A Man With An Agenda

What gives? 'The Dreaming Dark' was the flagship trilogy for the Eberron setting in Dungeons and Dragons. I enjoyed 'The City of Towers' and 'The Shattered Land' and was looking forward to finally reading the conclusion. I expected there to be some loose ends, an open ending of sorts to make way for numerous sequels. Instead we have a...what? A failed artistic maneuver?

There is a resolution to their quest, but the characters themselves are adrift. And no follow up whatsoever until Baker's 'Son of Khyber', and that only partial. TSR, and Wizards of the Coast dutifully follows the tradition, never stinted on the quantity of its tie-in novels. In five years thirty nine novels were published. Seems like plenty of space to wrap up some loose ends to me. But they don't. That is why I mostly stay away from these tie-ins. The nerd in me rages at every breach of continuity. Rages so hard.

My obvious problems with the ending aside, I did enjoy spending more time with the characters even if they were divorced from the setting I'd been most interested in exploring. Dain and company have a long way to go before they can return home. Forced to flee to another plane after the conflict at the end of 'Shattered Land' they still must find a way to foil the plans of the Dreaming Dark and get home. So, go on and read it if you've already started the trilogy, but you might just be better off avoiding all three books entirely since the characters are abandoned.

The Dreaming Dark

Previous: 'The Shattered Land'