The Puppet King

by Douglas Niles

Treason within, war from without. Torn asunder by the nightmares of a mad king, the elven realm of Silvanesti has nearly been restored to its former grandeur. But the elf Porthios, returning to his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 078691324X
• ISBN13: 9780786913244
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Length: 316 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.3" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

A rich and exciting read...

"The Puppet King" but Douglas Niles is a book full of action, politics, exitement, and everything else you could possibly want in a Dragonlance novel. This book is strangely set up, being that it is told like a story, but that doesnt take away from the read. The story itself follows many different points of view. It follows the exiled elf, Porthios. It follows the young and troubled Speaker of the Suns, Gilthas. And even follows the thoughts of a massive green dragon.This book is full of Dragonlance goodness. Not only is the story an exciting read, but the characters are nicely developed. This book is set during the Chaos War, The same time as Margeret Wies'and Tracy Hickman's great book "Dragons of Summer Flame." It is nice to see the inner workings of the elven society, and see heroes rise up from unlikely places. This book is a must for any Dragonlance fan to read and enjoy.

For a book that is not about Raistlin, it's really good

To be honest, wasn't expecting much from this book. I only read it because I was hoping for more info about how Qualinesti handeled the Choas War. I was really inpressed. The plot is excellent, and apparently, I was the only one who liked the characters. Gilthnas was surprisingly well written, but I would have liked to see more emotion in him. I really like the parts about Gilthnas and his Kagonesti wife. I reccommend this book to everyone.

Surprisingly Good...

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.

Good all around book...

Well I have started reading these "Chaos Wars" books, "The Doom Brigade" being the first, this one the second. But as for TPK, this was an excellent book from beginning to end. It is actually told in "flashback" mode, but the only evidence of this is that the story tellers comment at the end of most chapters, which I think is a very nice touch. It is split into 3 sections, which is also nice because it gives the book a "larger" feel that what it is. Very action packed, and the characters are well developed. Overall a nice read. Only thing I didnt like was that it was pretty short (~300 pages). Im used to those R. Jordan books that are so long and detailed. There were definitely areas that Niles could have wrote more on, but I'm not going to hold that against him one bit. 2 thumbs up.

Now why can't all non-Weis-Hickman DL books be like this?

When I started this book, I never really expected it to be SO great because most of the books that are not main books for the Dragonlance series are not to good, but this book rivals some of the Chronocles and Legends. Gilthas became one of my favorite DL characters in this book, but when I first read about him in The Second Generation I hated him. The plot was exciting and left you wanting more. This book has the extreme priviledge of being one of the most worn and frayed on my bookshelf and I've had for less than a year!