- Mass Market Paperback: 316 pages
- Publisher: Wizards of the Coast; Reissue edition (1 Feb 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 078691324X
- ISBN-13: 978-0786913244
- Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 10.9 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,011,525 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Covering the participation of the Qualinesti nation in the chaos war and its leader Gill the son of Tanis the famed hero of the lance. When the armies of chaos descend on Qualinesti. Gill must overthrow those who are trying to control him and face up to his own responsibilities as speaker of the sun. For those who are interested in gathering knowledge of different nations during the chaos war then it is a must buy. But for those who are just looking for a good read I would advise looking else where as this book never really took hold and just plodded along until reaching an unconvincing conclusion. There were some good bit in there but these were overshadowed by the book's poor pace.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
25 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Good plot, but what about the characters?
11 April 1999
Format:Mass Market Paperback
As a Dragonlance book, The Puppet King is one of the better ones. The story fits into the Dragonlance saga after "The Sacrifice" in the Second Generation, alongside Dragons of Summer Flame, and before the Fifth Age trilogy. Douglas Niles' strength seems to lie in planning involved and interesting military plots and tactics, and he continues that tradition here. The Puppet King reads like a chess game, with devious political plots being hatched left and right, and battles with smart manouevers lovingly described.
The drawback is that the characters become almost nothing more than chess pieces; two-dimensional figures who are armed only with enough characterization to carry out the plot. Douglas Niles was working with Dragonlance characters that Dragonlance fans have encountered elsewhere before, and it won't take too long to notice that readers get a better picture of what motivates Gilthas in a short story like Weis and Hickman's "The Sacrifice," than from the entire novel of The Puppet King. Also, the Puppet King is the first time Porthios has been given so much limelight in any book, but Niles hardly offers any new and interesting insight on the character. The antagonists like Rashas and Konnal were also two-dimensional, even maddeningly so, because most of the book describes their evil machinations without revealing enough of why they should be that evil and unwise.
All in all, the Puppet King does do a good job of describing the events in Qualinesti and Silvanesti before and during Dragons of Summer Flame. Readers who were wondering how these two areas of Krynn weathered the Chaos War will have their questions answered here.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A very good, well written book
15 Dec 1999
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Niles brings you right into action at the start of the book. I was immediately interested. Niles also made the bad guys so bad and annoying you wish you could just enter the book and slap them around. It is very well written. Lots of detail. The only semi-bad thing I notcied was how Porthios seemed to always defeat impossible odds. Douglas Niles wrote about Porthios and made him into a good charecter, when before he always seemed kind of mean and grouchy. I would have liked to hear more at the ending about what the elven nation was like after they won the war. The way that Niles wrote the battles make them intense and they seem to flow. He wrote the battles especially well.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Surprisingly Good...
22 Nov 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This is easily the best written dragonlance book I've read in a long time, and even more easily the best book of the Chaos War Series. I mean it was just greatly done, excellent job by Douglas Niles. The action scenes were well put together, good word flow, description, everything was great! Very surprising for a Chaos War book, but I'm not complaining about that.
My only complaint is that things died too easy, but hey I can live with that.
Three of my favorite things were: the way it was set up, most DL books are chaotic but this one was well ordered with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Great Information on the elves, tons of things on how the Senate is held, how Qualinost is set up, good job there. And last, Niles was able to keep the characters (Gilthas, Alhana, Porthios, etc.) true to the way Weis and Hickman wrote them. He didn't advance the characters much, but he did keep them true, and that's more than I can say for most DL authors.
Final Thought: If you only buy one of the Chaos War Series Books then buy this one. Just make sure that you read "The Second Generation" by Weis and Hickman first, there's a short story in there that goes hand in hand with this one.
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