When I was a lad my father would read to me. This grew within me a fond appreciation for narrative and storytelling. He would read sci-fi and fantasy, nothing to "Heavy Metal" for a young child, but certainly material that was written with an adult reader in mind. Fast forward to the 6th grade, I've always loved reading, was in advanced reading classes and whatnot. I'm browsing through a fantasy booksection at some long defunct bookstore chain in a mall (this was late 90s, I'm that old) and I stumble across a book that is the first in a series, and looked super fantasy and D&D like. Exactly what I was looking for. So began my journey through the Sundering, the 4 elemental realms, the deadly labyrinth and finally, the 7th gate with tattooed Haplo, his trusty dog, and bumbling studdering Alfred. Both of them demigods.
During my middleschool classes I began to read the first of the series, Dragon Wing. It was confusing at first, as the stories would jump from character to character as the chapters progressed. I was unsure who the main character even was, thinking it was someone named "Hugh the Hand". (awesome name btw). Once I got through the book, it was slowly starting to click in my young brain. I got my hands on the 2nd in the series, Elven Star, and poured through the pages. The story was starting to move and make sense, and an overarching narrative was forming in my mind.
I won't go into huge amount of detail, as I really recommend reading the 7-novel series if you are a fan of high fantasy with wizards, elves, dwarves n such. A short synopsis and possibly spoilers alert would be you take modern day earth with magic coming back. Two schools of magic branch out and a war occurs between the 2 races of demigod magic users. One race wins, imprisons the other race, earth is wrecked and so the winning race of magic users recreate reality. Afterwards, they disappear mysteriously and reality starts falling to ruins. The imprisoned demigod race finally break out of their labyrinth-prison to figure out what's going on.
The story follows a character named Haplo and his dog. Won't say too much but his dog is vital to the story. Haplo is a Patryn, one of the 2 races of demigods. He is exploring the Sundered realms, starting with the air realm. Haplo's magical ability comes from the runes that were tattooed across his body at birth. At the end of each book, the authors go into great detail explaining how the runic magic systems work.
I read this series as a kid, and I've reread it about 3 times. I know it well enough that I will probably never need to read it again, but I really highly recommend giving it a go if you are into high fantasy. The authors go to great lengths to try some really interesting things, such as each book has things like sheet music, poetry and runic magic system descriptions in the back. While it took me a few weeks to read the first book as a young teen, it took me one afternoon to read the last. I was engrossed in the storyline. There is a point in the last book where I cried. It was so very good, and for my first multi-novel fantasy series, it holds an extra special place in my heart.
Maybe it is just nostalgia that hits me when I think about this storyline and bookseries. Then again maybe not as this is Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman we are talking about. These two are legendary fantasy authors of numerous series such as Dragonlance and other incredible collections. Speaking of Dragonlance it just so happens there is exciting upcoming news in store for 2021. It seems, they are far from being done with it.
