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A review by ambermarshall
Dragons of Winter Night by Margaret Weis
3.0
The party is split, kind of necessary with a big cast. Laurana really comes into her own in this one, gradually transforming from a follower to a leader (not to mention killing evil wizards with ice axes, standing up to her xenophobic father and people, and controlling a dragon orb). I never liked Sturm much back in the day (I found him boring) but I've come to appreciate the character more. Raistlin actually getting into and enjoying being a traveling illusionist is kind of fun and sad. It goes to show the kind of pleasant, easy life he could have enjoyed if only he wasn't so damned ambitious. He of course continues to cockblock poor sweet Tika and poor dumb Caramon. Goldmoon and Riverwind largely disappear, but they did get center stage of the first book. Tanis is kind of a fuckboy/sadboi in this one and I'm tired of his "oh the heavy mantel of leadership" and "oh my stupid love triangle" shit. Tas is great as always and gets to do An Heroic Thing. And we get the gnomes, steampunk mad scientists extraordinaire.
Sadly we also get racist elves (with elf-on-elf violence) and shitty corrupt bureaucratic knights, plus complacent "can't we just pay the dragon armies to go away? I'm late for the theater" Palanthas. It's frustrating to see everyone fail to come together against an overarching threat but living in the US during this pandemic has shown that it's sadly more realistic than I thought in previous times.*sad trombone*
I did not buy the insta-love between Sturm and Alhana, and Gilthanis sure did jump straight to marriage-and-baby-carriage dreams after knowing Silvara less than a week (and not knowing her well at all, turns out). Maybe they needed romance somewhere in here but I much rather enjoyed and bought into Laurana and Sturm's platonic closeness. I thought that was sweet.
Sadly we also get racist elves (with elf-on-elf violence) and shitty corrupt bureaucratic knights, plus complacent "can't we just pay the dragon armies to go away? I'm late for the theater" Palanthas. It's frustrating to see everyone fail to come together against an overarching threat but living in the US during this pandemic has shown that it's sadly more realistic than I thought in previous times.*sad trombone*
I did not buy the insta-love between Sturm and Alhana, and Gilthanis sure did jump straight to marriage-and-baby-carriage dreams after knowing Silvara less than a week (and not knowing her well at all, turns out). Maybe they needed romance somewhere in here but I much rather enjoyed and bought into Laurana and Sturm's platonic closeness. I thought that was sweet.