Join me as I review Dragon Spell by Jeff Sampson, live! Share your thoughts on this eighth novel in The New Adventures series, and the fourth novel in the Dragon Quartet. You can pick up Dragon Spell here: https://amzn.to/3h0u9An
About Dragon Spell
The eighth title in the new Dragonlance adventure series for young readers.
Dragon Spell continues a new series of Dragonlance fantasy adventures written specifically for readers ages 10 and up. Sized to fit the young reader market, the series features a group of young companions who band together for friendship and excitement during the golden age of the Dragonlance world.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Majetag, Darkember the 8th, my name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of Dragon Spell by Jeff Sampson. I will be spoiling the story, so if you don’t want to know it, stop watching now! 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 link. 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 picks up with Davyn in Asvorias tower. She had stripped him of all his weapons, and locked them in a tower room. She knows that he came to her to kill her and is going along with the ruse that he wants to serve her. She calls him to the tower to watch her cast a summoning spell. Many different types of creatures appear out of the forest, seemingly confused, then they begin attacking each other. The victors are part of her army she is building. Ophian appears beside Davyn and there is no love between them at all, even though they are both essentially slaves to Asvoria.
The sorceress is trying to find a dragon to transfer her essence into in order to dominate Krynn, but no dragon she approaches wants anything to do with her. Her 2,000 year old plan of world domination seems to be stalled. This is all compounded by the fact that Nuitari will be full in a day and she wants to use that night to transfer her essence. Nearra inside her is fighting as best she can, but it ends up being nothing more than a nuisance to Asvoria.
She sends Ophion to take care of Davyn’s friends who she knows are coming, and locks Davyn in his room. Ophion takes the summoned beasts and comes across Catriona. She is with Sindri and Maddoc. Maddoc is teaching Sindri the spells necessary to split Asvoria from Nearra, still pretending not to have magic. We are still led to believe that Elidore is dead, which seems like such a waste since we know he isn’t. They defeat Ophion’s beasts and Ophian escapes when they run into Jirah, Rina and Mudd, who were supposedly headed to Palanthas, but are now near Asvorias tower because why? Well, it’s in the script, that’s why. Jirah and Rina hate each other, both smitten with Davyn and jealous of each other.
They all decide to go to the tower together, but cannot see it through the forest, just as Davyn, all cut up, comes running through the trees. This is so painful, obviously Ophian, but everyone believes it’s Davyn, and he demands they all go to fight Asvoria immediately. So everyone follows him to the tower where they see Asvoria on the battlements, and Davyn changes to Ophian, of course! Asvoria begins casting a spell that causes the various summoned beasts to merge together like voltron. Those who didnt merge were revealed as undead slave warriors. They parted a way for the heroes to enter the keep, with Asvoria watching. She was drawing them into a trap, which they willingly and knowingly entered.
Sindri and Maddoc entered the keep, then the door locked behind them and the undead began attacking the companions, They fought them and retreated to a better defensive position. Inside the keep Sindri and Maddoc split up and Sindri found Davyn. Davyn asked him to open the door to his equipment so he could kill Asviria with the Dragon Knight’s sword. Sindri areed, and then wandered into Asvorias chamber. They battled, but Sindri was caught unaware by Ophion and Asvoria reclaimed the Daystar Medallion. She summoned Raedon, the copper dragon, and Davyn entered trying to kill Asvoria but he couldn’t make himself do it. Raedon entered the keep, and Astoria possessed him before he knew what was happening. As Raedon flew out to kill the other companions, Nearras’ soul was pulling at her from her own body still, connected from the dragon well.
Asvoria, now the Daystar Dragon tried to kill Nearra but felt all the pain herself as they are connected, so she ordered Ophion to change to a flying creature and carry Nearra with her. The companions could do nothing against the Daystar Dragon, and Davyn collected a glass sphere which was later revealed to house Raedon’s soul. As the Daystar Dragon flew to a new formerly abandoned dragon lair, it killed everyone and laid waste to every town on the way, leaving a trail of destruction for the companions to follow. Watching her were twins, humans called the messengers. There was a third with them that left.
The companions followed the destruction and met up with the messengers and after some odd banter, the messengers went to gather allies from the villages and adventures the companions helped in the past and left them to follow Maddoc to collect the Aegis sword he reforged. Everyone is wondering how and why he did it, and Maddoc just said it was for the greater good, but did not want Asvoria reclaiming it, so he hid it. They head toward it and meet an old black robe acquaintance of Maddoc’s called the Goblin man. The goblin man is named Arven and was as obsessed with Ophion as Maddoc was with Asvoria. He wanted to become a shapeshifter and ended up randomly transforming into a red goblin.
He hid the Aegis behind traps and made himself forget them through magic so Asvoria couldn’t make him give it up to her. The companions went after it anyway, seeing that it was at the bottom of a cliff that required you to walk down a cliff. Once at the bottom, the mist turned into a beast with the Aegis at its center. The battled the beast to no avail, so Catriona entered it, grabbed the Aegis and cut out the beast’s magical core. Now with the aegis, Sindri swore to learn black magic to stop Asvoria and Cat swore to battle Asvoria.
Asvoria in the form of the Daystar Dragon formed her throne room in the mountain cave system and it drew the attention of a great red dragon named Magnus. He was ready to destroy her when she revealed the ancient black dragon Victant who refused to work with her. Asvoria had him chained and destroyed in front of Magnus as an example to him and others. Work with Asvoria or die. She could see tents popping up around the base of her mountain, and began to make plans for the coming war.
The companions leave with the aegis and find the messengers had returned with friends from all of the books. The Freeholders, Baroness Viel, Heroes from Potterrs Mill, even clerics from the Tower of the Holy orders of the Stars including Jax the minotaur from the first book and more! As more supporters continued to arrive a Knight of the Crown named Sir Kristoff demanded to make battle plans with Davyn, and seems to be taking over. When the Knights of Solamnia insist on surveying then returning to their order to request more backup, including dragonlances to defeat the Daystar Dragon, Davyn has had enough. He tells Sir Kristoff that he will be entering the caves with his friends immediately, even if that means they have to fight through the undead army themselves.
Sir Kristoff accepts that time is of the essence and rallies the army to advance on the undead. As they fight through the undead army, they enter the caves to find the black dragon turned into an undead dragon, and it takes the attention of everyone to fight it. Sindri ends up defeating it with Maddoc’s help and an evil spell, whatever that means, and Catriona advances on the Daystar Dragon herself. As she strikes it with the Aegis, she hears Nearra scream and share in the wound. This stops Cat from attacking Asvoria, and she searches for Davyn.
Ophion has turned into various party members and messed with their morale and confidence. Then she takes the globe that contains Raedon’s soul and breaks it looking like the centaur Aiyanti. Davyn is devastated as Ophion turns on Rena, attacking her. Davyn cuts down Ophion from behind with the Dragon Knight’s sword. As Ophion dies, Cat shows up begging for aid. They have no clear idea how to sever the connection between Asvoria and Nearra, and Sindri asks if there is a magical current that they could see. Why would he think to ask this? It’s in the script. This spurs Maddoc to tell them that there is and with a spell they could see it. As Sindri and Maddoc cast the spell, Davyn sees the connection and cuts it with his Dragon Knight sword.
Then Catriona advances on Asvoria who is in a mad daze after being severed from her shapeshifter and Nearra. Cat strikes the killing blow, which kills all the undead army as well. They all leave, shooken up and dazed. They retire to the Tower of the Holy Order of the Stars from the first novel, and the characters all share their thoughts and desires. Davyn will continue with Nearra and Jirah as they try to unlock their magic with the Trynstir. Sindri will leave with Maddoc to train magic. Rena leaves for home, scarred emotionally. Cat leaves to find her way with the Solamnic Knights perhaps.
As Jirah steps outside, it is revealed the two messengers are powerful sorcerers that are using Jirah to keep Nearra weakened, so they can use them, and Jirah is complicit in their actions, though that is a set up for another trilogy that I am not going to read. Ultimately this was a relatively satisfying end. I really enjoyed the character interactions, and trauma from battle. The consequences were real again and it was kinda cool seeing everyone reunited against Asvoria. I did feel like it was all too easy for the companions. They were assisted in getting inside and it didn’t feel all that hard to kill Asvoria once inside, but other than that, it was a relatively satisfying end to the series.
If you have read the preceding seven novels, definitely read this to end it all, but if you are only one or two novels in, I am not sure it’s worth it. They did finally conclude saying Sindri has magic because of the dragon breath, but they still had Maddoc casting spells through Sindri and Sindri casting spells without memorizing them. It just doesn’t feel right to me. But hey, unless I write it, I can’t complain too much.
Outro
But that’s it for my review of Dragon Spell by Jeff Sampson. What do you think about the eighth of The New Adventures novels? Did you have a favorite part of the novel? You can email me at info@dlsaga.com or comment below.
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This channel is all about celebrating the wonderful world of the Dragonlance Saga, and I hope you will join me in the celebration. Thank you for watching, this has been Adam with DragonLance Saga and until next time Slàinte mhath (slan-ge-var).
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