Join me as I review Darkness & Light by Paul B. Thompson and Tonya C. Cook, live! Share your thoughts on this first novel in the Dragonlance Preludes series, released on May 20, 1989 by TSR Inc. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/3RN1TRP
About Darkness & Light
Five years before the War of the Lance engulfs Krynn, Sturm and Kitiara embark on a wild adventure of magic, power, and love
The Companions have gone their separate ways, each vowing to return with news of the growing darkness in Ansalon. Sturm Brightblade, a warrior whose honor is his life, and Kitiara, a passionate woman of uncertain loyalties, travel north in search of Sturm’s long-lost father.
Before they reach their destination, a band of gnomes begs for their help. But nothing with gnomes ever goes as planned, and the two adventurers find themselves crash-landed on, of all places, Lunitari.
The red moon of neutrality is a desolate place of wonder and dangers—of tree-people ruled by a mad monarch; giant ants formed of living crystals; and a mysterious brass dragon dwelling in an obelisk. Together, the honor-bound Solamnic Knight and the remarkable warrior-woman must embark on a perilous adventure that will take them beyond the realms of Ansalon, through love and hate, to darkness and light.
Review
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Bakukal, Frostkolt the 22nd. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of Darkness & Light by Paul B. Thompson and Tonya C. Cook. I would like to take a moment and thank the members of this YouTube channel, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
The novel starts with the innfellows fighting, laughing and having a good old time, ending in the Inn of the Last Home. A young Tika is tormenting Caramon, and an old Flint is swearing of trading forever. It’s so refreshing to revisit this novel and this time of the companions. It’s like old friends before you grew up and drifted apart. They all make their plans to leave and explore, Kitiara and Sturm are headed north and leave the following morning. They begin by traveling to the coastal town of Zaradene to find passage to Caergoth, but the locals are hostile to all outsiders as they were just raided. This sets up the world of Krynn in this age of despair well. People are distrustful of outsiders. There are raiding parties that scavenge villages and towns. Petty lords warring and raiding. It’s a time of darkness.
They meet an elf in a bar named Tirolan Ambrodel who agrees to take them to Caergoth on his ship the High Crest. It’s waiting out in the deeper water. They pay for their passage with gold coin Kitiara was given from mercenary work. It was minted in Silvanesti and everyone makes a big deal about it as the Silvanesti have locked themselves away from the world after the Cataclysm. Again, great world building here. They arrive at Caergoth and see a steam engine Gnome ship in the bay, I don’t know if it was a hint dropped about future gnomish ships or just a fun point of interest. They go into a bar and are attacked by what seem to be Draconians in hoods and cloaks. This is the biggest problem with Dragonlance books. They constantly seed future danger, but by doing so, it would remove the initial shock of the companions seeing the creatures in Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Rather than being confused, they would just essay “We saw them in Caergoth, huh”. The Soulforge novel does this too, even with Verminaard! It’s insane!
Anyway, they run from them after starting the bar on fire, and clearly the draconians can’t leave and fight in the open. The locals are now aggressive as these interlopers are trying to burn their town. So they left north east to Solamnia. They camp in the trees and are attacked by a mage and a few Goblins. Kitiara bests them all by killing them, and Sturm is finally seeing her for who she is, a self interested survivalist and opportunist who doesn’t mind killing. This young man version of Sturm isn’t impressionable but he’s realizing he was sheltered a bit in my understanding. A lightning storm rolls in and scares their mounts. As they are chasing them, they run across a Gnome who offers them a ride to Solamnia if they help get his ship out of the mud. It’s stuck. They quickly realize this ship is a flying ship and its captain Stutts is confident it will fly again as some gnomes are collecting lightning and others are working to loosen it.
With much effort they unstick the ship, and the Cloudmaster actually successfully takes flight. However, they are gnomes so something has to go wrong. The lightning strikes fused the throttle of the Cloudmaster, so they can no longer steer or slow down. They are in a straight line to the moon of Lunitari. After elevation dangers and freezing situations are overcome, they are forced to make an anchor and break the fuel line so the ship will crash land on Lunitari rather than crash and explode on its surface. Miraculously it works but when they clear the ship, they realize they need ore to make new parts to fly home again.
The party leaves three gnomes behind and everyone else wanders the surface looking for ore deposits. They quickly realize they have each inherited magical power from the moon. Kitiara is strong as a giant. Sturm can see visions of the past and future. He sees himself on what I interpret as Icewall, and his father running and hiding his armor for his son from brigands trying to kill him. It’s really interesting to see how the characters change with these newfound abilities. The gnomes with them gain random powers like rain creation from a cloud that manifests over its head, super hearing, super sight, etc.
They note that when the sun is not hidden by Krynn, vegetation grows like superweeds. But when the shadow of Krynn is over them, its rocks, glass and sand everywhere. They return to the crash after not finding anything, only to discover the Cloudmaster isn’t there! It was taken by some sixty footprints, and the three gnomes left behind are gone too. They all agree to go searching for the ship, and set out. They discover the path leads to a keep surrounded by trees. The trees come alive as they get near and lead them inside the keep. They are met with the King of Lunitari, a shipwrecked human who looks like a scarecrow, he’s been stranded here for a long time.
King Rapaldo as he is called is insane. Originally a carpenter, he was on a ship and a massive windstorm built a cyclone that shot the ship into the air and landed him on Lunitari with another survivor, who he killed. The Tree-people believed he was a god because he had an iron axe, and there was no iron on Lunitari. His keep is built from the remains of his ship, and the tree-people called the Oud-ouhai, are only active during daylight. They stick their roots in at night to drink. It’s revealed that the ship was taken by giant crystal ants called Micones. They are commanded by a voice in an Obelisk some fifty miles away, but Rapaldo doesn’t care. His primary concern is getting off of Lunitari and he believes he can do it with the gnomes.
The only downside is that the tree-people won’t let him leave, so he plans on making Sturm king, so he can take Kitiara and get away. He knocks out Sturm and has his tree-men capture Kitiara. Then he kills one of the gnomes before Sturm is let out by another gnome and kills the king. Rapaldo was weighed down by a chain as he had levitation he couldn’t control well, and since there were no ceilings for the tree-folk, he was afraid of floating into space. Even his dead corpse was floating up with his blood. A truly grisly image if you ask me. He was pinned to the floor by Sturms’ dagger.
So the heroes leave to the obelisk as the trees are sleeping, and then arrive at a massive crater. The gnomes fashion sleds together and they all slide down, with most crashing and Kit spraining her arm. As they are traveling Sturm has another vision of brigands looting his keep, and his fathers aid was killed. But then they could all see him. Everyones powers are getting stronger as they get closer to the obelisk. They approach the obelisk and the missing gnomes exit inviting them inside. A voice also invites them in, where they are given tons of food and drink. Everyone eats but Sturm who doesn’t trust their host, a massive brass dragon named Cupelix Trisfendamir.
It turns out that the dragon was placed there after the second dragon war to watch over hundreds of good dragon eggs, but he can’t leave, and all his books are rotting away. He tried to make slaves of the trees but they were too dumb, and he found he could control the ants, so they tended to the eggs and his needs. He tries to connect with Surm, then he makes a deal with Kitiara. If she can get him out of the obelisk, he will travel for two years as her mercenary partner. It seems like there is something he is not telling the party, but he admits the magic everyone is experiencing is from the dragon eggs. This is yet another problem with revealing too much. I am sure it will end up with their memory being wiped, but how many times can the authors of these novels rely on that trope? I am already tired of it.
If they met dragons now, why are they shocked about dragons later? Where is the fear they should be feeling? I know it’s a good dragon but Kit is acting like it’s a goblin in the manner she is speaking to it, and Sturm is indifferent at best. Why aren’t they shocked!? It’s a huge problem for the era this is taking place in. So Sturm and the gnomes go to see the dragon eggs in the caverns and find that anything that was once alive, like Kitiaras leather glove, is given life here due to the proximity of the dragon eggs’ magic. It presents an interesting situation, and then the tree-folk muster.
They surround the obelisk looking for Sturm who killed their king, and want to kill him in return. The ants build up a dirt wall around the obelisk but it’s only a matter of time before they attack. The tree-folk began quickly, throwing objects in the doorway, trying to hit them. Kitiara and Sturm exited the obelisk to attack the trees and were quickly overwhelmed. Sturm had a glass spear cut into his thigh and he began to bleed profusely. Kit came to help, but it looked like they were both doomed. Until the gnomes created flails out of dirt stuffed in their pants, and the dragon made an illusion of a massive red dragon. It terrified the tree-folk and they fled.
Sturm refused magical healing and was tended to by the gnomes. But Lunitari’s magic healed him anyway. Then the dragon continued to plea for help to get out, and with several attempts, nothing seemed to be possible. Until Kitiara discovered acid on the Gnomes ship.They built scaffolding to pour the acid into the lead that sat between the marble stones of the tower, and it eventually crumbled. Now that the dragon was free, they had to lighten the load of the gnomes ship so it could fly with its ethereal airbag rather than the engine as it was repaired incorrectly. They eventually lightened the load and it floated free of Lunitari. The further they got, the more the magic lost its effect in each of them.
The dragon was flying next to the ship, and as they got higher they saw a figure wandering, knowing it was their dead gnome friend brought back to life. They threw tools down to him, but couldn’t control the ship to get him.The journey back to Krynn took a really long time as they had no engine. Kitiara eventually cut it from the hull and it fell to Lunitari. The dragon did its best but couldn’t keep the strain of flight going for days and had to return to Lunitari. It discovered the now red skinned and bald gnome and made friends with it. The rest of the gnome crew floated until they reentered Krynn.
They arrived in the middle of the ocean and found an abandoned pirate ship. Once aboard, they realized it was cursed and the captain was a ghost who told the tale of them cheating the draconian forces for arms and armor and a cleric of Takhisis cursing the ship and crew. They were blown off course and one of the crew became a ghoul, killing the rest. Kitiara and Sturm killed the ghoul but Kitiara was poisoned. Sturm used the magical amulet the elf Tirolan gave her to heal her, and with the ghoul burned up, they got back on the gnome ship and arrived on the mainland.
Kitiara and Sturm split up, and as Kitiara went her way, Sturm went to Solamnia. He sees traces of an army passing and meets a dying rose knight who tells of Draconians and goblins that have taken Garnet. As he dies, Sturm buries him, takes his horse and heads to his keep. The novel seems to be highlighting the difference between Kitiara and Sturm’s philosophy, but they retread old ground so much, it’s almost like each author didn’t realize the other already said it all. It’s a bit much. Though I did like the juxtaposition of Sturm healing Kit, knowing what will happen in Dragons of Winter Night. There was even a moment when Sturm had a feeling of chest pain when talking with Kit on Lunitari.
The authors are doing a good job encapsulating the characters, but it feels like it’s already deep into the war of the lance, rather than before it even hit Abanasinia. Sturm sees an apparition through the storm of what seems to be his father telling him to beware of someone named Merisaard. Perplexed, Sturm continues wandering through the plains and comes across ostensibly cowboys herding cattle to the Vingaard Keep. Sturm joins up with them and they are raided one day by easterners. Sturm subdues one who turns up to be a little girl, so he keeps her as a servant rather than kill her like the others want. She takes a liking to him as a protector and she helps herd the cattle, They enter the keep and are met by a massive army encamped there led by Merisaard. He captures the riders and Sturm after blinding them with a spell. He is wearing a highlord mask also. His mission is to procure massive amounts of food and resources for the burgeoning Dragonarmies.
Sturm is brought to Merisaard’s office with one of the men and the man admits to killing Brightblades father and retainers after raiding Brightblade Keep. Merisaard kills the man and offers Sturm a command, as he is clearly a disciplined and trained warrior. Sturm refuses and the enslaved girl and Sturm overwhelm Merisaard. Sturm poses in his armor and frees the other cattle herders and has the girl go with them, then Sturm travels to his home.
There he finds corpses of thieves and a spirit of what the novel says is Sturm, but I believe is his father, leads him to his fathers armor and sword. Then Merisaard appears and attacks him. This wizard can use swords and armor and cast spells as a wizard, like many of the Dragonarmy leaders. He chases Sturm to the battlements where Kitiara appears and shoots Merisaard in the back, and he then falls from the battlements and dies. Kitiara shoots another arrow saying that this is for the memory of their time together but next time they meet Sturm may not be so lucky.
Sturm travels to Palanthas for a few days before heading to the High Clerists tower and that ends the novel. I do feel like this end bit was tacked on, and Kitiara’s absence was felt. It was an odd end to the novel which only spanned a year of the full five they agreed upon. I also got all misty eyed when Sturm found his fathers armor and it had a note saying ‘for my son’. I truly love the Solamnic Knight heritage. It reminds me of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. But more, I love Sturm’s devotion to a code and measure that is ancient and absent among other knights of the order in this era.
All in all I truly enjoyed this book, even if it was about a hundred pages longer than it needed to be. I didn’t remember all of this from my childhood, but it was well written if not flawed with the references to Dragons, Draconians and Dragonarmies in this era when no one in Solamnia should know about them, and the characters themselves being surprised about their existence five years later! The time and awareness disparity is annoying, but it’s not isolated to this novel.
In any case, I would recommend this to fans of the heroes of the lance or Dragonlance in general. The flying gnome ship that didn’t work very well felt in-world to me, even if the concepts of atmosphere, oxygen and the vacuum of space weren’t referenced at all.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of Darkness & Light by Paul B. Thompson and Tonya C. Cook. What do you think about all the references presented to the characters like dragons and draconians? Did you feel like the authors maintained the core of the characters of Sturm and Kitiara? And finally was a flying gnome ship too much? You can email me at info@dlsaga.com or comment below.
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