- Highlight
- #1
I've been re-reading this lately. It was released across seven volumes from 1991-1995, I believe, and can best be described as a deeply fucked up journey through dying magical realms. World building and setting excellent, character development pretty good, but ending totally falls flat. Still worth reading though. Even if every single faction is basically a particular type of larpers, though this fits in in a way with the backstory.
The rest of this post is spoilery, and consists of my extended spergings on the books, which I was hugely into as a teenager and I think still hold up well today.
So, yeah. Has anyone else read these and if so, what do you think of them?
[/SPOILER]
The rest of this post is spoilery, and consists of my extended spergings on the books, which I was hugely into as a teenager and I think still hold up well today.
The Backstory
In the future, global thermonuclear war sends humanity back to the Bronze Age, and in the process causes certain humans to mutate into wizards who are capable of literally bending reality. Society is rebuilt following their guidance over the following centuries, and in that time the wizards split into two distinct ideological groupings. The Sartan, who are all crystal spires and togas and consider themselves to be the wise counsel of mundane rulers and see the mundanes as lost children who need guidance, are one. The other are the Patryn, who are all black leather and big hoods and consider that they are the rightful rulers of society by dint of being the smartest and most powerful. The Sartan see the Patryn as basically magical Nazis, and the Patryn see the Sartan as hypocrites and powermongers. Both interpretations of both factions are true, incidentally.
(Also elves and dwarves, natch. It's mentioned that they were always there on Earth, they just have been hiding since the Renaissance.)
Needless to say, this devolves into at first covert, and then overt, warfare between the two factions. Until one Sartan named Samah comes up with a plan to end the threat of the Patryn forever. He and a bunch of other high powered Sartan get together and using impossibly complex ritual magic, they sunder the Earth into seven separate planes, each of which by way of magical portals and the titular Death Gate, is dependent upon and assists the other. There are planes of air, earth, fire, and water for the mensch (the Sartan and Patryn word for non-magical people). Then there is the Labyrinth, which is a "house of correction" for all the Patryn designed basically as a giant magical re-education camp to get them to stop being magic Nazis, and the Nexus, which is a land of sunlit uplands and rainbows and unicorns for the Patryn to live in when they have all learnt the lessons of the Labyrinth as a people. And the Vortex, which is a sort of "utility" plane where maintenance can be carried out.
This does not go as planned. None of the elemental planes work as expected; they are all full of bugs and are basically for one reason or another death worlds. The Labyrinth is basically a turbo death world that actively tries to murder those trapped in it in as creative a way as possible. So, the Sartan declare it someone else's problem and go into cryogenic storage. For the most part, anyway.
At the outset of the books we have a one-sided conversation between a Patryn called Haplo, who is the hero of the story, and his lord, Xar. Xar was the first Patryn to escape the Labyrinth and sets himself the challenge of freeing the rest of his people. Xar explains to Haplo that his mission, should he choose to accept it, is to visit each of the other worlds and basically fuck them up, so that Xar and the rest of the Patryn can come barrelling in and solve everything and be declared rulers of the universe. Haplo goes off to do this, equipped with his magical rune tattoos and his dog, and visits each of the worlds in turn.
Volume 1 - Dragon Wing
Off Haplo goes through Death's Gate and we don't hear of him at first. The action switches to Arianus, the air world. It's basically floating islands. The problem with Arianus is that it has no water. The only water is on the bottom floating continent called Drevlin where there's an endless rainstorm, and the dwarfs live in perpetual service to a mysterious and sprawling machine called the Kicksey Winsey (because that's the noise it makes). The dwarfs are all rather steampunk. Every so often they are visited by the elves, who are masquerading as the dwarfs' gods, the "Mangers," in giant ornithopters, who dump their trash on the dwarfs in exchange for sucking up water from the Kicksey Winsey's water tanks. The dwarfs also have a hilarious industrial theocracy thing going on - they're lead by a priest called the High Froman, and have names that double as job titles. One of these unfortunately is basically a trade union leader called Limbeck Bolttightner, who has been condemned to death for asking questions about why they have to work the Kicksey Winsey and advocating finding out what it does. The traditional execution is to be made to walk the plank off the side of the continent with a pair of wings. He does so, and survives by being blown onto a minor outlying island where he meets Haplo and his dog in his crashed ship.
While all this is going on, a human assassin in one of the upper islands, Hugh the Hand, is saved from execution by the King of the humans in exchange for agreeing to take a contract to slay the King's changeling son Bane. The humans are basically the Dragonriders of Pern with a piratical twist - their dragons won't go below a certain altitude so their survival and access to water is dependent on pirating the elves' ships. (And without any tentpeg-related incidents.) They were doing okay for themselves until their mages' guild, the mysteriarchs led by Sinistrad (whose hat is basically that he's EEEEEVIL, natch) fucked off to the topmost islands in the world, but not before leaving behind Sinistrad's son to be raised as the crown prince with the real prince as a hostage. They managed to win independence from the elves (who are sort of Louis XVI France with orgies and decadence and a twisted code of honour) by more luck than judgement and a magical song (more on that later). Hugh can't bring himself to murder a child and he and the chamberlain, a rather wet sort of chap called Alfred, go on a bit of a journey.
Needless to say, they meet up with Limbeck and Haplo during the former's attempted revolution in the dwarf land, and all go on a quest to the topmost island to retrieve the real prince and generally cause civil war as much as possible. Haplo fucks off, but not before realising that Alfred is the last remaining Sartan, and an extremely powerful one at that, but who has forgotten how to consciously use his magical abilities.
It's a pretty fun story in its own right, though its relevance to the main plot is limited. So much so that the fifth volume revisits its setting to develop it and link it in more with the others. I like how Limbeck goes from glasses-wearing nerd to badass revolutionary and also the dialogue in the dwarven chapters is absolutely spot on. Hugh's plot is less compelling though. I suspect this was originally going to be a standalone novel which Haplo and Alfred were podged into in a later version when W&H realised how much money there was in another series like they did with Dragonlance.
Before I move on, the songs. Every novel has at least one plot relevant song in it, and there is sheet music for the same in the back. The song in this one is a hymn called Hand Is Flame. It's okay and it's apparently a secret spell in musical form that causes elves to have a heel-face turn.
Volume 2 - Elven Star
The world of Pryan is the fire realm and consists of a Dyson Sphere about four suns. On the inside, all the humans and elves and dwarves live in a jungle that is miles deep top to bottom and has trees and moss beds with literal seas in them. The plot this time follows an elven merchant and womanizer called Paithan Quindiniar and his family of Jane Austen characters (the elves hat this time is basically being a Regency romance come to life) as he, his cringing maiden sister Aleatha, and his severe older sister Calandra engage in arms dealing to a pair of human fences smuggling magical weapons into the human lands. The fences, who are basically Pirates of the Carribean types (that's the human's hat here) are brother and sister, and a dwarf named Drugar (you never see any other dwarfs in this book so I have no idea what their hat is here).
Needless to say, they all run into Haplo who has just arrived on the dragon ship he stole in the first volume and enhanced with magical runes, and in doing so run across a bunch of wooden golems referred to as the tytans. Despite lacking free will, the tytans are possessed of stupidly powerful magic. Because they have no idea what they are doing they ask everyone they come across "where are the citadels" and "what must we do." When they don't get an answer, they go nuts and murder everyone in the vicinity.
They also meet a very annoying man called Zifnab who has a pet dragon, claims to be a Sartan, as well as James Bond, and Jesus.
Needless to say, Haplo manages to get Paithan, Aleatha, Roland and Rega the humans, and Drugar into one of the citadels (which Paithan thought was one of the stars - like I said, it's a Dyson Sphere), saving them, but allows the tytans to eradicate everyone outside. However he has some misgivings about whether he's really one of the good guys.
Oh yes. The song. It's a really rather rousing drinking song called Bonnie Earl. It has roughly 90 verses (thankfully not all of them are reproduced) and is sung in a dockside pub at one point. Paithan knows all the words, to the disgust of his sister.
I thought this one lacking in substance. It's like W&H thought, hmmm, fire world? How about a Dyson Sphere! Expectations subverted! Then didn't know what to do with it. Paithan Quindiniar was the best of the characters specific to this volume, the rest were a bit boring. Zifnab I would happily stomp into oblivion and then shove his fucking robe and wizard hat up his arse. Thankfully, it gets a lot better.
Volume 3 - Fire Sea
This one starts with Haplo going through Death's Gate into the earth plane, Abarrach. Abarrach is a warren of volcanic caverns, toxic gases, and lava streams. He gets there and finds that everyone is dead. The humans, dwarfs, and elves all died from the horribly corrosive atmosphere but there are still people there, and they are the Sartan. They can survive but only by using the majority of their magic to repeatedly and subconsciously cast protection spells on themselves and their goods. They sort of come over as colonial Americans. Think Salem Witch Trial aesthetic. They also practice necromancy, resurrecting the corpses of their dead to carry out menial labour. Unfortunately this isn't helping, because Abarrach is slowly freezing over. See, absent an external sun, its molten core is gradually cooling down. We track a young necromancer named Balthazar as he takes his people down to a realm below closer to the core of the world, only to come into conflict with the Roman style Kairn Necros and its dynast, Kleitus.
Haplo comes into the middle of all this and also meets Alfred from the first book. How? Because Alfred inadvertently wished he was somewhere else and opened a portal into Death's Gate just as Haplo and his ship were going through. Haplo realises how Alfred is a Sartan and decides to take him prisoner.
Haplo, Alfred, and the dog try to find out just what went so horribly wrong here. Alfred realises that the Sartan were not all that well intentioned all along given what Haplo tells him about the Labyrinth and being trapped therein, while Haplo realises that the Sartan weren't all the evil magical fascists he was taught they were, and that far from being evil overlords they were just as flawed as everyone else. Specifically, the ones on Abarrach rely so heavily on necromancy.
The pair learn that necromancy is a really bad idea. Firstly, whenever a corpse is raised as a zombie, another person of that race somewhere in the universe dies untimely. And secondly, if you raise a corpse too early, it becomes a lazar. Basically, a zombie, but which retains all its memories and abilities from when it was alive and is filled with utter hatred of the living, and exists to kill the living and raise them as more lazar. This is found out the hard way when one of Kleitus's necromancers, Jonathan, sees his wife Jera, also a necromancer, killed before him and out of grief raises her. She becomes a lazar. Zombie apocalypse ensues, and Haplo, Alfred, and the dog rush back to Haplo's ship to delta the fuck out of there. In doing so they come across a room called the Chamber of the Damned which is full to bursting with skeletons, and feel that maybe the Sartan and Patryn aren't the highest powers in the universe, and that there maybe is a God.
As they escape, Haplo has to decide whether to tell Lord Xar about necromancy or present Alfred as his prisoner. He decides that necromancy is too dangerous and claims Abarrach is a dead world, and sends Alfred on to... somewhere else.
This is the best of the series. It really nails the dying earth setting and the juxtaposition of the utter decadence of Kleitus's people with their need to raise their own dead as zombies to perform labour for them, and how their civilisation with collapse under its own degeneracy. Meanwhile Balthazar's people are hopeful of a better life despite everything. Also the way Haplo and Alfred bounce off each other so well - the old and rather pathetic and haunted Alfred hiding immense inner strength versus the young and brash Haplo hiding secret vulnerability.
The song is a sort of zombie waltz called Death Masque.
Volume 4 - Serpent Mage
Lord Xar opens this one, discovering that Haplo has lied to him and punishing him for it, before sending him to the final elemental plane, that of water, Chelestra. Now Chelestra is basically space as an ocean. It's a huge blob of water with an artificial sun within it, and "seamoons" that have negative gravity floating in it, and inside the surface of the seamoons are giant caverns with tropical beaches and savannahs. Our point of view characters are three young girls, the princesses of the dwarfs, elves, and humans respectively. Their hats are, not to put too fine a point on it, Highlanders, Arabian Nights, and Black Panther. Thankfully the latter is without the whole WAKANDA FOREVAR bollox.
The problem is that the seasun is constantly moving and for the first time in generations the races must load their entire civilisation in giant submarines called sun chasers and travel to another seamoon. The three princesses, whose names are Grundle, Sabia, and Alake respectively, are preparing to board the ships when a bunch of sea serpents smash the sun chasers and tell them that unless the princesses are all sacrificed, they will destroy their entire civilisations. Regrettably, their fathers agree to do so, and put them in the one ship left untouched by the serpents, who tow it to their haunt.
This is where Haplo turns up. He goes through Death's Gate and slams into the water, only shock horror! The water is literally washing the protective magic off his ship and himself and he begins to drown when he is picked up by the princesses' submarine. He feigns unconsciousness knowing that he must stick to his original mission or Xar will probably have him executed, and works out how the fuck he's going to do this with his magic stripped by the anti-magic seawater. He also realises that Sabia is actually a man (the real Sabia killed herself and her fiancée is masquerading as her), and overhears about these dragon-snakes. He also has to decide whether to welcome Alake's amorous advances towards him. On the one hand, he's not had his ashes hauled in many years. On the other hand, she's just a teenager. Decisions, decisions.
They all meet the dragon-snakes, who seem to know that Haplo is a Patryn. But he has never understood who or what these beings are. They seem to be impossibly powerful and capable of bending reality. Turns out that they are the personification of hatred and chaos and negative emotions and the counterbalance to the higher power he and Alfred encountered signs of in the third book. They literally "grow fat on your fear." But Haplo, mindful of his need to please his lord, accepts their offer of an alliance and they just so happen to tell him where all the Sartan can be found on this plane. The princesses rally the rest of their people and off they go.
Cut to Alfred, washed up on a beach on a tropical island full of crystal spires and togas. Here, he looks through the abandoned city and finds the Sartan's cryostasis chamber. As he enters it, the magic activates and they all open. And who comes out but Samah, the Sartan ruler, and the rest of his inner circle. He tries to explain what is going on but Samah isn't having it, and the rest of the Sartan awake. Alfred is told to stay in the city while they work out what to do with him.
While this is happening, the dragon snakes, Haplo, and all the humans, elves, and dwarfs dock on the Sartan island. However the princesses realise that there's enough room and things here for them all to live in peace. Samah isn't having that, though, and is absolutely incensed that there are Patryn like Haplo escaped from the Labyrinth. But with the threat of the dragon-snakes drilling holes into the island and letting in the anti-magic seawater, Samah relents. But he is very, very, annoyed. He claps Haplo in chains and tosses him in the dungeons. Alfred, on the other hand, goes looking around and finds a library with some restricted documents in it, and learns exactly what happened to Sartan like him who opposed Samah.
Samah shows him by turning up and sending him into the Labyrinth.
Cliffhanger!
This is the second best one. It pays off a lot of the things hinted at in earlier books and also develops Haplo and Alfred further. The bit where Haplo considers banging a teenager is a bit squicky though, although it's arguable that Haplo deciding not to use her for his pleasure is a character development point; Xar would have wanted him to. The setting is rather cool as well. Submarine mage punk. Also, we learn that the real villains are within not without, which is a theme for the rest of the series, and one quite well explored. Alfred even gets a bit of action, the sly old dog; it's implied that Samah's wife has a thing for him.
The song is a ballad called Lady Dark that goes on way too long.
Volume 5 - Hand of Chaos
Or, Dragon Wing II: Kicksey Winsey Boogaloo.
Most of this is basically exploring the aftermath of the events of volume 1. The Kicksey Winsey is fully activated and Arianus becomes less of a death world, and the Elven emperor is overthrown. Would have liked to see more of the civil war behind that. Also the Kenkari, a whole new grouping, should have been properly explored in the first novel. Ditto Hugh's guild. This felt like the offcuts from book 1 sometimes.
Hugh the Hand is back and extremely badassful. Limbeck doesn't like being a revolutionary any more.
Despite this, it's okay. Not as good as 1, 3, or 4 but better than 2. It feels like what it is - a book written to fill in the gaps between where the characters are at the end of the previous one and getting them where they need to be at the start of the next one.
The songs are a rather spiffy musique concrete number called Kicksey Winsey and an excessively long Kenkari prayer.
Volume 6 - Into the Labyrinth
Shit is getting real. There's a lot of Patryn who have escaped the Labyrinth, Alfred is stuck right in the middle of it, Xar has learnt necromancy and is immediately using it as a truth serum, and Haplo is on Arianus wondering what to do next and preparing to rescue Alfred. Because despite everything else, he's his friend, damn it, and Haplo doesn't have any friends right now. Even the dog has gone missing. Oh, and the dragon snakes have teamed up with Xar because conquest of the universe would allow them to grow fat on everyone in it's fear.
Xar opens this one again with a Patryn woman called Marit, who he recruits to bring Haplo in from wherever he's got to. Marit, incidentally, was Haplo's former gf when they were stuck in the Labyrinth together. He thought she was dead. But she survived and gave birth to their child, who she left with a tribe of squatters and headed on.
I do like the Patryn culture as it is portrayed in this book. Basically, they are either Runners or Squatters. The Labyrinth is a super death world that is actively trying to kill you in the most drawn out and painful way possible. For instance, if you're climbing a mountain to get to somewhere, it'll set off an avalanche. Or it'll summon a load of weretigers to raid your camp. Or it'll send an evil clone of your gf to impersonate her, get close to you, and murder you. It is a sentient death world, but it is forced to always give you a mildly reasonable chance to survive. So the aforementioned evil clone will look like a mirror image of your gf, or the weretiger horde will attack in not quite overwhelming force, or the avalanche will be detectable a few seconds before it hits. Therefore, the Patryn have a very tribal oriented culture. Everyone looks out for everyone else. They also developed magic that is stronger when they are in close proximity to each other. Children, where there are any, are raised by the entire tribe and everyone is responsible for raising them. Oh, and they also have glowing runes tattooed on their skin and dress in black leather. Basically they're magical tribal goths.
Squatters are those that stay in tribes and provide support and shelter to outsiders and follow herds in the general direction of the exit. Runners are those who prefer to be alone, who try to get to the exit as fast as possible. Haplo and Marit were both Runners.
Anyhow, Marit is geased to track down and murder Haplo. This forces Haplo into action and this, combined with the depredations of Hugh the Hand, who is still trying to murder Haplo from a contract he took in the 5th book, result in them all falling through Death's Gate and into a mysterious white void room with a single exit. Alfred is here. Marit is reluctantly forced to help them because she knows that without his help the Labyrinth has a higher chance of killing her.
Well, they're right in the middle of the Labyrinth and there's only one way out. So they start going all the way back to the exit of the Labyrinth when they come across a city. A really big city called Abri. Which despite being in a sentient death world and next to a river that is designed with a specific configuration of rocks and rapids that guarantees that you will freeze to death and fracture your skull if you fall in, is thriving. Haplo, who was born towards the end of the Labyrinth, doesn't believe this is possible. He finds it even harder to believe when the leader of this city is half Patryn and half Sartan.
Basically, because the dragon snakes want to grow fat on as many peoples' fear as possible, they lead a massive army of monsters to besiege the city and specifically murder Haplo and there's a really sweet battle. Weretigers, wolf-men, chaodyn (giant mantises who can clone themselves out of cut off limbs), snogs (sort of beastmen expies), boggleboes (the aforementioned evil clones), and even fucking dragons all show up. And it takes place during the day. Game of Thrones take note. This is how you do the big battle against the forces of evil, not having it at night with a load bearing boss. The good guys survive, but Haplo is dead.
Meanwhile, Xar is on Pryan trying to manipulate Paithan Quindiniar ('member him?) and friends into helping him work out how the tytans work. You can skip these chapters. They are of no consequence and are very annoying.
But other than that bit, this is possibly the 4th best book in the series. It would have been 3rd had it not been for the Pryan chapters, which are padding of the worst sort. Marit comes across as really well developed despite only being in half of this volume and the next. Alfred finally shows his true abilities and confidence and Haplo realises that there is something worth fighting for other than being a pawn of a dubious overlord. It is intimated that one of the residents of the city of Abri is his and Marit's daughter. However, the dragon-snakes aren't beaten yet, and neither are Samah and Xar, and Haplo is dead...
Volume 7 - The Seventh Gate
Alexa, what is a missed opportunity?
This should have been all kinds of epic. The giant confrontation between all the big bads as they try to screw each other over. Instead we get a book that is 2/3 padding, 1/3 appendices and infodumps, and with a small amount of actual action and plot within it. And it is all resolved when the chief dragon snake is surprised into banging his head on the ceiling. I wish I was making that bit up.
I can't remember how Alfred and Marit and friends get out of the Labyrinth but they do. I think it's when fucking Zifnab (gah) turns up and magically bullshits them out of there. Ugh. Why does Zifnab even exist. Yes, I know, he's a reference to Fizban from Dragonlance. So keep him in fucking Dragonlance, people. The only really noteworthy development here is that it's revealed (and to be fair, has been foreshadowed throughout) that the dog is actually Haplo's soul made flesh. It was in a flashback in the first book, for instance, that the dog basically nudged and encouraged Haplo to stagger the final few yards out of the Labyrinth to make his escape; the dog always seems to know what Haplo would want, and so forth.
Basically everyone converges on the Chamber of the Damned from the third book which is revealed to be the room where Samah and friends carried out the ritual that sundered the old world, Sang-Drax the leader of the dragon snakes bangs his head, some magical prophecy bullshit happens, and all of a sudden it occurs to both Haplo (who has got his body back now) and Alfred that the key is for Sartan and Patryn to work together to set off a world healing wave.
Bull. Shit.
This is Game of Thrones series 8 in book form. Basically, if they'd stopped after the battle of Abri with Haplo dying and redeeming himself but being saved somehow with the dog soul swap, Alfred resolving to travel the planes atoning for his inaction in the face of evil in the past, the dragon-snakes battered but still an ever-present threat, and Marit raising her and Haplo's daughter, and maybe Xar and Samah being brought down a peg or two, it would have been so much better and dovetailed with the themes of the perils of hubris. But no. They had to go and overcomplicate things, write themselves into an overly elaborate corner, and then have to Deus Ex Machina their way out of it.
Long serieses of books tend to have these problems. Stephen King's Dark Tower novels. The Wheel of Time. A Song of Ice and Fire.
But... yeah, the last volume is shit and disappointing. A very distant last.
Even the song is stupid.
In the future, global thermonuclear war sends humanity back to the Bronze Age, and in the process causes certain humans to mutate into wizards who are capable of literally bending reality. Society is rebuilt following their guidance over the following centuries, and in that time the wizards split into two distinct ideological groupings. The Sartan, who are all crystal spires and togas and consider themselves to be the wise counsel of mundane rulers and see the mundanes as lost children who need guidance, are one. The other are the Patryn, who are all black leather and big hoods and consider that they are the rightful rulers of society by dint of being the smartest and most powerful. The Sartan see the Patryn as basically magical Nazis, and the Patryn see the Sartan as hypocrites and powermongers. Both interpretations of both factions are true, incidentally.
(Also elves and dwarves, natch. It's mentioned that they were always there on Earth, they just have been hiding since the Renaissance.)
Needless to say, this devolves into at first covert, and then overt, warfare between the two factions. Until one Sartan named Samah comes up with a plan to end the threat of the Patryn forever. He and a bunch of other high powered Sartan get together and using impossibly complex ritual magic, they sunder the Earth into seven separate planes, each of which by way of magical portals and the titular Death Gate, is dependent upon and assists the other. There are planes of air, earth, fire, and water for the mensch (the Sartan and Patryn word for non-magical people). Then there is the Labyrinth, which is a "house of correction" for all the Patryn designed basically as a giant magical re-education camp to get them to stop being magic Nazis, and the Nexus, which is a land of sunlit uplands and rainbows and unicorns for the Patryn to live in when they have all learnt the lessons of the Labyrinth as a people. And the Vortex, which is a sort of "utility" plane where maintenance can be carried out.
This does not go as planned. None of the elemental planes work as expected; they are all full of bugs and are basically for one reason or another death worlds. The Labyrinth is basically a turbo death world that actively tries to murder those trapped in it in as creative a way as possible. So, the Sartan declare it someone else's problem and go into cryogenic storage. For the most part, anyway.
At the outset of the books we have a one-sided conversation between a Patryn called Haplo, who is the hero of the story, and his lord, Xar. Xar was the first Patryn to escape the Labyrinth and sets himself the challenge of freeing the rest of his people. Xar explains to Haplo that his mission, should he choose to accept it, is to visit each of the other worlds and basically fuck them up, so that Xar and the rest of the Patryn can come barrelling in and solve everything and be declared rulers of the universe. Haplo goes off to do this, equipped with his magical rune tattoos and his dog, and visits each of the worlds in turn.
Volume 1 - Dragon Wing
Off Haplo goes through Death's Gate and we don't hear of him at first. The action switches to Arianus, the air world. It's basically floating islands. The problem with Arianus is that it has no water. The only water is on the bottom floating continent called Drevlin where there's an endless rainstorm, and the dwarfs live in perpetual service to a mysterious and sprawling machine called the Kicksey Winsey (because that's the noise it makes). The dwarfs are all rather steampunk. Every so often they are visited by the elves, who are masquerading as the dwarfs' gods, the "Mangers," in giant ornithopters, who dump their trash on the dwarfs in exchange for sucking up water from the Kicksey Winsey's water tanks. The dwarfs also have a hilarious industrial theocracy thing going on - they're lead by a priest called the High Froman, and have names that double as job titles. One of these unfortunately is basically a trade union leader called Limbeck Bolttightner, who has been condemned to death for asking questions about why they have to work the Kicksey Winsey and advocating finding out what it does. The traditional execution is to be made to walk the plank off the side of the continent with a pair of wings. He does so, and survives by being blown onto a minor outlying island where he meets Haplo and his dog in his crashed ship.
While all this is going on, a human assassin in one of the upper islands, Hugh the Hand, is saved from execution by the King of the humans in exchange for agreeing to take a contract to slay the King's changeling son Bane. The humans are basically the Dragonriders of Pern with a piratical twist - their dragons won't go below a certain altitude so their survival and access to water is dependent on pirating the elves' ships. (And without any tentpeg-related incidents.) They were doing okay for themselves until their mages' guild, the mysteriarchs led by Sinistrad (whose hat is basically that he's EEEEEVIL, natch) fucked off to the topmost islands in the world, but not before leaving behind Sinistrad's son to be raised as the crown prince with the real prince as a hostage. They managed to win independence from the elves (who are sort of Louis XVI France with orgies and decadence and a twisted code of honour) by more luck than judgement and a magical song (more on that later). Hugh can't bring himself to murder a child and he and the chamberlain, a rather wet sort of chap called Alfred, go on a bit of a journey.
Needless to say, they meet up with Limbeck and Haplo during the former's attempted revolution in the dwarf land, and all go on a quest to the topmost island to retrieve the real prince and generally cause civil war as much as possible. Haplo fucks off, but not before realising that Alfred is the last remaining Sartan, and an extremely powerful one at that, but who has forgotten how to consciously use his magical abilities.
It's a pretty fun story in its own right, though its relevance to the main plot is limited. So much so that the fifth volume revisits its setting to develop it and link it in more with the others. I like how Limbeck goes from glasses-wearing nerd to badass revolutionary and also the dialogue in the dwarven chapters is absolutely spot on. Hugh's plot is less compelling though. I suspect this was originally going to be a standalone novel which Haplo and Alfred were podged into in a later version when W&H realised how much money there was in another series like they did with Dragonlance.
Before I move on, the songs. Every novel has at least one plot relevant song in it, and there is sheet music for the same in the back. The song in this one is a hymn called Hand Is Flame. It's okay and it's apparently a secret spell in musical form that causes elves to have a heel-face turn.
Volume 2 - Elven Star
The world of Pryan is the fire realm and consists of a Dyson Sphere about four suns. On the inside, all the humans and elves and dwarves live in a jungle that is miles deep top to bottom and has trees and moss beds with literal seas in them. The plot this time follows an elven merchant and womanizer called Paithan Quindiniar and his family of Jane Austen characters (the elves hat this time is basically being a Regency romance come to life) as he, his cringing maiden sister Aleatha, and his severe older sister Calandra engage in arms dealing to a pair of human fences smuggling magical weapons into the human lands. The fences, who are basically Pirates of the Carribean types (that's the human's hat here) are brother and sister, and a dwarf named Drugar (you never see any other dwarfs in this book so I have no idea what their hat is here).
Needless to say, they all run into Haplo who has just arrived on the dragon ship he stole in the first volume and enhanced with magical runes, and in doing so run across a bunch of wooden golems referred to as the tytans. Despite lacking free will, the tytans are possessed of stupidly powerful magic. Because they have no idea what they are doing they ask everyone they come across "where are the citadels" and "what must we do." When they don't get an answer, they go nuts and murder everyone in the vicinity.
They also meet a very annoying man called Zifnab who has a pet dragon, claims to be a Sartan, as well as James Bond, and Jesus.
Needless to say, Haplo manages to get Paithan, Aleatha, Roland and Rega the humans, and Drugar into one of the citadels (which Paithan thought was one of the stars - like I said, it's a Dyson Sphere), saving them, but allows the tytans to eradicate everyone outside. However he has some misgivings about whether he's really one of the good guys.
Oh yes. The song. It's a really rather rousing drinking song called Bonnie Earl. It has roughly 90 verses (thankfully not all of them are reproduced) and is sung in a dockside pub at one point. Paithan knows all the words, to the disgust of his sister.
I thought this one lacking in substance. It's like W&H thought, hmmm, fire world? How about a Dyson Sphere! Expectations subverted! Then didn't know what to do with it. Paithan Quindiniar was the best of the characters specific to this volume, the rest were a bit boring. Zifnab I would happily stomp into oblivion and then shove his fucking robe and wizard hat up his arse. Thankfully, it gets a lot better.
Volume 3 - Fire Sea
This one starts with Haplo going through Death's Gate into the earth plane, Abarrach. Abarrach is a warren of volcanic caverns, toxic gases, and lava streams. He gets there and finds that everyone is dead. The humans, dwarfs, and elves all died from the horribly corrosive atmosphere but there are still people there, and they are the Sartan. They can survive but only by using the majority of their magic to repeatedly and subconsciously cast protection spells on themselves and their goods. They sort of come over as colonial Americans. Think Salem Witch Trial aesthetic. They also practice necromancy, resurrecting the corpses of their dead to carry out menial labour. Unfortunately this isn't helping, because Abarrach is slowly freezing over. See, absent an external sun, its molten core is gradually cooling down. We track a young necromancer named Balthazar as he takes his people down to a realm below closer to the core of the world, only to come into conflict with the Roman style Kairn Necros and its dynast, Kleitus.
Haplo comes into the middle of all this and also meets Alfred from the first book. How? Because Alfred inadvertently wished he was somewhere else and opened a portal into Death's Gate just as Haplo and his ship were going through. Haplo realises how Alfred is a Sartan and decides to take him prisoner.
Haplo, Alfred, and the dog try to find out just what went so horribly wrong here. Alfred realises that the Sartan were not all that well intentioned all along given what Haplo tells him about the Labyrinth and being trapped therein, while Haplo realises that the Sartan weren't all the evil magical fascists he was taught they were, and that far from being evil overlords they were just as flawed as everyone else. Specifically, the ones on Abarrach rely so heavily on necromancy.
The pair learn that necromancy is a really bad idea. Firstly, whenever a corpse is raised as a zombie, another person of that race somewhere in the universe dies untimely. And secondly, if you raise a corpse too early, it becomes a lazar. Basically, a zombie, but which retains all its memories and abilities from when it was alive and is filled with utter hatred of the living, and exists to kill the living and raise them as more lazar. This is found out the hard way when one of Kleitus's necromancers, Jonathan, sees his wife Jera, also a necromancer, killed before him and out of grief raises her. She becomes a lazar. Zombie apocalypse ensues, and Haplo, Alfred, and the dog rush back to Haplo's ship to delta the fuck out of there. In doing so they come across a room called the Chamber of the Damned which is full to bursting with skeletons, and feel that maybe the Sartan and Patryn aren't the highest powers in the universe, and that there maybe is a God.
As they escape, Haplo has to decide whether to tell Lord Xar about necromancy or present Alfred as his prisoner. He decides that necromancy is too dangerous and claims Abarrach is a dead world, and sends Alfred on to... somewhere else.
This is the best of the series. It really nails the dying earth setting and the juxtaposition of the utter decadence of Kleitus's people with their need to raise their own dead as zombies to perform labour for them, and how their civilisation with collapse under its own degeneracy. Meanwhile Balthazar's people are hopeful of a better life despite everything. Also the way Haplo and Alfred bounce off each other so well - the old and rather pathetic and haunted Alfred hiding immense inner strength versus the young and brash Haplo hiding secret vulnerability.
The song is a sort of zombie waltz called Death Masque.
Volume 4 - Serpent Mage
Lord Xar opens this one, discovering that Haplo has lied to him and punishing him for it, before sending him to the final elemental plane, that of water, Chelestra. Now Chelestra is basically space as an ocean. It's a huge blob of water with an artificial sun within it, and "seamoons" that have negative gravity floating in it, and inside the surface of the seamoons are giant caverns with tropical beaches and savannahs. Our point of view characters are three young girls, the princesses of the dwarfs, elves, and humans respectively. Their hats are, not to put too fine a point on it, Highlanders, Arabian Nights, and Black Panther. Thankfully the latter is without the whole WAKANDA FOREVAR bollox.
The problem is that the seasun is constantly moving and for the first time in generations the races must load their entire civilisation in giant submarines called sun chasers and travel to another seamoon. The three princesses, whose names are Grundle, Sabia, and Alake respectively, are preparing to board the ships when a bunch of sea serpents smash the sun chasers and tell them that unless the princesses are all sacrificed, they will destroy their entire civilisations. Regrettably, their fathers agree to do so, and put them in the one ship left untouched by the serpents, who tow it to their haunt.
This is where Haplo turns up. He goes through Death's Gate and slams into the water, only shock horror! The water is literally washing the protective magic off his ship and himself and he begins to drown when he is picked up by the princesses' submarine. He feigns unconsciousness knowing that he must stick to his original mission or Xar will probably have him executed, and works out how the fuck he's going to do this with his magic stripped by the anti-magic seawater. He also realises that Sabia is actually a man (the real Sabia killed herself and her fiancée is masquerading as her), and overhears about these dragon-snakes. He also has to decide whether to welcome Alake's amorous advances towards him. On the one hand, he's not had his ashes hauled in many years. On the other hand, she's just a teenager. Decisions, decisions.
They all meet the dragon-snakes, who seem to know that Haplo is a Patryn. But he has never understood who or what these beings are. They seem to be impossibly powerful and capable of bending reality. Turns out that they are the personification of hatred and chaos and negative emotions and the counterbalance to the higher power he and Alfred encountered signs of in the third book. They literally "grow fat on your fear." But Haplo, mindful of his need to please his lord, accepts their offer of an alliance and they just so happen to tell him where all the Sartan can be found on this plane. The princesses rally the rest of their people and off they go.
Cut to Alfred, washed up on a beach on a tropical island full of crystal spires and togas. Here, he looks through the abandoned city and finds the Sartan's cryostasis chamber. As he enters it, the magic activates and they all open. And who comes out but Samah, the Sartan ruler, and the rest of his inner circle. He tries to explain what is going on but Samah isn't having it, and the rest of the Sartan awake. Alfred is told to stay in the city while they work out what to do with him.
While this is happening, the dragon snakes, Haplo, and all the humans, elves, and dwarfs dock on the Sartan island. However the princesses realise that there's enough room and things here for them all to live in peace. Samah isn't having that, though, and is absolutely incensed that there are Patryn like Haplo escaped from the Labyrinth. But with the threat of the dragon-snakes drilling holes into the island and letting in the anti-magic seawater, Samah relents. But he is very, very, annoyed. He claps Haplo in chains and tosses him in the dungeons. Alfred, on the other hand, goes looking around and finds a library with some restricted documents in it, and learns exactly what happened to Sartan like him who opposed Samah.
Samah shows him by turning up and sending him into the Labyrinth.
Cliffhanger!
This is the second best one. It pays off a lot of the things hinted at in earlier books and also develops Haplo and Alfred further. The bit where Haplo considers banging a teenager is a bit squicky though, although it's arguable that Haplo deciding not to use her for his pleasure is a character development point; Xar would have wanted him to. The setting is rather cool as well. Submarine mage punk. Also, we learn that the real villains are within not without, which is a theme for the rest of the series, and one quite well explored. Alfred even gets a bit of action, the sly old dog; it's implied that Samah's wife has a thing for him.
The song is a ballad called Lady Dark that goes on way too long.
Volume 5 - Hand of Chaos
Or, Dragon Wing II: Kicksey Winsey Boogaloo.
Most of this is basically exploring the aftermath of the events of volume 1. The Kicksey Winsey is fully activated and Arianus becomes less of a death world, and the Elven emperor is overthrown. Would have liked to see more of the civil war behind that. Also the Kenkari, a whole new grouping, should have been properly explored in the first novel. Ditto Hugh's guild. This felt like the offcuts from book 1 sometimes.
Hugh the Hand is back and extremely badassful. Limbeck doesn't like being a revolutionary any more.
Despite this, it's okay. Not as good as 1, 3, or 4 but better than 2. It feels like what it is - a book written to fill in the gaps between where the characters are at the end of the previous one and getting them where they need to be at the start of the next one.
The songs are a rather spiffy musique concrete number called Kicksey Winsey and an excessively long Kenkari prayer.
Volume 6 - Into the Labyrinth
Shit is getting real. There's a lot of Patryn who have escaped the Labyrinth, Alfred is stuck right in the middle of it, Xar has learnt necromancy and is immediately using it as a truth serum, and Haplo is on Arianus wondering what to do next and preparing to rescue Alfred. Because despite everything else, he's his friend, damn it, and Haplo doesn't have any friends right now. Even the dog has gone missing. Oh, and the dragon snakes have teamed up with Xar because conquest of the universe would allow them to grow fat on everyone in it's fear.
Xar opens this one again with a Patryn woman called Marit, who he recruits to bring Haplo in from wherever he's got to. Marit, incidentally, was Haplo's former gf when they were stuck in the Labyrinth together. He thought she was dead. But she survived and gave birth to their child, who she left with a tribe of squatters and headed on.
I do like the Patryn culture as it is portrayed in this book. Basically, they are either Runners or Squatters. The Labyrinth is a super death world that is actively trying to kill you in the most drawn out and painful way possible. For instance, if you're climbing a mountain to get to somewhere, it'll set off an avalanche. Or it'll summon a load of weretigers to raid your camp. Or it'll send an evil clone of your gf to impersonate her, get close to you, and murder you. It is a sentient death world, but it is forced to always give you a mildly reasonable chance to survive. So the aforementioned evil clone will look like a mirror image of your gf, or the weretiger horde will attack in not quite overwhelming force, or the avalanche will be detectable a few seconds before it hits. Therefore, the Patryn have a very tribal oriented culture. Everyone looks out for everyone else. They also developed magic that is stronger when they are in close proximity to each other. Children, where there are any, are raised by the entire tribe and everyone is responsible for raising them. Oh, and they also have glowing runes tattooed on their skin and dress in black leather. Basically they're magical tribal goths.
Squatters are those that stay in tribes and provide support and shelter to outsiders and follow herds in the general direction of the exit. Runners are those who prefer to be alone, who try to get to the exit as fast as possible. Haplo and Marit were both Runners.
Anyhow, Marit is geased to track down and murder Haplo. This forces Haplo into action and this, combined with the depredations of Hugh the Hand, who is still trying to murder Haplo from a contract he took in the 5th book, result in them all falling through Death's Gate and into a mysterious white void room with a single exit. Alfred is here. Marit is reluctantly forced to help them because she knows that without his help the Labyrinth has a higher chance of killing her.
Well, they're right in the middle of the Labyrinth and there's only one way out. So they start going all the way back to the exit of the Labyrinth when they come across a city. A really big city called Abri. Which despite being in a sentient death world and next to a river that is designed with a specific configuration of rocks and rapids that guarantees that you will freeze to death and fracture your skull if you fall in, is thriving. Haplo, who was born towards the end of the Labyrinth, doesn't believe this is possible. He finds it even harder to believe when the leader of this city is half Patryn and half Sartan.
Basically, because the dragon snakes want to grow fat on as many peoples' fear as possible, they lead a massive army of monsters to besiege the city and specifically murder Haplo and there's a really sweet battle. Weretigers, wolf-men, chaodyn (giant mantises who can clone themselves out of cut off limbs), snogs (sort of beastmen expies), boggleboes (the aforementioned evil clones), and even fucking dragons all show up. And it takes place during the day. Game of Thrones take note. This is how you do the big battle against the forces of evil, not having it at night with a load bearing boss. The good guys survive, but Haplo is dead.
Meanwhile, Xar is on Pryan trying to manipulate Paithan Quindiniar ('member him?) and friends into helping him work out how the tytans work. You can skip these chapters. They are of no consequence and are very annoying.
But other than that bit, this is possibly the 4th best book in the series. It would have been 3rd had it not been for the Pryan chapters, which are padding of the worst sort. Marit comes across as really well developed despite only being in half of this volume and the next. Alfred finally shows his true abilities and confidence and Haplo realises that there is something worth fighting for other than being a pawn of a dubious overlord. It is intimated that one of the residents of the city of Abri is his and Marit's daughter. However, the dragon-snakes aren't beaten yet, and neither are Samah and Xar, and Haplo is dead...
Volume 7 - The Seventh Gate
Alexa, what is a missed opportunity?
This should have been all kinds of epic. The giant confrontation between all the big bads as they try to screw each other over. Instead we get a book that is 2/3 padding, 1/3 appendices and infodumps, and with a small amount of actual action and plot within it. And it is all resolved when the chief dragon snake is surprised into banging his head on the ceiling. I wish I was making that bit up.
I can't remember how Alfred and Marit and friends get out of the Labyrinth but they do. I think it's when fucking Zifnab (gah) turns up and magically bullshits them out of there. Ugh. Why does Zifnab even exist. Yes, I know, he's a reference to Fizban from Dragonlance. So keep him in fucking Dragonlance, people. The only really noteworthy development here is that it's revealed (and to be fair, has been foreshadowed throughout) that the dog is actually Haplo's soul made flesh. It was in a flashback in the first book, for instance, that the dog basically nudged and encouraged Haplo to stagger the final few yards out of the Labyrinth to make his escape; the dog always seems to know what Haplo would want, and so forth.
Basically everyone converges on the Chamber of the Damned from the third book which is revealed to be the room where Samah and friends carried out the ritual that sundered the old world, Sang-Drax the leader of the dragon snakes bangs his head, some magical prophecy bullshit happens, and all of a sudden it occurs to both Haplo (who has got his body back now) and Alfred that the key is for Sartan and Patryn to work together to set off a world healing wave.
Bull. Shit.
This is Game of Thrones series 8 in book form. Basically, if they'd stopped after the battle of Abri with Haplo dying and redeeming himself but being saved somehow with the dog soul swap, Alfred resolving to travel the planes atoning for his inaction in the face of evil in the past, the dragon-snakes battered but still an ever-present threat, and Marit raising her and Haplo's daughter, and maybe Xar and Samah being brought down a peg or two, it would have been so much better and dovetailed with the themes of the perils of hubris. But no. They had to go and overcomplicate things, write themselves into an overly elaborate corner, and then have to Deus Ex Machina their way out of it.
Long serieses of books tend to have these problems. Stephen King's Dark Tower novels. The Wheel of Time. A Song of Ice and Fire.
But... yeah, the last volume is shit and disappointing. A very distant last.
Even the song is stupid.
So, yeah. Has anyone else read these and if so, what do you think of them?
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