The Legend of Huma: Dragonlance Heroes, Vol. 1 By Richard Knaak

The Legend of Huma: Dragonlance Heroes, Vol. 1
By Richard Knaak
Copyright 1987

From Wikipedia:

The book narrates the adventures of Huma Dragonbane, a Knight of the Crown, his meeting with Kaz the Minotaur, the discovering of the dragonlances, and the defeat of Takhisis during the Third Dragon Wars.

Huma and the rest of his unit patrol through a desolate village. Huma's commander, Rennard, orders the investigation of the nearby woods due to a rumor of goblin activity. During the ensuing confrontation Huma is separated from his unit. While searching for his comrades he comes across goblins tormenting a captive, the minotaur Kaz. After saving Kaz, Huma strikes up an unlikely friendship with the minotaur and later with a silver dragon before being reunited with the Knights.

Once back at headquarters, they encounter a battle between the forces of Paladine and the forces of Takhisis. Huma is struck in the battle and loses consciousness. He awakens in an infirmary being tended by a woman who introduces herself as Gwyneth. Huma is appointed captain of the watch, and encounters his old friend, Magius, a powerful magic user.

Magius tells Huma to trust him, but has to leave while Huma returns to the knights' encampment. The knights are engulfed in a battle with the forces of Takhisis and Huma and Kaz are thrown into a magical darkness. Magius leads Huma and Kaz through the battle to his Citadel, but later prevents them from leaving. Magius tells Huma that he is a renegade mage that took the test in the Tower of High Sorcery.

The Citadel is discovered by Galan Dracos and comes under attack by the forces of Takhisis. Magius tells Huma that a mountain represented by a tapestry in the Citadel is important and that Huma should journey into Ergoth toward this mountain. Huma and Kaz flee the Citadel.

Huma and Kaz are separated. Huma fights off dreadwolves and warriors and becomes lost in the forests of Ergoth. He is helped by an Ergothian commander who brings him to the Ergothian camp. The Ergothians tell Huma that the lands around Ergoth have been ravaged by the plague. While the camp is traveling Huma comes upon a ruins of a town and is captured by servants of Morgion. The Ergothians rescue Huma who then encounters Magius, and the two escape into the night.

Magius and Huma come across the knight Bouron who is attached to an outpost of the Knights of Solamnia. Bouron and his commander Taggin welcome Huma. Taggin captures Kaz and puts him on trial. Taggin releases Kaz to Huma and allows Huma to continue on his journey to the mountains accompanied by a retinue of knights.

Magius, Kaz and Huma traverse the paths in the mountains and Huma is separated from the others. Huma is led to a temple built into the side of the mountain and encounters Gwyeneth. Gwyeneth tells Huma that he will face challenges before he can claim the prize that he has come for. Huma enters the mountain and faces Wyrmfather, an ancient, serpentine dragon. Huma hides in Wyrmfather's treasure room, discovering an evil magical sword called the Sword of Tears. Huma kills Wyrmfather with the Sword of Tears and is teleported through a magical mirror in the treasure room to Solomnia.

Huma returns to Vingaard Keep to find that the head of the knights, Grand Master Trake, has died. Huma is to attend a meeting that will determine whether Bennett, Trake's nephew or Lord Oswald, the High Warrior and Huma's mentor, will become the next Grand Master. During the meeting Rennard tells everyone that Oswald has become mysteriously ill. At night Huma discovers the guards near Lord Oswald have been put into a magical sleep, then encounters Rennard dressed as a servant of Morgion, trying to poison Lord Oswald. Huma and Rennard fight, but Rennard escapes. Lord Oswald thanks Huma for his help and sends him back to the mountains of Ergoth. Huma encounters Rennard inciting villagers to violence. The two fight until Rennard is mortally wounded. Huma is then teleported back to Wyrmfather's treasure room.

Huma finds the Sword of Tears, lying among the treasure. He takes it with him and looks for an exit from the mountain. Huma encounters Gilean, a grey clad mystic, who tells him to leave the sword behind. Huma struggles for control as the sword tries to control his mind, eventually prevailing, discarding the sword. Huma is granted access to the workshop of Duncan Ironweaver.

Duncan tells Huma that he is the creator of the Dragonlance and allows him to pass into a room where Huma has a vision of the knightly, benevolent god Paladine, on a platinum dragon. Paladine hands Huma the Dragonlance.

Huma exits the chamber and finds Gwyeneth, who tells him that Kaz and Magius are nearby. Huma finds Kaz and Magius and with the help of a silver dragon that Gwyeneth sent for, they are able to prepare the lances for transport to Vingaard Keep.

En route to Vingaard the group is attacked by Crynus and Char. Huma and the silver dragon kill Char and Crynus is defeated with the help of Kaz and the silver dragon. Warriors of Takhisis attempt to steal the lances, but are prevented from doing so by Kaz. Magius is captured and taken back to Galan Dracos.

Huma rejoins the knights to find that there are many Dragonlances already there. He finds Duncan Ironweaver, who tells him he had many. Many good dragons show up and are fitted with the new lances, and go into battle against the evil dragons of Takhisis.

This entry in the Dragonlance canon is held in high regard by fans of the series. I enjoyed reading it. But I thought the characters were flat and the plot somewhat episodic.

There were many exciting scenes and the battle scenes were well written and fun to read. But between the battles, there were few revelations, few insights, and little introspection on the part of Huma. This is when character development happens. This is where you make the character interesting, sympathetic, and compelling. Knaak fell a little short of that. Huma was thin.

He had honor. He was all about the honor. Why? Just because he was a Knight of Solomnia? As Knaak reveals, knights are capable of scheming and duplicity. What set Huma apart? What made his honor flawless? We never learn.

Huma’s friendship with Magius is another undeveloped aspect of the character development. Were they just kids who were close friends? Did they face adversity together as children? Did one help the other as children? What forged this bond that led to Huma’s trust in Magius who seemingly had gray morals? Again, that was left on the table.

I loved Kaz the Minotaur. This character will appear again in the Dragonlance saga and have his own novel. Kaz defines what it is to be a minotaur. He’s warlike, aggressive, and hot tempered. But minotaurs are also about honor, like the Knights. Knaak’s treatment of Kaz and the minotaur race was fantastic.

Overall, Knaak’s development of the Knights of Solomnia of old – those knights so revered by Sturm in the Chronicles – was also masterful. This is their first appearance in novelization and given Weis and Hickman’s background on them, had to be handled carefully, lest they become a caricature of moral perfection, or worse, a politically scheming group of soldiers that was less than the honorable warriors of legend.

The dragons in The Legend of Huma were charming and again, handled well by Knaak based on the legend developed by Weis and Hickman. Gwyneth is a charming, but tragic creature. She is a true dragon in her fierceness in battle. She is a kind, loving woman in human form and Huma’s legend is defined by her.

Finally, I give credit to Knaak for an ending fitting for a legend. Huma’s death was masterfully crafted. Not lugubrious, not melodramatic, but heroic and sad. This is the easiest point for an author to trip up, getting caught up in his need to flex his writing chops. It’s also the easiest way to ruin a good story, making the reader gag on drama. Huma’s end was a fitting end to a knight whose legend would survive the cataclysm.

My evaluation is based on a comparison to the Chronicles and Legends written by Weis and Hickman. Perhaps that is an unfair standard, given that Weis and Hickman were the creators of the Dragonlance world and were allowed to make their own rules, set their own parameters, and define the world. Knaak works within those definitions. But with the thin characters, it falls short of the tales of the earlier novels who had fantastic, well developed characters who made the stories work.

Heart Shaped Box By Joe Hill

Heart Shaped Box
By Joe Hill
Copyright 2007

Judas Coyne is an aging, washed up rock star living in relative comfort on a New York farm with his goth girlfriend, MaryBeth. Judas has a passion for the macabre and morbid. One day, his assistant points out an auction site where a dead man’s suit is being auctioned off. The suit comes with its very own ghost.

Judas purchases the suit and it arrives in a heart-shaped box. After its arrival, bad things start happening around Jude. One evening, he sees an old man wearing the suit sitting in his hallway, watching him. A few days later, his assistant flees the home, vowing never to return. He has contacted the seller to get information about the suit and did not like the answer.

Jude learns that the suit belongs to the step-father of a former girlfriend of Jude’s who killed herself shortly after Jude ditched her. Anna’s half sister set Jude up to buy the suit so the ghost could avenge his step-daughter’s death.

When the ghost nearly makes Jude kill MaryBeth, they flee their New York farm and head to Florida to see Anna’s half-sister and make her take back her ghost. They take with them their two dogs who are able to keep the ghost at bay. When they arrive, They learn the family’s sinister secret and the real nature of Anna’s death. They are forced to flee after the half-sister’s daughter shoots Jude. They head for Jude’s father’s home in Louisiana where he lays dying of cancer.

Once there, the ghost catches up with them. With the dogs now dead, Jude and Anna are at the mercy of the ghost. However, Anna’s spirit returns through MaryBeth and she is able to vanquish her evil step-father. Jude and MaryBeth marry and have Anna’s step-sister arrested for crimes related to her sister’s death. A few years later, Anna’s niece comes to visit Jude and Anna and they assist her in moving on with her life.

For a first novel, Heart-Shaped Box is outstanding. Well plotted, well paced, and well developed characters are all there. Joe Hill is his father’s child.

Anti-heroes are hard to write well. Judas Coyne is certainly an anti-hero. He’s cold, uncaring, and dismissive of others. While not entirely self-centered, he will usually indulge his own desires before the feelings of others. Hill takes him through the entire character arc. As those around him become threatened because of his indulgence in his macabre hobby, he comes to care for them more. Hill makes him more sympathetic with the abusive father. In the end, Coyne is the consummate husband who cares about his ex-girlfriend’s niece.

The novel moves along quite nicely. The geography is fairly expansive. Hill balances the movement nicely. He does not bog us down in the minutia of the trip, yet he doesn’t cheat by beaming his characters from location to location.

The ghost is scary enough. I did not like the military angle. It humanized him just a little more than I liked. A more ominous or spiritual tie to mesmerism would have served to make the character more sinister.

My chief complaint about Heart-Shaped Box is the denouement. It is entirely too long and mostly unnecessary. I suppose it was to serve to bring Judas’ character arc to where Hill wanted it. It mostly failed. There was no connection to the little girl that shot him several years before. She just shows up without any real reason or attachment to Jude.

It could have ended with Judas and MaryBeth returning to their farm to live in domestic harmony and simplicity. That would have just as well served to let the reader know that Jude was a changed man.

Heart-Shaped Box is a solid horror novel and an outstanding kickoff for the career of Joe Hill. While it is simpler than his later works such as The Fireman and Horns, it is better. The plot is better. The characters are better. And the story is more interesting.

Love and War: Dragonlance Tales, Vol. 3

Love and War: Dragonlance Tales, Vol. 3
Edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Copyright 1987

A Good Knight's Tale by Harold K. Bakst
A Knight of Solomnia tells a scribe a tale about how two intertwined trees came to grow together. A protective father tried to shield his daughter from prospective beaus by moving her deep into the forest. Instead, she found something new and different to love.

This read very much like a child’s fairy tale – and a good one. Many of the better Dragonlance short stories read that way.

A Painter's Vision by Barbara Siegel and Scott Siegel
A beautiful bar maid marries a talented – but poor painter. The couple comes across a bronze dragon and befriends it when the painter paints its portrait. Years later, the painter dies in a house fire. The widow is grief stricken and takes up painting portrait after portrait of her late husband. The bronze dragon checks in on her from time to time over the years and finally, beholds her last and greatest work.

This was one of the finest Dragonlance short stories written by the authors who are the best at it outside of Weiss and Hickman themselves. Poignant while not being sappy, this story hits all the right notes.

Hunting Destiny by Nick O’Donohoe
This is the backstory for the White Stag. We find out that he is a jilted lover doomed to a fate of living over and over again to be hunted. He, along with the hunters who are also doomed for abandoning their posts generations ago, find a way to redemption.

This story was all over the place and was hard to follow. The Stag itself was quite confusing. Was a hero? An anti-hero? A villain? A really weak effort.

Hide and Go Seek by Nancy Varian Berberick
Tas is taken prisoner by a band of hobgoblins. His fellow prisoner notes the confidence with which Tas carries himself as he taunts their captors, even in the face of certain death. Tas is confident that his friends will come to their rescue. Eventually, Tanis and the others pull off a daring rescue.

Good action story with no subtext or distractions. This is the kind of bubblegum fantasy I enjoy most when I read Dragonlance.

By The Measure by Richard A. Knaack
The Solamnic Knight, Garrick, is trapped behind enemy lines during the war of the lance. As the Knights organization becomes increasingly political, he fights by the old standard of the code and the measure.

Good swords and sorcery stuff. Fantasy junkfood to satisfy.

The Exiles by Paul B. Thompson and Tonya Cook
A young Sturm Brightblade, his mother, and their maid are forced to flee Solomnia after a peasant uprising. They take to the sea to sail for a new home. They are taken prisoner by a vampire creature and must fight for their lives.

A great backstory for Sturm Brightblade. It gives his character new depth as a melancholy warrior.

Heart Of Goldmoon by Laura Hickman and Kate Novak
Riverwind, a pauper-son of a pauper of the Que-Shu tribe is one of many men competing to escort Goldmoon, the princess of the Que-Shu, to the temple of the new gods to visit her ancestors and learn from them. But Riverwind and his father worship the old gods, making him a heretic. He bests the competition and is one of two men to accompany Goldmoon. There, he and she both learn the nature of treachery and the nature of the new gods as well as the old ones.

This was a fantastic story! These authors capture these two already established characters wonderfully and provide a tremendous backstory hinted at in the original trilogy.

Raistlin's Daughter by Margaret Weiss and Dezra Despain
The legend of Raistlin’s daughter. A strange woman enters an inn where Caramon and Raistlin are having supper. She is molested by some of the locals and the twins come to her defense. She casts a strange spell over Raistlin and there is only one way he can save himself and her.

This story received top billing on the cover of the book. But it is not nearly as good as some of the others.

Silver and Steel by Kevin Randle
This is the tale of Huma’s final battle with the forces of the Dark Queen.

The author really overdid it with the blood and gore. Not that the story is particularly graphic. It’s just that he says over and over again in various ways, there was lots of blood and gore.

From the Yearning for War and War's End by Michael Williams
An account of the siege of Palanthas from a young knight of Solamnia as he writes his brother from the infirmary. He compares the attitudes toward battle and war between the foot soldiers who do the grunt work and the knights who lead.

The prose of this story was certainly different from the other Dragonlance stories I’ve read. It was much more literary and highbrow. A thoroughly enjoyable story.