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Join me as I review The Annotated Chronicles; Dragons of Winter Night, live! Share your thoughts on the continuation of the best selling trilogy and this new annotated edition. I share the insights I gleaned, how the annotations presented a new perspective and why I still love this novel.

Review

When I reflect on my favorite trilogies of all time, whether they take the form of film or novels, First and foremost in my mind is the original Star Wars Trilogy. As Tracy Hickman notes at the end of The Annotated Chronicles: Dragons of Winter Night, the use of the three act structure in telling stories has been evident from the beginning of storytelling. The Empire Strikes Back is nearly a perfect film not simply because of its story, adventure, danger and plot twist, but because it is part of a larger narrative. One that expanded the lore of A New Hope, and set up a conclusion of events for Return of the Jedi. In that way, Dragons of Winter Night is a near perfect novel. It does its job as a second act to the Chronicles story, but the character development and worldbuilding are arguably even greater in scope than Empire Strikes Back!

This novel is broken into three Books. Each sets up a different part of the overarching story. Book one starts the story with the heroes leaving the ancient Dwarven home of Thorbardin, having left the prisoners of Pax Tharkas there as refugees. They are traveling to Tarsis to buy passage to Sancrist. They realise that after the cataclysm, Tarsis became landlocked and a shell of the city it had once been. The city blamed the outpost of Knights of Solamnia for the cataclysm and ran them out of town. When they see Sturm Brightblade enter the city with the companions, they immediately move to arrest him. Tanis refuses to have everyone taken in front of the city’s leadership as a mock trial, so he travels with Sturm to clear things up while the inn the rest of the companions are in is being watched. Draconians have taken over the city on behalf of the Dragon Armies. This is where Alahna Starbereeze enters the picture and ultimately reveals that she is looking for mercenaries to liberate her homeland o Silvanesti. Tas has gone missing en route to the trial and runs across Derek Crowngard. This entire exchange is explained in Dragons of the Highlord Skies as well, but he helps Derek and his fellow Knights find information about the Dragon Orb in Icereach.

Alahna is immediately drawn to Sturm Brightblade who is the highest form of a chivalrous knight she has ever known and ultimately falls in love with him, allowing him to keep the star jewel she drops. A sign of love that Sturn doesn't understand. They are being taken to jail as the Red Dragon army attacks Tarsis. The Blue Lady and Skie are there as well looking for her childhood companions, the heroes of the lance, and is enraged by Lord Toede’s sacking of Tarsis.  The description of this slaughter of the town is on par with the best war films out there. I felt the terror, confusion, anger and frustration throughout the retelling and it affected me infinitely more than when I was a kid reading it.

The heroes end up separated and it appears that Tanis, Riverwind, Goldmoon, Caramon and Raistlin are crushed in a collapsed inn from the raid. Tanis threw laurana out just in time into Elistans hands, who end up regrouping with Flint, a gravely wounded Tas, Sturm, Alahna and Derek. They flee from the army and it is revealed that Alahna sends Griffons to aid in the ‘crushed’ companions escape who were in fact just buried alive.

They fly to Silvanesti, being chased by Skie and some blue dragons. Ultimately they enter Loracs twisted dream and see each other ...