvan vanishes entirely after the first 200 pages, when Mina leaves his kingdom. It’s implied that he’s going to become a puppet king in the service of the One God. Maybe that would have some tragic irony, again tapping into what happened to his grandfather with Cyan Bloodbane, but as with the previous book, what we’re given to work with just isn’t enough to really feel the emotional weight of this situation.

Tasslehoff Burrfoot (Heavy Spoilers)

Tasslehoff brings just the right touch of optimism and levity to the events. His story is pretty straightforward: the wizard Palin (more on him in a moment) thinks that Tasselhoff needs to go back to his own time and die for the world to be restored, and since Tasselhoff doesn’t want to die, he tries to get away from Palin.

Tasselhoff’s efforts to escape from Palin ultimately fail. He does get away from the Tower of High Sorcery where Palin is imprisoned by Dalamar, but when he encounters Goldmoon, she conscripts him to guide her right back to the tower. While there is something interesting to explore here in terms of Tasselhoff coming to terms with having to die to preserve the timeline, his role ends up feeling very utilitarian. It’s like he’s just here to ensure Goldmoon gets where she needs to go.

Palin Majere (Heavy Spoilers)

The son of Caramon (one of the heroes from Dragonlance Chronicles, the one who died at the start of Dragons of a Fallen Sun), Palin is a wizard tormented by the fading power of magic in the wake of the Chaos War. He is dealing not only with this trauma but also with being tortured by wizards in league with the Knights of Neraka. His sole motivation is the restoration of magic, even if that means sending Tasselhoff back in time to die.

Palin’s emotional turmoil got a lot of focus in the last book. Here, his journey basically ends once he and Tasselhoff are rescued by Dalamar. He’s imprisoned in the Tower of High Sorcery and can’t leave. Other than serving as a POV character for scenes that would otherwise need to be in Dalamar’s POV, he does contribute anything. He really does end up feeling like a loose end.

Goldmoon (Heavy Spoilers)

This character was done dirty.

Goldmoon was a legacy character. The ending of the last book made it seem like she’d be pivotal to this one, with her following the souls of the dead while the Citadel of Light is being destroyed behind her. What’s more, a mystery from the last book (which was a minor one that a glazed over) is that the magical storm at the start of the book restored Goldmoon’s youth, something the mystics of the Citadel saw as a miracle but that she bemoaned as a curse.

In this book, Goldmoon just … wandered to the city of Solanthus, where Tasselhoff finds her … then goes to the Tower of High Sorcery for a reunion with Mina … and then dies.

Alexius Medan

This character is far better executed in this book than in the previous. We get to see the nuance and depth that was promised but not delivered on previously. He spends the book preparing the elves of Qualinost to fend off an invading force sent by the dragon Beryl. It’s made clear that he has no regrets about all he’s done over the decades of leading the occupation of Qualinost, yet he loves the kingdom (and Laurana) so deeply that he’s willing to die to defend the kingdom. Overall, I feel like Medan is the best character in this book.

Gerrad uth Mondar

Gerrad was the Solamnic Knight who escorted Tasselhoff to Qualinost in Dragons of a Fallen Sun. His role in that story was too minor to be worth mentioning. He escorts Tasselhoff, then he gets captured by Medan, who is so impressed by his valor that he choses to shelter Gerrad rather than turn him over to the other Knights of Neraka. In this book, Medan sends Gerrad on a mission to Solanthus to appeal for aid for Qualinost.

Ultimatley, Gerrad does not influence the overall events of the narrative. At most, he is the reason Tasselhoff comes to Solanthus. (Tasselhoff didn’t actually know that he was coming to Solanthus, only guessing that he might, given that Tasselhoff had no other allies at the moment but guessed that a Solamnic Knight would eventually wind up in Solanthus.) Ultimatley, he’s a POV character who shows us Mina’s invasion for Solanthus from the perspectve of someone not among her followers.

Still, unlike with Tasselhoff, I think there’s something to get invested in for his personal story. It’s very easy to empathize with Gerrad’s frustration as he struggles to carry out his mission, first treading carefully to play the part of the Knight of Neraka, then being arrested as a spy for the Knights of Neraka when he tries to actually deliver his message. Experiencing the invasion of Solanthus through his eyes is also a nice change of pace from always experiencing such events through Galdar’s eyes.

Lauralanthalasa Kana (Heavy Spoilers)

Laurana is another character who was in the previous book but didn’t contribute significantly to events. She was the widow of Tanis and the mother of King Gilthas of Qualinost (a character I’m not going to analyze here, as his story feels ancillary to Medan’s and Laurana’s). She sheltered Palin, Tasselhoff, and Gerrad and ended the book allied with Medan against the army marching on Qualinost.

In this book, Laurana doesn’t have a significant contribution until the end of the story. Touched by Medan’s efforts to save her people, she agrees to sacrifice herself as part of a ruse to help slay Beryl and through the army into disarray. She ultimately dies heroically to stab Beryl through the head with a dragonlance.

My one qualm with how Laurana is handled is the sidelining issue. If her case was unique, I’d say that her death was a satisfying ending for a legacy character trying to aid the next generation. As it is, I can’t help but wonder if W&H had no ideas for her outside of needing her out of the way before Dragons of a Vanished Moon.

WORLDBUILDING & EXPOSITION

While W&H don’t explain any more of the groundwork of the setting than they did in the previous book, the story still doesn’t lean too heavily on that groundwork. This is a story where you only really need to understand the basic factions at play to understand what’s going on. If you read the previous book, you’ll understand enough to follow this one.

As mentioned above, the exposition is also cleaned up significantly. What we get is stripped down and remains focused on what is most important to the story at hand.

PROSE & EDITING

The prose here still emulates Tolkien (or, at least, emulates the style of prose who were emulating Tolkien). I feel this flows a lot more smoothly than in the previous book. I also only caught one moment where information felt like it was being repeated unnecessarily, and since this was done in dialogue (Tasselhoffs’s, to be precise), it did not feel like a mistake.

MYSTERIES (Heavy Spoilers)

Dragons of a Lost Star continues the two outstanding mysteries from the end of Dragons of a Fallen Sun. One of these is explicitly answered, while the other is implied to have the same answer. It also shines a spotlight on a minor setting detail that I assume will be address in Volume III.

Why is magic failing? / Why are the dead lingering?

We were previously told that the souls of the dead were feeding on magic, but not why. In fact, it wasn’t even clear why the souls of the dead were hanging around at all.

Early in the book, an answer is implied. It’s revealed that the wizard Dalamar, through his study of necromancy, was commanding the dead to harvest magic for him. However, even he quickly admits that he’s only siphoning off a portion of the magic the dead were harvesting anyway.

As the story progresses, we learn more. It turns out that, when the gods left Krynn, the passage of the dead to higher planes of existence was severed. Everyone who has died in the three decades since the gods left is doomed to wander the world as a ghost. It’s implied that they reason they harvest magic is because the One God, who is established as the master of all the lingering dead, commands it of them.

I think this mystery works better than in the previous books. While the issue of no one working to unravel it remains, less emphasis is also put on it being a mystery. It’s clear that this is a question that exists for the audience, rather than one the characters are meant to explore and that we are meant to be satisfied by exploring it with them.

What god does Mina serve? (Who is the One God?)

Oh, boy. This one was a let-down. The answer makes perfect sense, but it’s still the safest and least interesting option.

Throughout this narrative, three concrete details solidify about the One God.

• All the souls of the dead serve the One God. This is something Mina did say in the previous book, but it’s demonstrated here, with the dead bowing before Mina and joining her in the invasion of Solanthus.

• The One God is able to summon chromatic dragons. It’s unclear whether this is something the One God can do directly or if it is a function of the “death dragon” (a dragon composed of the melded souls of uncounted chromatic dragons) that the One God sends to aid Mina, thought dialogue between Mina and one of the dragon overlords later in the story implies that it’s a more direct relationship. In any case, this is not the absolute control seen with the dead, as multiple chromatic dragon refuse the call.

• The One God behind the restoration of Goldmoon’s youth is also feeding her magic, thereby allowing Goldmoon to accomplish a few miraculous feats of magic throughout her travels.

Right as the identity of the One God is revealed, we further learn that all magic currently being practiced on Krynn that doesn’t come from a Fourth Age artifact - be that the “wild magic” used by wizards or the “power of the heart” used by mystics - comes from the One God. This comes out of nowhere. While it does explain how Goldmoon takes so readily to using this power in this book, the only establishment it gets is a brief dialogue exchange between Palin and Dalamar, where each claims to have learned to use “wild magic” from a mysterious sorcerer associated with a dragon overlord. I would absolutely call this aftshadowing.

So … who could this One God be? A god that wandered over from another world in the Dungeons & Dragons cosmology? Some Lovecraftian abomination swooping in to prey upon an undefended world? Some forgotten god of the dead, formerly too weak to be worth considering, now grown to immense power as countless ghosts are trapped on Kyrnn.

The answer … is …

Takhisis. Goddess of Evil. The same villain from Dragonlance Chronicles, the analog to Tiamat for this setting, one of the gods who supposedly skipped town with the others at the end the Chaos War.

This was a massive letdown for me.

Don’t get me wrong - it makes sense. All the pieces fit. No wonder Mina converted the Knights of Neraka first; they used to be Takhisis’s forces. No wonder this One God either sent Mina or personally intervened to slaughter unfaithful former followers (like Cyan) and competition to her rule over chromatic dragons (like the overlords). Giving power to Goldmoon and Goldmoon’s followers also makes sense a character decision for Takhisis: it allows her to play a long con, bringing the followers of the good gods under her sway, plus it gives her a chance for a little personal revenge against Goldmoon.

It’s just … this is a Somehow, Palpatine Returned moment. We were told the gods were all gone. We were told that Takhisis specifically was gone, hence the Knights of Neraka changing their name. At least with my theory of the One God being some lesser god who grew in strength, it makes sense that such a figure would be overlooked, but Takhisis is one of the top dogs of this setting’s pantheons. Yes, Mina does say that Takhisis was weakened by the events of the Chaos War, but she was clearly strong enough to sustain clerics through the “power of the heart”, so why remain in hiding? This isn’t technically a lie - after all, Takhisis is presented as someone who’d try to deceive mortals - but it is such a massive mislead that it’s almost unfair to the audience.

What’s up with the sun and moon?

The change to the moon was something established early in this trilogy. Krynn’s three moons are an integral part of the setting, so the replacement with one moon after the Chaos War is a symptom of how wrong the world as gone. However, it isn’t until this book that the sun was also emphasized as something that was off. References to the sun in the previous book were made in relation to the magic shield Cyan had placed over Silvanost, so it was implied that any weirdness there came from the shield.

I strongly suspect that this will be answered in Dragons of a Vanished Moon. While checking that I had all my facts straight for Takhisis, I stumbled upon a spoiler that probably had something to do with this mystery. I stopped myself there, though, so until I read Volume III, I can only say that it probably is connected.

The Aftermath

The answers to the previous mysteries (and the establishment of the weirdness with the sun) are not terrible elements. I feel like the mystery of the One God went with the least interesting answer, one the audience was almost encouraged to dismiss, but it is still an answer that words. Accepting the information that has been provided, I am looking forward to how this trilogy resolves in light of these revelations.

CONCLUSION

I liked Dragons of a Lost Star more than its predecessor. For all its flaws, it still executes its narrative far more successfully than a lot of modern fantasy. The worst that I can really say about it is that the plot still manages to be overstuffed despite a lot of previously important elements being trimmed, but that’s really a complaint that the War of Souls is too big to be a trilogy. A tetralogy would probably have been more appropriate.

I will absolutely be reviewing Dragons of a Vanished Moon, though I will likely be holding off on it until October or November. This is because I want to do a spotlight on religious worldbuilding within Onyx Storm as part of that review series. Given that both that series and War of Souls features a world where the gods are presented as objectively real but very selective in how they intervene, I think it will be worthwhile to spotlight the religious worldbuilding of War of Souls as part of Dragons of a Vanished Moon, with the spotlight in Onyx Storm falling on the week after so that the two can be compared directly.

In any case, thank you for joining me for Volume II of the War of Souls trilogy. I hope you’ll join me for Volume III.

DIVINE POWER

Speaking of spotlights, on May 9th, we’ll have our first Spotlight analysis for Onyx Storm. We will be using a moment of particularly glaring power fantasy in Chapter 8 to discuss how the power fantasy elements within Onyx Storm fundamentally damage the narrative. This will include a discussion of some heavy spoilers for later in the book, but not all of the analysis will involve such spoilers, so it will still be safe to read if you’d like to preserve the surprise.

I hope to see you all then. Thank you all for joining me. Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter if you’d like a weekly e-mail with the latest post links. Until next time, I hope you have a great week.