Join me as I review The Irda by Linda P. Baker, live! Share your thoughts on this second novel in the Lost Histories sextet, released on June 1, 1995. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/3ZvKaRs
About The Irda
In the Beginning . . .
Given life by gods, the Ogres were the most intelligent and beautful of the early races on Krynn, and they reigned supreme in their perfect kingdom . . .
Until that fabled race was weakened by clan rivalries and evil ambition, their downfall orchestrated by the hand of the Dark Queen, Takhisis . . .
Until the once-proud Ogres were cursed by their own mistakes and transformed into one of Krynn’s most ugly, despised, and villainous species . . .
All except a small group, the Irda, who learned to accept goodness, fight for their freedom, and escape to build a utopian civilization of their own on a paradise island in the Dragon Isles.
The Irda
The Lost Histories Series probes the historical roots and epic struggles of the heretofore little-known peoples of Krynn. Author Linda P. Baker sheds light on thelegendary origins of this mysterious race, The Irda.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Misham, Frostkolt the 12th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of The Irda by Linda P. Baker. I would like to take a moment and thank the DLSaga members, 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 heresy of Igraine. It is ogre law that any disobedience be punished by death. But when excavating a mine Igraine’s daughter Everlyn wanted a blood stone, a slave named Eadamm took it and it caused a cave in. Igraine ordered everyone out but some of the slaves stayed to help Everlyn, saving her life. As Igraine was debating having them murdered he listened to Eadamm and chose to give his slaves choice. They were still slaves but they had more freedoms and it tripled his production from the mines. This causes Lord Teragrym Semi, the oldest of the ogre ruling council, to send others to investigate why he is so successful.
This novel is all about politics. Different factions and individuals working together and actively against each other. It’s fascinating as I hadn’t thought it would be this in depth. A female named Khallayne was disrupted in youth and her family estate was given away, so she has been maneuvering for power ever since. She learned magic when she wasn’t supposed to and has gotten close to two brothers, one who is a new cleric of Hiddukel, and the other who is able to be leveraged against him. The brothers, Lyrralt and Jyrbian are even acting against each other. Khallayne approaches Lyrralt about gaining power and they work together to steal the Song of History, a ball, from the Keeper who is ancient and ready to pass on the title.
Khallayne meets with the keeper and casts a spell that causes her to be paralyzed with the end result being death, but she also casts a spell to cover her presence, so no one would suspect her, but rather Jyrbian.
The lord Teragrym asks Lyrralt to go north to governor Igraine’s estate to investigate his methods and to report back to him only. He wants to claim the estate for himself. Igraine knows of his machinations, and when Lyrralt, Jyrbian, Khallayne and her cousins head up to it, they are attacked by a group of disir. They fight them off and arrive to learn of Igraine’s new method of choice, which is nothing short of heresy. They are all asked to employ these same tactics which they are loath to even mention them. Khallayne is overcome with Igraine and seems to agree to work with him. They head back home and take a different route only to be attacked by escaped human slaves. One of the ogres dies, and the others take care on the rest of the way home. This first third was great. I really enjoy a story from an evil perspective that ends up becoming good, and I can’t wait to see how the political factions evolve.
Talk about a crazy chain of events! Igraine is brought up on charges and many supporters join him. After being charged with heresy, he escaped north with many other supporters, and was chased by the guards. They fought their way to Igraine’s estate, and collected more supporters. The slaves were released from service and stayed to fight the guards, ensuring the ogres escape. This is compounded by the fact that Everlyn is in love with Eadamm. Jyrbian loves Everlyn, and Kaede loves Jyrbian. They fight through many attacks and ambushes ultimately getting to a human settlement who attacks them at night, but Everlyn calms the attack promising they will leave. It really puts into perspective how horrid the ogres are to their slaves and how odd these ogres are for rejecting their ways. The fact that we are rooting for the bad guys is interesting here.
They continue searching for a place of their own as the inner politics come to a head. Lyrralt is trying to find the right time to kill Igraine, and Kaede sees Everlyn with Eadamm, then tells Jyrbian. Jyrbian confronts Everlyn and strangles her after learning the truth. He then kidnaps a young girl who dreamed up a monster who killed her brother. Kaede and Jyrbian kidnap Khallayne and leave talking about retribution. The inner conflicting politics is what makes this interesting, without them, this is a rather boring tale, but with them, it is intriguing!
Whoa the end of this novel condensed months and a ton of information. I really think this would have benefited from a Dune sized novel treatment, massive amount of pages and an in depth faction focus. Bakrel confesses to having joined Igraine to find the person who took the Song of History from the Keeper as it was their family and he and Kaede were reporting on their movements to the council. He rejects his ways and wants to follow Igraine, but needs to find his sister who left with Jyrbian. Igraine forgives him and he leaves only to be captured by Jyrbian months later and killed. Then Lyrralt attempts to kill Igraine and fails, as his heart isn’t in it, and he forsakes his dark god Hiddukel, only to be wounded and blinded seemingly by the gods.
Jyrbian takes Khallayne, Kaede and Jellindra back to Thorad and takes command after having defeated the previous commander in the field. He has finally learned how to use magic, and has gone pretty crazy and even more evil. His guards finally capture the human Eadamm and have him drawn and quartered in front of all the slaves. This sends them into full revolt and tears the city apart, ending the Ogres empire. Khallayne goes to collect the Song of History but Jyrbian destroys it, he is fully crazy at this point, and tries to kill Khallane when she mentions that he killed Kaede’s brother Bakrel. Kaede helps Khallane defeat Jyrbian as she escapes and flees north to rejoin Igraine.
The Irda group flees to the coast, gets ships and sets sail to an island that is calling to them. The gods clearly want them to live and evolve to goodness. They are attacked by a sea creature but the survivors find the mystical island of Anaitha and are blessed with shape changing ability. Khallane eventually finds them as well and veins the Ionaitha, the history of the Irda. There was a lot more that happened, but these are the primary story beats. Again, I loved the political aspects of the ogre culture and wished there was more time spent with them. I wish they would have delves into Jyrbian’s mind more too, so we understood his motivations.
In all, the story suggests a deeper telling but is so compact as to cut its own legs off at the knees. It truly suffers from this as well. Characters aren’t given enough time to breathe and groups are not given enough to define themselves. But I did enjoy the novel and the telling of how the Ogres became the Irda. If you like the Irda or Ogres, or just the prehistory of Krynn, I highly suggest you pick this book up.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Irda by Linda P. Baker. What did you think of Jyrbian’s motivations? How about Lyrralt’s turn of heart? And finally, would you ever play an Irda just before the Chaos War? Feel free to email me at info@dlsaga.com or leave a comment below.
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