This was your typical European fantasy novel with all the tropes you’d expect. There are some very interesting elements, but they’re sidelined for more basic plot points. There are some great plot twists, but they seem hollow and meaningless by the end. This book was so full of potential that Richard Knaak seems to have disregarded completely.

With the detailed discussions on honor and duty, the revenant descriptions of dragons, and the religious aspect of the order, it’s as if an actual knight was telling the tale. This is appropriate for the tone, aids the overall atmosphere of the novel, and creates some poetic-like writing, but causes some of the non-dialogue prose can sometimes drag. All-in-all, this book is about 12 hours long and it could easily be 9 or 10.

There are two main stories that this novel attempts to tell. The first is the intersecting cultures of the knights of Solamnia and the minotaurs, which is beautifully done. Seeing the friendship of Huma and Kaz grow feels very genuine and real. This story is heightened when Magius comes into the story, who grew up in the same culture as Huma but has a vastly different perspective. By that point, Huma and Kaz are friends so the conflict focuses on Kaz and Magius’ interactions, which is fantastic.

The second story is the “kill the evil dragon queen” story, which is pretty straightforward. This is also good because it triggers the plot with Rennard, which was fantastic. The problem is, the second plot takes over completely after the midway point and the interpersonal stories are largely abandoned. The whole third act is almost entirely Huma-focused action and I simply didn’t care all that much. I was much more invested in the character-driven aspect of the novel.

For example, what was Kaz’s arc through this novel? He learns to accept friendship from a knight because he respects their culture, then learns to accept identities that differ from his own with Magius. That’s great, but it’s rather simple. We never seen him utilize his newfound knowledge practically, nor does he have anything profound to say about it.

And speaking of Magius, he was done so dirty in this novel. He is the best character by far; he’s dynamic and elusive and mysterious. When we meet him, he said that he refused to wear any of the three robes because none of them felt like they represented him — which is an extremely queer thing to do. Magius is EXTREMELY queer-coded. I don’t think it was on purpose, but it’s definitely there. At the end of the novel he ends up becoming a white robe, which felt like a bastardization of his previous development. There was absolutely nothing to indicate beforehand that he was on the trajectory of becoming good-aligned. Did he suddenly have a change of heart because he was guilty? Is being guilty enough to change one’s alignment? The implication is that renegades are evil, which is something that Knaak hinted at early on. But it doesn’t make sense. Regardless, he’s still the best character and I really wish he hadn’t died.

There was also a peculiar forced “romance” plot. I put romance in quotation marks because I don’t think Knaak understands how to properly write a romance. The subplot feels flat and void of any actual emotion. It’s also written in a way that’s extremely sexist. There’s only one female character in the whole book, she’s the love interest, and she dies at the end. Truly a god-awful subplot.

There was a commentary on classism present in the first half of the novel that I think is really interesting and done very well. Magius is introduced as a wild card, and indeed he is — none of the three strict wizard orders reflect his values, so he lives as a renegade, beyond society’s binaries. He is the one who opens Huma’s eyes to the elitism of the royal knights, which Huma has a hard time coming to terms with since he cannot imagine a selfish knight. Having a victim of the oppressive society (Magius) explain the privilege of the royal knights to a knight (who also acts as the narrative perspective through which we view the story) forces Huma, and, in turn, the audience, to reconcile with their own privilege.

Overall, this book only gets above one star because of the first half, and it gets an extra star because of how amazing Magius was until the end. But honestly, you can skip this one. There are plenty of D&D novels that are incredible, but this one is sadly not one.

Read most notably while walking from Schmilson to North at night.