All in all reasonable. Nothing outstanding, but the better tales are in the second half. Still, nothing super, suits as a book to be read in-between. Mainly the tales with Tas, Tanis, Caramon, ... were the more interesting ones. ( )

entertaining, although the poem didn't do much for me. ( )

A good collection of additional Dragonlance material. I enjoyed these stories, as it allowed the authors to both include material that was left out of the books, and branch out with new characters and locations. ( )

The Magic of Krynn is the first in a series of books with short stories about the lives of the characters in the previous two trilogies of DragonLance. Some of the stories are about the main characters (the Majere twins) and some give background to some of the more popular side characters that we grew to love as we read the earlier books. This is a set of short stories that can be read as a stand alone, but having read the previous books does enhance all the tales. The short novella at the end written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman is a great story. We visit Caramon and his family, his wife and 5 kids. We get a small glimpse into how his life is effecting the relationship with his three sons as they become adults and go to have their own adventures.

My favorite story is probably the one about Tasslehoff Burrfoot, the curious kender who is incapable of fear. Hearing about one of his crazy little adventures is always a treat.

3.5/5 ( )

This volume is an anthology of short stories as could be discerned by the name of the series: Tales. In the name of completeness, I'll give micro-reviews of the individual short stories here.

1. Riverwind's epic poem. Painful. I actually read about 3 pages of it. Then I gave up when I realized I still had another 10 or so pages to go.

2. The Old Man and The Sea Serpent of Death. This is an obvious tribute to the Hemmingway work, The Old Man and the Sea. In general, it wasn't bad. The surprise ending deviates from the original, but it's correct in an Edgar Allen Poe type way.

3. The Pig-Faced William Pimpernel. Pig-Faced William from the Chronicles series shows up again and becomes a leader of an underground resistance against the Draconian occupation. Except he thinks it's just a dream. He also get's a Poe-esque wake up call at the end of his story.

4. Tasslehoff's Mystic Ring of Teleporting Doom. Tas finds a curse magic ring that he can't take off. Every so often, it teleports him... always in a straight line right into the castle of a most inhospitable Wizard. This time, it's the Wizard who gets his Poe-esque up-and-commance.

5. Otik's Lovely Ale.
Prior to delivering a load of hops to Otik, Moonwick (a kender) steals a couple of pouches from a magician. He likes the pouches, but has no use for the dust contained therein, so he dumps the dust into Otik's latest batch of ale. Chaos ensues.

6. Draconian, Come Home.
A draconian patrol during the War of the Lance encounters a village populated by aged elves who only want to help them. After a startling discovery, the draconians are never heard from again.

7. Test of the Twins.
The story of Raistlin's Test in the Tower of High Sorcery. Unfortunately, almost all the content of this story is told in the Legends Chronicles as back story. I would have preferred a more detailed description of the trials of the Test - not simply the last part where he kills what he thinks is Caramon.

8. Love Reaper
Flint and Tanis are wandering through the wilderness when they run into a girl lost and wandering in the forest. They befriend her and help her find her lost brother and friend. Their search takes them to a magician's castle who performs atrocities in the name of... Love.

9. The Icewall Castle Orb
This is a short version the quest to retrieve the dragon orb from Icewall Castle. I was pleased to see this because when I read the Chronicles, that was one piece that seemed to be purposefully absent. So, I found it interesting and needed.

10. Like Uncle, Like Nephew
Caramon and his apprentice magician son, Palin, are summoned to the Tower of High Sorcery to discuss the potential that Raistlin is not dead and is, in fact, intending to steal Palin's body much as Fistandantilus sought to steal Raistlin's. This was an enjoyable little novella.

My overall thoughts on this volume are that it's pretty worthless outside of the Palin story and the Icewall story. In short stories you have very little time to establish the environment you're working with, but the other stories do a pretty poor job of tapping into the DragonLance world. It seems to me that trying to shoehorn those stories into that world was actually more disruptive than simply making them stand-alone. The one exception to that is the Old Man story... I think it fit easily... but was so obviously a retelling that it could have fit in just about any setting. The Test of the Twins story had already been told through backstory and there wasn't enough additional detail to make it worthwhile...

But the Icewall and Palin stories were enough to make me glad that I made it through the first 2/3 of the book.

Read 9/2007 ( )