Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
So we’re done. Fifteen chapters and an epilogue of Cinnabar Shadows. Time to step back and talk about the whole thing.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Pavek drifts in and out. He remembers fragments. Someone apologizing because there’s no piece of linen large enough to cover him head to foot. He remembers laughing at that. Remembers sunlight and food and sleeping under the stars because the halfling houses are too small for him.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 15. The climax. And it starts in the worst possible place: a dirt pit beneath the black tree’s roots.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 14 switches back to Pavek, and it introduces one of the best new characters in the book: Commandant Javed.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 13 opens with Ruari cringing at his companions. Zvain announced they have a map. Mahtra told the armed strangers they’re looking for halflings and a big black tree. So much for keeping their mouths shut.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
“Pavek was gone. Pavek was dead.”
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 11 starts with Cerk, and honestly, it’s the most revealing look we’ve gotten at Kakzim’s young apprentice. This little halfling has been underground, running from the fighting in the cavern, and he surfaces into daylight with one job: warn Brother Kakzim that the templars have found them.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
After nearly dying on the Codesh killing floor, Pavek and his companions get the royal treatment. Luxurious rooms, incredible food, hot baths. It should feel like a reward. Instead, it feels like the calm before something terrible. And they are right.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
This chapter is a ride. Pavek takes his crew into Codesh, the most dangerous slaughterhouse village on Athas, looking for a tunnel to the underground reservoir. What they find is Kakzim, a mob of butchers, and a fight that almost kills all of them.
We are done. Seventeen chapters, a whole lot of posts, and one ugly templar’s journey from corrupt bureaucrat to druid guardian. Time to actually talk about the book.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
This is one of those chapters that is quiet on the surface but full of weight underneath. Pavek takes possession of House Escrissar, the home of the dead high templar who tortured his friends. What he finds inside forces him to confront things no amount of sword practice can solve.
Fires are burning inside the ramparts. The survivors of Quraite are gathered around them, beaten down, grieving, barely holding it together. And then Hamanu of Urik walks through the trees.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
After the emotional bomb that was Chapter 6, this chapter slows down and lets Pavek sit with his thoughts on a ten-day kank ride across the Tablelands. And honestly, I needed the breather too.
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.
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.
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.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
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.
Chapter 14 is all Pavek, and it is the slow, quiet kind of chapter that somehow hits harder than any battle scene.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
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.
This chapter is where we finally see the story through Akashia’s eyes, and it makes her way more sympathetic than I expected.
Book: Thieves’ World: Turning Points Editor: Lynn Abbey Series: Thieves’ World New Series, Book 1 Publisher: Tor Books, 2002
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 3 opens inside Mahtra’s recurring nightmare, and it’s rough.
Chapter 12 opens with a sandal nudging Pavek in the ribs and a voice saying “It’s morning.” He groans. His head is full of bad memories from the night before. He argued with Akashia about zarneeka, then parked himself next to the Moonracer’s honey-ale barrel and drank too much.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 2 shifts us completely away from Kakzim and Codesh. We enter Urik itself, in the predawn hours, and meet one of the most unusual characters I’ve come across in fantasy fiction.
Chapter 11 is a quieter one. No poison. No midnight crises. Just Pavek grinding through druid lessons and slowly building a life at Quraite. But Abbey packs so much character detail into this chapter that it ends up doing more heavy lifting than the action scenes.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
The book opens with a bird’s-eye view. Literally. We see the city of Urik through the eyes of a soaring kes’trekel (a scaled bird native to Athas). The city looks like a giant sulfur growth rising from a green plain, its walls covered with murals of the same figure over and over: a powerful man with a lion’s head, bronze skin, black mane, and fierce yellow eyes that flash in the sunlight.
This chapter opens in the middle of the night with Akashia bolting out of her hut because Telhami summoned her in a dream. Not on purpose. Telhami was asleep and her subconscious worries reached out through the guardian’s magic and dragged Akashia out of bed. That’s how stressed the old woman is about Laq.
Book: Thieves’ World: Turning Points Editor: Lynn Abbey Series: Thieves’ World New Series, Book 1 Publisher: Tor Books, 2002
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
So I picked up Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey. It’s the fourth book in the Chronicles of Athas series, set in the Dark Sun world. If you’re not familiar with Dark Sun, you’re in for something different. This isn’t your typical swords-and-sorcery setting with lush forests and noble kings. No. This is a post-apocalyptic desert hellscape where magic has literally drained the life from the planet.
This chapter pulls a nasty trick on you. It starts with Zvain, not Pavek, and it’s one of the most disturbing scenes in the book so far.
The Tyr-storm hits them in the open.
Pavek is riding under the bone cargo rack on the soldier-kank when Ruari jabs him awake with his staff. Pavek grabs the wood, rams the other end into Ruari’s gut, and throws the staff away. “Do that again, half-wit, and you’ll need a crutch, not a staff.”
Pavek wakes up hog-tied inside a handcart rolling over terrible pavement.
His wrists and ankles are bound together behind his back and anchored to the cart itself. His limbs are stretched to the point of screaming. His hands and feet are completely numb. There is straw thrown over him, a cloth blindfold over his eyes, and the cold air of a night outside the walls of Urik.
Living with Zvain is a special kind of torture.
Every morning starts the same way. Pavek is trying to sleep, and Zvain is running his mouth. “What’s it going to be today, Pavek? Some more groveling and toe-kissing at the west gate?” The kid has perfected the art of the early morning insult. He calls Pavek a belly-crawler, a yellow-lover, a dust-licker. He questions his manhood, his courage, his pride. All before breakfast.
Pavek wakes up in total darkness with no idea where he is or how long he has been out. His left arm, which was rotting and useless last time he was conscious, is now pain-free and working again. But it is sealed in some kind of stone cast, and the room is pitch black. For a solid minute, the guy genuinely wonders if he is dead.
Chapter 4 hits different. Up until now Pavek has been a templar with problems. Now he’s just a man with nothing.
Chapter 3 opens with Pavek still tasting zarneeka. The numbness is gone but the bitterness lingers. So do the jeers from the other templars at the gate. He’s used to being laughed at. His pursuit of spell-craft, the way he haunts the archives studying scrolls he can never actually cast, makes him a running joke in the civil bureau. Big, ugly, dirt-poor templar with a romantic curiosity. That’s how they see him.
Chapter 2 picks up a few days later. The bruise from the orphan boy’s punch has faded. Pavek is back to his regular duties, transferring salt sacks in the customhouse, ticking off counts on a wax tablet. Just another day of grunt work for a third-rank Regulator.
Chapter 1 opens with a scene-setter that tells you everything you need to know about Athas. The twin moons have set. The sky is black. The heat of day has turned to bone-numbing cold. And the first thing Abbey tells us is the law of this world: nothing changes. What was will always be.
Book: Thieves’ World: Turning Points Story: Introduction Author: Lynn Abbey Series: Thieves’ World New Series, Book 1
So I picked up this old fantasy novel from 1994 and honestly? It hit different than I expected.
The Brazen Gambit by Lynn Abbey is the first book in the Chronicles of Athas series, set in the Dark Sun campaign world. If you’ve never heard of Dark Sun, let me fill you in. It’s a Dungeons & Dragons setting, but forget everything you think you know about D&D. There are no lush green forests. No friendly taverns with smiling barkeeps. No rain.
Book: Thieves’ World: Turning Points Editor: Lynn Abbey Series: Thieves’ World New Series, Book 1 Publisher: Tor Books, 2002
If you’ve never heard of Thieves’ World, here’s the short version. Back in 1979, editor Robert Lynn Asprin had a wild idea. What if you took a bunch of fantasy authors, gave them the same city to play in, and let them write stories that shared characters, locations, and consequences? What one writer did in their story would actually affect the world another writer was building in theirs.
So we’re done. Twelve posts covering one Forgotten Realms novel from 1997 that most people have never heard of. And I want to wrap up with why I think this book deserves more attention than it gets.
So that’s Planeswalker. Twenty-four chapters of a Phyrexian newt trying to save a broken god from himself, and in the end giving her life to finish what he couldn’t.
This is the payoff. Two chapters. Everything the book has been building toward lands here, and it lands in a way I genuinely did not expect from a D&D novel.
This is it. The final chapter. And it’s devastating.
The sun has just risen over the Kher Ridge. Xantcha and Ratepe are on one side of the mountain, waiting for Ratepe to recover from the three-step walk from Pincar City. Urza is already at the cavern. He’s sworn he won’t go after Gix until they arrive.
Everything has been building to the Sunglade. The scattered Cha’Tel’Quessir, the lurking Red Wizards, the ancient gods stirring beneath the forest floor. These three chapters are where it all crashes together, and the results are brutal.
Chapter 23 is the longest chapter in the book and it earns every page. This is the climax of the Efuan Pincar storyline, the screaming spiders storyline, and the Gix storyline all at once. Buckle up.
These three chapters are a lot. They cover Bro recovering from his arrow wound, falling for a woman who is secretly the most powerful wizard on the continent, losing more friends, and then we cut to Lauzoril having one of the most emotionally intense father-daughter scenes in any D&D novel. So let’s get into it.
Chapter 22 starts with a storm and ends with Urza casually dismantling the life Xantcha and Ratepe have built together. It’s a lot.
Three chapters. Three completely different vibes. A room full of the most dangerous wizards in Faerun. A queen strapping on leather armor. And a boy getting shot in the back with an arrow right after hugging his dad.
Chapter 21 is where everything the book has been building toward starts to crack open. Xantcha has to deal with what happened with Gix in the catacombs, and the truth she discovers at Koilos changes everything.
Bro finally made it to the Yuirwood. He’s walking through the forest he’s dreamed about for seven years. And it’s nothing like he remembers.
Wait. Let me clarify something about the chapter split here. Chapter 19 covered the journey from Serra’s realm through the multiverse and arriving at Equilor. Chapter 20 goes deeper into the Equilor visit and ends with their return to Dominaria.
Book: It’s About Squirrels… | Author: Lynn Abbey
So we made it through the whole story. Squirrels, ghosts, brownies, a fairy queen who can’t pronounce “electricity,” and a Rube Goldberg trap made of beer cups and silverware balanced on a rocking chair. What a ride.
Chapters 12 through 14 give us a dead father reunion, a sister intervention, and Lauzoril having a very bad day with his undead relatives. These are the chapters where every thread starts pulling tighter.
Chapter 19 is the “time passes” chapter. And a lot of time passes. We’re talking thousands of years compressed into one chapter. Lynn Abbey pulls it off, though.
Previous: The Phyrexian Portal Is Destroyed
Chapter 18 covers a lot of ground. Urza builds a new weapon. Months pass. Ratepe becomes a secret agent. And Xantcha walks straight into the demon she hoped was dead.
Chapters 9 through 11 are where the book shifts gears in a really satisfying way. We jump between three very different settings: Thayan spy games, the Simbul’s disastrous private chambers, and Lauzoril’s complicated home life. And honestly, these chapters are some of the most character-revealing in the whole book.
Book: It’s About Squirrels… | Author: Lynn Abbey
So we’re at the part where Nic decides to rescue a brownie from a dead hard drive using beer and Vienna sausages. I love this story.
Previous: Xantcha Reunites With Urza in Serra’s Palace
Chapter 17 drops us back to Dominaria and the aftermath of the ambulator battle. And it’s one of those chapters where three characters stand around a Phyrexian corpse and everyone learns something they didn’t want to know.
Book: It’s About Squirrels… by Lynn Abbey
So Nic is napping between resume emails when someone bangs on her door. Her first thought is that something happened to her parents. That’s the kind of headspace she’s in.
Chapter 6 opens with the Simbul standing over Bro in the Yuirwood, thumping her staff on the ground next to his head.
Previous: Colliding Islands in Serra’s Crumbling Realm
Chapter 16 is maybe the most emotionally devastating chapter in the entire book. Xantcha finally finds Urza. And then he tells her he’s done with her.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
Book: It’s About Squirrels… | Author: Lynn Abbey
So up to this point, the story has been weird but explainable. Squirrels frying themselves on a transformer? That’s just Florida wildlife being Florida wildlife. A dead hard drive? Bad luck. But in this section, Lynn Abbey pulls the rug right out from under you. And it happens on the side of a road with no sidewalks.
Chapter 3 is where this book goes from interesting to genuinely wild. We leave Bro and the Yuirwood behind and drop into a crypt in Thazalhar, eastern Thay. And we meet Lauzoril’s family.
Previous: Xantcha Wakes in Serra’s Realm
Chapter 15 is pure chaos after the slow burn of the previous chapter. Islands collide. Everything falls apart. And Serra’s idea of peacekeeping is basically a giant laser.
Before we hit the actual chapters, the book opens with two documents from Candlekeep. The first is a history of the Simbul, Alassra Shentrantra. The second is study notes about a forgotten goddess named Zandilar. Both are important, so let me cover them quick.
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 (Forgotten Realms) ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
We’ve walked through the entire Nether Scroll chapter by chapter. Time to step back and talk about the book as a whole.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
This is it. The final chapter. And Abbey opens it not with Hamanu, but with Ruari, the young half-elf druid, wedged into the corner of his bed, so drunk he thinks he might die. When a woman appears in his doorway, he literally thinks she’s Death come to claim him.
Book: It’s About Squirrels… by Lynn Abbey
So Nic calls the utility company. She’s lost power at exactly 9am for four days straight. Not a full blackout. Just a tiny hiccup. Barely enough to notice, really. Your microwave clock wouldn’t even blink. But her computer? Dead. Hard drive completely fried.
Previous: Summer Journey to Efuan Pincar
Chapter 14 throws us into a completely different setting and honestly, the tonal shift is jarring in the best way. We go from sword fights and Phyrexian ambushes to… an eternal sunset, golden grass, and a very unhelpful woman.
Book: It’s About Squirrels… | Author: Lynn Abbey
So here’s a story that caught me off guard. I picked up Lynn Abbey’s “It’s About Squirrels…” expecting something lightweight, maybe funny. And it is funny. But it’s also this sneaky little fantasy story that slips magic into the most unglamorous setting possible: a trailer park in dead-center Florida.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
This is the chapter that broke me. Fair warning.
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 (Forgotten Realms) ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
The final chapter opens with Druhallen putting one foot in front of the other. That’s literally how he describes it to himself. Pushing his companions through empty tunnels with a dying goblin on his back and the taste of violation in his mind.
So I’m starting a retelling series of a Forgotten Realms novel that almost nobody talks about. The Simbul’s Gift by Lynn Abbey. Published in 1997 as Book 6 of the Nobles series. And honestly, it deserves way more attention than it gets.
Previous: Urza Invades Phyrexia on His Dragon
Chapter 13 is where Planeswalker stops being a story about cosmic battles and becomes something more personal. And honestly? It’s better for it.
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 (Forgotten Realms) ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
Chapter 13 switches to Tiep’s perspective, and it’s the best decision Lynn Abbey makes in the entire book. What happens next is absolute chaos, and seeing it through a terrified teenager’s eyes makes everything hit harder.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
Chapter 13 opens with one of the most unexpectedly quiet moments in the book. Hamanu is in the Kreegills at sunset, weaving starlight between his fingers like a child playing with thread. For a few breaths, he forgets who he is. Just a man watching stars come out over mountains.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
Chapter 12 is the longest chapter in the book, and for good reason. It’s where everything converges. Hamanu has escaped Ur Draxa, barely survived his encounter with Rajaat, and now drifts aimlessly through the Gray netherworld with three days before the other champions close their noose around Urik.
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 (Forgotten Realms) ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
This chapter hurts. Not in a plot-twist way. It hurts because a good horse dies and nobody pretends it’s easy.
This is post 13 of a chapter-by-chapter retelling of “Planeswalker” by Lynn Abbey, Book II of the Artifact Cycle in Magic: The Gathering.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
So here’s what happened. Hamanu has been sitting in his workroom for three straight days without moving. Not sleeping. Not eating. Just writing his history and drowning in memories of the past. His loyal dwarf steward Enver finally breaks through the warded door with a loaf of bread and a room full of worried faces.
This is post 12 of a chapter-by-chapter retelling of “Planeswalker” by Lynn Abbey, Book II of the Artifact Cycle in Magic: The Gathering.
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 (Forgotten Realms) ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
Chapter 11 is where everything breaks down and gets rebuilt. Everybody’s secrets come out, everybody hits their lowest point, and by the end, they actually have something resembling a plan.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
Chapter 10 is the big one. This is where Hamanu becomes the champion, and where we see the full scope of what Rajaat did to him. It’s also the chapter where we watch the birth and end of the troll race through Hamanu’s eyes. Abbey pulls no punches here.
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 (Forgotten Realms) ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
Chapter 10 belongs to Tiep, and it’s the chapter that made me completely rethink this character.
This is post 11 of a chapter-by-chapter retelling of “Planeswalker” by Lynn Abbey, Book II of the Artifact Cycle in Magic: The Gathering.
This is post 10 of a chapter-by-chapter retelling of “Planeswalker” by Lynn Abbey, Book II of the Artifact Cycle in Magic: The Gathering.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
If Chapter 8 was a war chapter, Chapter 9 is the emotional core of this book. Abbey slows everything down and lets Hamanu sit with his own pain. It’s devastating.
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 (Forgotten Realms) ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
Chapter 9 finally gets us to Dekanter, and it does not disappoint.
This is post 9 of a chapter-by-chapter retelling of “Planeswalker” by Lynn Abbey, Book II of the Artifact Cycle in Magic: The Gathering.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
This chapter is a lot. Abbey throws crisis after crisis at Hamanu and doesn’t let up for a single page.
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 (Forgotten Realms) ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
Chapter 8 opens with something I genuinely appreciate about Lynn Abbey’s writing. Druhallen wakes up and just… thinks about retirement. He’s fantasizing about buying a little spell shop in a well-run town, marrying, maybe having kids. The man is pulling gray hairs from his beard and daydreaming about boring, predictable, wonderful normalcy.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
This chapter is split right down the middle. The first half is present-day Hamanu in his workroom, brewing a dangerous stealth spell. The second half is his memoir, and it is one of the best stretches of the entire book.
Book: The Nether Scroll | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
If you’ve ever played a D&D campaign where the DM puts the party through a miserable overland journey just to make them appreciate civilization, that’s this chapter. Except it’s actually good.
This is post 8 of a chapter-by-chapter retelling of “Planeswalker” by Lynn Abbey, Book II of the Artifact Cycle in Magic: The Gathering.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
We’re back in present-day Urik, and the chapter opens with Hamanu doing something surprisingly… normal. He’s sitting on his palace roof, half-listening to his dwarf steward Enver read a daily briefing scroll, and thinking about farming.
Book: The Nether Scroll | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
This chapter is where everything falls apart. And it’s completely Tiep’s fault. Sort of.
Previous: Xantcha Frees Ratepe From Slavery
The title of this post is a bit misleading, because Chapter 6 is actually about Xantcha’s past. Rat falls asleep by the dying fire, and while she watches over him with one hand on his chain, Xantcha’s mind goes back to Phyrexia again. This time, deeper.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
Book: The Nether Scroll | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
Remember how Rozt’a swore she’d show the goblin “the flat of her sword” if he came back? That lasted about six hours.
Previous: Xantcha Arrives in Efuan Pincar
This chapter is about two people who don’t trust each other trying to survive together. It’s also about what freedom actually means when you’ve lost everything.
Book: The Nether Scroll | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
So here’s where the family drama really kicks in.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
Previous: Xantcha’s Phyrexian Origins and the Sphere
Xantcha wakes up from her memories just in time to avoid crashing into a tree. That’s the kind of chapter opening that sets the tone for what’s ahead.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey | Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
A dust storm blows in from the Anauroch desert that night. It lasts three days. Hot as a fire pit, sharp with grit. The locals wrap their faces like desert nomads and tell the visitors helpful things like “This is nothing” and “You should have been here last year, we didn’t see the sun for twenty days.”
Previous: Xantcha and The Antiquity Wars
This chapter is almost entirely flashback, and it’s one of the best pieces of worldbuilding in Magic: The Gathering fiction. We get Xantcha’s full origin story, and Phyrexia has never felt more real or more horrifying.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey | Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
Fifteen years. That’s the time jump between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. One chapter ago, Druhallen was a teenager with a broken wrist swearing vengeance on a hilltop. Now he’s a grown man leaning against a rough-plank wall in a Zhentarim village called Parnast, and his wrist still aches when he thinks about Ansoain.
Previous: Urza Returns to Koilos After the Brothers War
Chapter 2 shifts the point of view to Xantcha, and the book immediately gets better for it.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King | Author: Lynn Abbey | Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey | Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
The book opens with two young wizards sitting on horses, watching other people fix a broken cartwheel, and gossiping. That’s it. That’s how we meet Druhallen and Galimer. And honestly? It’s a perfect introduction because it tells you exactly who these two are before anything dramatic happens.
Previous: Planeswalker by Lynn Abbey: A Magic The Gathering Retelling Series
Chapter 1 drops us right into Urza’s headspace, and honestly, it’s a rough place to be.
So here’s the thing. The Forgotten Realms has this massive shelf of tie-in novels, and most people know the big names. Drizzt. Elminster. The characters who show up on every “best D&D books” list. But there are entire series buried in that catalog that tell genuinely interesting stories, and the Lost Empires series is one of them.
Book: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King Author: Lynn Abbey Series: Chronicles of Athas, Book 5 Setting: Dark Sun (Dungeons & Dragons)
So you want to know what happens in Planeswalker by Lynn Abbey? Good. Because this book is one of those stories that sticks with you long after you close the cover.