The Siege of Quraite
This chapter opens with Zvain screaming and ends with a sorcerer-king eating a man alive. It is the most intense chapter in the entire book and I am still not totally over it.
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Cinnabar Shadows Chapter 6: Mahtra's Origins Revealed - Made, Not Born
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
This chapter hit me like a truck. We finally get the full picture of who Mahtra is, where she came from, and what “made, not born” actually means. But that is only half the story. The other half belongs to Akashia, and it is devastating.
Feasting With Elves After Freedom: The Darkness Before the Dawn Chapter 1
The book opens with a slave caravan burning in the desert while a tribe of elves throws a party around the wreckage.
Rescue From House Escrissar
This chapter is basically a heist movie set in a fantasy hellscape. Three guys with obsidian knives break into an interrogator’s fortified house to rescue one woman. It goes sideways almost immediately. They barely get out alive.
Cinnabar Shadows Chapter 5: Visitor From Urik - Dark Sun Retelling
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 5: Visitor from Urik
Salt sprites are still dancing on the Sun’s Fist as sunset dies. Golden Guthay (one of Athas’s moons) climbs the eastern horizon. Pavek stops Ruari and Zvain at the edge of the salt flats. No point risking themselves out there until the sun is well set and the moonlight is strong enough to navigate by.
The Darkness Before the Dawn: A Dark Sun Chronicles of Athas Retelling
So I just finished the second book in the Dark Sun Chronicles of Athas series, and I have thoughts.
The Darkness Before the Dawn by Ryan Hughes is set in the Dark Sun campaign world, which is basically the bleakest Dungeons & Dragons setting ever created. If you are picturing green forests and friendly taverns, stop. That is not what this is. Athas is a dying world. The sun is red. The desert goes on forever. Water is worth more than gold. Metal is so rare that people fight with weapons made from bone and obsidian. And the people who run things are immortal sorcerer-kings who have been draining the life from the planet for thousands of years.
Waiting and Worrying
Chapter 14 is all Pavek, and it is the slow, quiet kind of chapter that somehow hits harder than any battle scene.
Cinnabar Shadows Chapter 4: Pavek the Druid Templar - Dark Sun Retelling
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 4: Pavek the Druid Templar
After three chapters of scheming halflings, massacred cavern-folk, and a mysterious New Race woman meeting the Lion-King, we finally meet our main character. And he’s… weeding.
Return to Urik
This chapter is where we finally see the story through Akashia’s eyes, and it makes her way more sympathetic than I expected.
Thieves' World Turning Points: Final Thoughts on the Sanctuary Revival
Book: Thieves’ World: Turning Points Editor: Lynn Abbey Series: Thieves’ World New Series, Book 1 Publisher: Tor Books, 2002