Dragonlance: Dragons of a New Age Volume 3: Eve of the Maelstrom

By: Jean Rabe

The best thing I an say?

The trilogy is over.

I read this trilogy when it first came out over ten years ago and found myself very indifferent to it.  After reading it again, I don’t know how I could be indifferent to it and not simply flat out dislike it.

Characters?  Anyone care about any of these?  I know there are some Damon fans out there, and to each their own I guess, but he was simply void of personality.  Jasper?  Please.  Rig?  Ok, Rig wasn’t too bad.  At least he was amusing in a roguish Han Solo kind of way…and Groller wasn’t a bad Chewbacca.

But the characters all acted out of character if they acted at all and the sequences were either cliched and tripe or flat out confusing and out of nowhere.

Fury isn’t a wolf…he’s a something else that gets revealed in a throwaway line that really had to be explained during the epilogue.

I honestly find myself writing a list of bad things rather than a comprehensive review, and that’s simply because I don’t know where to start.  Nothing was built up at all so I guess there should be no surprise that nothing is truly resolved in any kind of climactic fashion.  Ideas introduced are either forgotten, answered in brief, unsatisfying manners, or given no weight whatsoever.

Who is the Shadow Dragon they built up?  No idea.

Who is the Shadow Sorcerer that betrays Palin and tries to help Malys?  After some further research, it seems she is an aspect of Takhisis but that makes little sense either.

What happens to the Master of the Tower of Wayreth?

All in all I really don’t want to waste anymore time on this trilogy and would much rather move ahead.  I’m sorry Ms. Rabe, I know you have your fans, but I have to be honest.  It is only my quest for completion that is going to allow me to even begin to read your Dhamon saga.

F