Join me as I review The Annotated Chronicles; Dragons of Winter Night, live! Share your thoughts on the continuation of the best selling trilogy and this new annotated edition. I share the insights I gleaned, how the annotations presented a new perspective and why I still love this novel.
Review
Intro
When I reflect on my favorite trilogies of all time, whether they take the form of film or novels, First and foremost in my mind is the original Star Wars Trilogy. As Tracy Hickman notes at the end of The Annotated Chronicles: Dragons of Winter Night, the use of the three act structure in telling stories has been evident from the beginning of storytelling. The Empire Strikes Back is nearly a perfect film not simply because of its story, adventure, danger and plot twist, but because it is part of a larger narrative. One that expanded the lore of A New Hope, and set up a conclusion of events for Return of the Jedi. In that way, Dragons of Winter Night is a near perfect novel. It does its job as a second act to the Chronicles story, but the character development and worldbuilding are arguably even greater in scope than Empire Strikes Back!
This novel is broken into three Books. Each sets up a different part of the overarching story. Book one starts the story with the heroes leaving the ancient Dwarven home of Thorbardin, having left the prisoners of Pax Tharkas there as refugees. They are traveling to Tarsis to buy passage to Sancrist. They realise that after the cataclysm, Tarsis became landlocked and a shell of the city it had once been. The city blamed the outpost of Knights of Solamnia for the cataclysm and ran them out of town. When they see Sturm Brightblade enter the city with the companions, they immediately move to arrest him. Tanis refuses to have everyone taken in front of the city’s leadership as a mock trial, so he travels with Sturm to clear things up while the inn the rest of the companions are in is being watched. Draconians have taken over the city on behalf of the Dragon Armies. This is where Alahna Starbereeze enters the picture and ultimately reveals that she is looking for mercenaries to liberate her homeland o Silvanesti. Tas has gone missing en route to the trial and runs across Derek Crowngard. This entire exchange is explained in Dragons of the Highlord Skies as well, but he helps Derek and his fellow Knights find information about the Dragon Orb in Icereach.
Alahna is immediately drawn to Sturm Brightblade who is the highest form of a chivalrous knight she has ever known and ultimately falls in love with him, allowing him to keep the star jewel she drops. A sign of love that Sturn doesn’t understand. They are being taken to jail as the Red Dragon army attacks Tarsis. The Blue Lady and Skie are there as well looking for her childhood companions, the heroes of the lance, and is enraged by Lord Toede’s sacking of Tarsis. The description of this slaughter of the town is on par with the best war films out there. I felt the terror, confusion, anger and frustration throughout the retelling and it affected me infinitely more than when I was a kid reading it.
The heroes end up separated and it appears that Tanis, Riverwind, Goldmoon, Caramon and Raistlin are crushed in a collapsed inn from the raid. Tanis threw laurana out just in time into Elistans hands, who end up regrouping with Flint, a gravely wounded Tas, Sturm, Alahna and Derek. They flee from the army and it is revealed that Alahna sends Griffons to aid in the ‘crushed’ companions escape who were in fact just buried alive.
They fly to Silvanesti, being chased by Skie and some blue dragons. Ultimately they enter Loracs twisted dream and see each other murdered save for Tanis and Raistlin. Raist allowed Fistandantilus to take control of him and turned Cyan Bloodbane away with his power. This released the hold of the Dragon Orb on Silvanesti. This was a strangely shortened set of scenes. I wanted more development in the nightmare and in the battle with Cyan. It was very underwhelming.
Ultimately it leads to the poem and short telling of Ice wall, which does not line up completely with Dragons of the Highlord Skies, and reading them in sequence makes a jarring and infinitely confused story. Tracy and Margaret really should have reread their own stories to mesh them better with the Lost Chronicles here. The annotations in this first book are great because they talk about the etymological detail about the language of solamnia.
The companions are leaving ice wall to Sancrist and are attacked by the White Dragon Feal-Thas controlled. It left them stranded, shipwrecked on Southern Ergoth and they realised that the Qualinesti and Silvanesti have migrated here to the Kagonesti homeland for safety, though they are still very hostile to one another and using the Kagonesti as slaves.
Derek demands the Dragon Orb and the Qualinesti king claims ownership. Laurana is scolded and outcast in emotion from her people due to her running after Tanis, and meets Silvara a Kagonesti elf who helps her escape with her friends to head to sancrist. They are chased upstream and in order to remain safe, they split up. Derek and Sturm take the dragon orb to Sancrist and Laurana and the others follow Silvara ultimately to Humas Tomb. Silvara is not trusted by Laurana but has fallen in love with Gilthanas. They sealed their love with a kiss in a tender bathing scene.
Tass escapes the sleep spell Silvara casts on them all and discovers an air transportation system in a well that leads him to a gallery with Dragon war paintings. He remembers the painting in Pax Tharkas and presumably the dragon in Thorbardin, and is startled by Fisban. This whole scene is tiresome on a second reading. Fizban is so scatterbrained until he talks with Silvara it’s just a clown at a children’s party act that never ends. I find myself wanting to smack him out of it. Anyway he confronts Silvara after waking the companions and she is terrified of having broken her oath. He tells her she must do what she feels right and takes Tas presumably to Sancrist. Flint is upset the kender left with an old dead man, without him really, and Silvara reveals the truth about her being the sister to the silver dragon Heart that fell in love and aided huma in the last Dragon War a thousand years before the cataclysm. Silvara is a dragon. The scene ends with Silvara granting Theros Ironfeld the ability to forge Dragonlances with his magical Silver Arm. The whole silver arm thing is very Winter Soldier after having seen the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I preferred it before that happened.
One annotation I found interesting was that at the point they arrive at The Tomb of Huma, Margaret and Tracy have been chasing the modules and referencing them for the story. From this point on, the Game Designers of the modules were referencing Tracy, Margaret and the novels for the story. A similar note was called out in Dragons of Autumn Twilight where Margaret mentions that after that book, they never were bound by the rules of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons again. Deciding to focus on the story and not the game mechanics to guide and enlighten them.
The final book deals with the Knights of Solamnia, and their downfall due to their own power struggle. The Elven nations, now unified, demand the Dragon Orb at the whitestone council, and the Knights refuse, nearly going to war after declaring just that. Tasslehoff decides to destroy the Dragon Orb as it is the point of contention barring the unification of the free people of Krynn, and is nearly killed by Elves and Knights alike. Fisban finally steps up to do something, skolding the leadership and out of nowhere a dragonlance is hurled at the whitestone and destroys the monument. Theros enters with Laurana and tells them all about the Dragonlances which are forged and in route to Palanthus.
The knights are continuing to fight with each other for power and Sturm is put on trial. Ultimately he is granted knighthood and control of the Knights of th eCrown, ordered to watch the High Clerists Tower and defend it when the Dragon Armies arrive. We all know what happens here, and this reading of it I found myself getting misty eyed before the moment ever came, as I knew it was in the mail. I won’t retel Sturms death, but I will share a moment of frustration. Why didn’t he take Dragonlance. He claims to not know how to use it, but it’s a lance. He’s a knight, surely he can jap at a dragon! It wouldn’t even have to change the story much, but his not taking it was illogical for a Knight that just damned the rigid measure of his own knighthood only a chapter before!
This is truly where we see the impact Sturms legacy will have on the Knights of Solamnia, and his friends as well as the growth of Laurana into the Golden General. It filled me with hope and excitement, not to mention genuine sorrow and compassion for the fictional characters’ loss.
The story concludes with Alahna experiencing Sturms death through the starjewel and nearly going insane because of it and the despair she feels. The gods seem to give her a sign as the tree over her father, Lorac’s grave returns to its natural beauty from the twisted dream of the Dragon Orb, and the star jewel that lost its life, showed life renewed.
I loved the hope, adventure, frustration and despair this novel conveyed. I hate that Sturm is dead, but his character will forever be in my heart as the personification of a Knight of Solamnia. I cannot wait to pick up with the heroes in Flotsom who I skipped over in this review, and to revisit the Golden Generals adventures. The sorrow is not gone from The Chronicles, but what trilogy set in a time of war would be worth reading if there weren’t consequences and loss?
Ultimately the annotations did very little to add to the story or it’s background, but they were a welcomed extra insight into races, language and thoughts from the authors and saga’s contributors. I highly recommend reading this truly fantastic novel as a standalone or second act in the Chronicles trilogy.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Annotated Chronicles: Dragons of Winter Night! Have you read the Annotated version? Do you enjoy the reviews I am putting out there? Feel free to email me at info@dragonlance-saga.com or comment below.
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