The Dragonstone

Welcome to Mithgar, Dennis L. McKiernans classic bestselling fantasy series of adventure where legends are forged in the fires of sorcery.... For as long as she can remember, the Elven Lady Arin has been besieged by visions from the pastor the future. But none has ever left her so shaken as the one that foretells the fall of Mithgar: images of raging dragons and brutal legions laying waste to everything in their path signifying a devastating war that will threaten the land. There is more to the prophecy than a warningriddles within the vision that Arin must decipher if she is to prevent the forthcoming destruction. And it will take a journey across countless leaguesconnected to a relic of immense power known as the Dragonstoneto find the answers to Mithgars salvation.... ** From Publishers Weekly Like his previous 11 fantasy novels (Caverns of Socrates, etc.), McKiernan's 12th takes readers to the world of Mithgar with a tale of a grand quest. A [...]vision of bloody world war forces the novel's heroines, Arin, an elf of the mysterious deep woods of Dylvana, and Aiko, a female warrior, to take up an arduous mission to find the missing Dragonstone, a magical gem of immense power, before it can fall into evil hands. Their first stop is a disreputable tavern, where they seek a one-eyed man to fulfill the requirements of a riddle given to Arin in a vision. Since they find two one-eyed candidates, the local drunk and a recently wounded warrior, Arin and Aiko take both along on a roundabout journey full of danger, dragons and other morsels from the standard fantasy menu. Although there is enough detail here to satisfy readers who revel in baroquely textured fantasy worlds, McKiernan seems more interested in pairing off his characters romantically than in the quest itself. This tale of early Mithgar does not stand up to the author's other popular books, but it will keep most hardcore fans of large-scale fantasy entertained nonetheless. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist McKiernan returns to his world of Mithgar about three centuries before The Voyage of the Fox Rider (1993). The story is a fairly standard quest for a talisman, the Dragonstone, which the Lady Arin seeks in order to forestall a nightmarish invasion of Mithgar by hordes of dragons she has seen in visions. McKiernan is either learning more history and folklore as he goes or drawing more skillfully on his existing knowledge, because the level of world building rises in each Mithgar novel. The land and its history now have a very lived-in quality. Furthermore, the pacing is brisk and the prose serviceable, although the cast of characters is large enough to give McKiernan problems in developing some of them and the reader problems in keeping track of them. Still, this will hardly repel any of the readers who have become absorbed in Mithgar. Roland Green