Realms of the Dragons II

Forgotten Realms: Anthologies #10

by Philip Athans (Editor), Kameron M. Franklin (Contributor), Jaleigh Johnson (Contributor)

An all-new anthology showcasing dragons of the FORGOTTEN REALMS
world and featuring new authors.
This anthology features a range of stories by authors new to the Forgotten Realms setting writing about dragons. It fleshes out many details from Richard Lee Byers's Year of Rogue Dragons trilogy and features art work by award winning artist Matt Stawicki.

Genres: Forgotten Realms, Fantasy, Anthologies, Fiction, Dungeons and Dragons, Short Stories, Collections

246 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 2005

About the author

I 100% support AUTHORS AGAINST BOOK BANS
https://www.authorsagainstbookbans.com

I give every book 5 stars in protest against the concept of star ratings in general and the ever-unfolding algorithm dystopia!

Philip Athans, an anti-AI, anti-book bans liberal, is the founding partner of Athans & Associates Creative Consulting (www.athansassociates.com), and the New York Times best-selling author of Annihilation and more than a dozen other fantasy and horror books including The Best of Fantasy Authors Handbook Vol. I 2009-2013, The Guide to Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Writing Monsters. Born in Rochester, New York he grew up in suburban Chicago, where he published the literary magazine Alternative Fiction & Poetry. His blog, Fantasy Author’s Handbook, is updated every Tuesday (https://fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com), less regularly on the FAH YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@FantasyAutho...), and you can follow him on Twitter @PhilAthans. He makes his home in the foothills of the Washington Cascades, east of Seattle.

Reviews

[Gerald Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘐𝘐, edited by Philip Athans, collects Realms stories about the massive, ruthless winged beings that rule the skies and the people who either befriend or defy them, written by new voices and old-time fan favorites.

“The Book Dragon” by Jim Pitrat perfectly captures the chaotic nature of the Red Wizards of Thay. We follow the Red Wizard Nusair Darkul, who serves the rich Samas Kul but acts as a spy and errand boy of Nevron, the Zulkir of Conjuration, one of the eight supreme rulers of Thay. Nusair is obsessed with artifacts related to dragonkind, and he has just found the exact location of the Scalamagdrion, a draconic tome said to be older than Netheril itself. With it as offering, Nevron will surely elevate his status, perhaps even bestow him his own tharch. Nusair entrusts the task of retrieving the tome to his apprentice, Saura, a Rashemi.

Saura has been slaving for Nusair for five years now, coveting nothing but the red robes. Nusair, however, will not be the first Red Wizard to welcome a Rashemi into their ranks; otherwise, he’ll be the subject of mockery among his peers. He doesn’t tell that to his beloved apprentice, of course, but deep down, Saura knows, and she’s been waiting for an opportunity to get the red robes through other means. And it seems like such an opportunity has just landed in her lap.

I was actually expecting Saura to encounter some level of difficulty in retrieving the book, some kind of adventure rife with danger and considerable threat to her life, but it appears that’s not really the point of the story, so with minor inconvenience in the form of the shop owner, whom she easily dispatches, Saura steals the book and presents it to her master.

When Nusair dispels the wards protecting the draconic tome and opens it, a dragon leaps from its pages, casts a silence spell so the human can’t utter spells of his own, and attacks the wizard. Red Wizards are known to carry rings and other baubles in their person that are imbued with magic that require no trigger words, and Nusair wears a ring just like those. With a twist of his wrist, the ring conjures balls of energy that leap toward the dragon. The book’s guardian takes all the bolts in and reflects it to the eyes-wide, shocked wizard, who briefly sizzles then expires. It retrieves the corpse and swoops back into the pages, leaving only the tattered robes and a trail of blood.

Saura smiles and picks up the coveted red robes, quite content that her plan works. Now all she has to do is offer the tome to Samas Kul, who cares nothing about parentage.

I think from an outsider’s point of view, it’s easy to assume that this kind of apprentice-eats-and-replaces-the-master mentality, this cycle of betrayal, is rather self-destructive, that Thay will one day cannibalize itself. But from the Red Wizards’ point of view, this is a proven practice that ensures they breed new and stronger practitioners of the Art. And this story mirrors that same notion.

*****

If you’ve reached this far into my review despite my spoiler warning and if you plan to read this anthology, I’m also assuming you already the Year of Rogue Dragons trilogy by Richard Lee Byers; this anthology is a complementary material to that series. If you haven’t, then read it first to get some context (it’s a very entertaining trilogy too). The story “The Strength of the Jester” by Murray J. D. Leeder, in particular, has a direct connection to the Rage. We follow the elf Khalt and his dragon friend Trinculo. They are to meet another dragon, Chalintash, to discuss about the Rage, a high magic elven ritual that plagues the dragons, sending them to frenzy and utter madness. Except by the time they meet Chalintash, the dragon is already lost to the Rage, and he attacks the town of Beregost and its people. Trinculo is left with no choice but to fight his friend Chalintash, and what ensues is one of the best aerial dragon battles you’ll ever read. Leeder definitely knows his stuff. As Trinculo struggles, Khalt joins the fray; he fires an arrow that hits the Rage-stricken dragon at a point where his wings meet his body. The joint effort of Trinculo and Khalt eventually pays off; they slay Chalintash.

Trinculo and Khalt fly to Evermeet to seek an audience with the queen and learn more about the Rage and, hopefully, how to stop it. It is a shot in the dark, for after all, the Rage was supposedly crafted a couple of millennia ago, and knowledge of its existence might have been lost in time (or worse, suppressed, for the elves may see it rather shameful). As they are on their way to Evermeet, Trinculo criticizes the elves: “It says something of the elf mind that would design [the Rage]. To exalt themselves at the expense of all others.” Khalt can only apologize on behalf of his ancestors. But he notices that Trinculo doesn’t let up on the subject, and at one point the dragon laughs, the mirthless, maniacal kind. It pains Khalt to admit, but his friend dragon is now lost to the Rage too, and there’s only one thing he needs to do…

I really like how Leeder portrays the friendship between Khalt and Trinculo. It also makes the ending more meaningful—and painful.

*****

While these two are my favorites, the other stories in the anthology are just as entertaining, poignant, and quite memorable. 4/5.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this set of stories better than the first one. Most of these stories were darker and more entertaining than its predecessor. Easy to get into and a super quick read.

[Jeff Jellets · Rating 3 out of 5]

’I’m all for dragon slaying, but can we really trust this heroine o’ yers?’

Rounding out The Year of Rogue Dragons series is a second anthology which (giving credit where credit is due) features a crop of new writers to the Forgotten Realms milieu. I like the new talent showcase aspect of the collection and, taken on their own merits, all the stories are entertaining, if not entirely remarkable.

My favorites include de Bie’s The Hunting Game which, though it owes a nod to Richard Connell, deftly captures the feel and banter of your average band of Dungeons & Dragons adventures (in a tale that was both bloody and sexy in all the right places). I also dug Pitrat’s The Book Dragon with its feuding wizards and culminating spat of vengeance and Jones’ The Woman Who Drew Dragons because who doesn’t like to spend time in a tavern? Honorable mention to Stroh’s The Road Home; I could have spent a whole novel in the ‘Company of the Chimera’ with its right bastard boss Tombli. This is a case where we really didn’t need a dragon; Stroh’s humanoid characters could have carried the story on their own.

The BIG problem is that like its predecessor, Realms of the Dragons II includes only ONE story that actually connects to the series that supposedly inspired it. Murray J.D. Leeder’s The Strength of the Jester is the volume's best tale – again, in my opinion -- not just as a cleverly-constructed story of betrayal, but also because it aptly captures the spirit of the main novels and nicely fills-in a little crack from the original tales (namely … why did nobody ask the elves?). It’s also the only story in the whole volume that even mentions The Rage – the casus belli for the whole dang line of books – and that feels a bit like cheating.

Compulsive story readers like myself will probably find it impossible not to finish off their Year of Rogue Dragons obsession with this, the last entry in the series. And while the stories will keep you interested, unfortunately Realms of the Dragons II is hardly essential reading.

[Stuart Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was closer to 2 1/2 stars really. There were at least 2 or 3 stories that were way too short or I could have written a much better ending for. These stories were interlaced with a few good stories that had merit. I think that perhaps when reading this I may have been slightly biased by the fact that I did not recognize any of the authors, but I don’t think my judgement about the stories themselves is inaccurate. Yes, I am aware that there is only so much you can do in a short story, but the benefits of creating a short story framework and using that to advantage outweighs the negatives in my opinion, and several of these stories failed in just the framework concept alone.

[Bernardo Blue · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's very hard to make dragon stories this boring, but the authors skillfully mastered this challenging task.

Yeah I'm salty, but come on, not even 1 good story among these?

[Jonathan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I generally want to say something positive about a book, but I'm hard pressed to do so here. The best stories in this anthology were forgettable at best; the worst ones made almost no sense. The original "Realms of the Dragons" included a story about characters from the trilogy as well as some of the Realms' most famous denizens: Erevis Cale, Artemis Enteri, Mirt the Moneylender, Talbot Uskevren, etc. We don't get anything like that here. Although the tone of this anthology is darker, the authors never really capitalize on that because you spend most of your time just trying to figure out the details of the plot. To make matters worse, WotC advertises the book as having 272 pages (already pretty low), but only 246 pages contain new stories: the last 26 pages of the book are previews of other books! In other words, you can safely skip this one without missing a thing.

[BooksBooksandmoreBooks69 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't see that coming.

It was ok. But I won't bother with anymore of the series