DragonLance Preludes Volume 1: Darkness & Light

If you have been following along I am on a quest to read (hopefully) all of the books in the DragonLance series. Given how many there are, we shall see if I make it.

So far I have read the following books:

Dragons of Autumn Twilight Nov-84 Chronicles
Dragons of Winter Night Apr-85 Chronicles
Dragons of Spring Dawning Nov-85 Chronicles
Time of the Twins Feb-86 Legends
War of the Twins May-86 Legends
Test of the Twins Aug-86 Legends
The Magic of Krynn Mar-87 Tales I
Kender, Gully Dwarves and Gnomes Aug-87 Tales I
Love and War Nov-87 Tales I
The Legend of Huma Mar-88 Heroes
Stormblade Aug-88 Heroes
Weasel’s Luck Dec-88 Heroes
Darkness and Light Apr-89 Preludes

Darkness & Light is the first in the Preludes trilogy. It takes place five years before the War of the Lance in the Chronicles trilogy and gives us much of the backstory we all wanted after reading those books.

This book focuses mostly on Sturm and Kitiara and their travels somewhat assisted by some Gnomes.

The Gnomes always mean well, and are super good at comic relief but they may not always get you where you want to go by the most direct route possible.

We open up with Sturm and Kitiara practicing their swordsmanship with one another. Kit is obviously the better fighter at this point. As they head out on their travels, after promising to return in 5 years (for the now famous meeting in Chronicles) things don’t go really well from the start.

They are traveling along when Sturm learns a valuable lesson. Never ever fall asleep on guard duty. Had it not been for Kit, the Sturm we all knew in Chronicles would have never made it there.

After a little fight, they get caught in a storm that interrupts their travels. They eventually meet some Gnomes that have a strange method of traveling. They have a ship, powered by lightening that happens to fly.

The only challenge is they end up losing control of the ship (go figure) and end up on Lunitari, the red moon!

I won’t go into what they find there but it does foreshadow the war to come in other books.

No shocker, they do eventually find their way back to Krynn, and at the end, we are treated to how it was that Sturm finally received his father’s armor and sword.

I really enjoyed this book, but anything with the Gnomes is always a joy for me.

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