Renegade Wizards by Lucien Soulban

As the third installment of the "Tracy Hickman presents..." series, Renegade Wizards by Lucien Soulban does not dissapoint! The first in the series was The Sellsword by Cam Banks and the second was The Survivors by Dan Willis. I personally had never heard of Lucien Soulban prior to this March 4, 2009 release, but fans are going wild already!

Here is a wonderful testament to this great addition in the Dragonlance series:

"Wow. I just finished the book. Lucien, I just want to say, it's 3:25 AM on a workday, and I have work in about 4 hours. I must say, riveting. Complex. It does wonderfully fill in a hole in Krynn's history. it was simply stunning. Could not put it down after I started reading it." - Weldon Chen (Dragonlance forums)

The following is the book description:

Before the War of the Lance, magic faced and fought its own demise.

The Journeyman is charged to use the ancient Anvil of Time to travel back along the river of time and find the lost stories that fell between the pages of the history books.

He finds Tythonnia, a young red robe learning magic in company with Ladonna of the black robes and Par-Salian of the white. The three are sent on an easy quest to find the leader of the renegade wizards, a man named Berthal, but if it was that simple, they wouldn't need mages. Instead, what started out easy turns into betrayal - magic against sorcery, the wizards against each other, and Tythonnia against herself. When Berthal finally unleashes his final attack, everyone knows that it won't end that simply.

Wizards of the Coast has provided a sample chapter on the product page of Renegade Wizards. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Dragons of the Hourglass Mage by Weis & Hickman

Dragons of the Hourglass Mage: The Lost Chronicles, Volume Three by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman is due to be released in Hardcover on August 4, 2009 (according to Amazon). I am sure this volume will prove to be a successful addition to the world of Dragonlance and further the Lost Chronicles series which started with Dragons of the Dwarven Depths (Book 1) & Dragons of the Highlord Skies (Book 2) back in 2006 and 2007.

I personally cannot wait to hear more in depth about Raislit Majere and why he dawned the black robes. I loved book 1 and 2 as it really fills in some of the gaps that Krynn offers. You have a lot of "OH!" moments when you realize why things happened the way they did in other novels or what was occuring whilst something else was. Truly amazing and I love then authors take on the task to "complete" their original works and flesh them out.

Here is an excerpt from the official press release on the Wizards of the Coast website:

Dragons of the Hourglass Mage is the concluding novel in the Lost Chronicles trilogy by Weis and Hickman and features many of the most popular characters from their extensive line of Dragonlance® books.

“Raistlin has always been my favorite character, yet even I didn’t foresee what would happen to him in Neraka until Tracy and I talked about it,” said Margaret Weis. “What he does is utterly true to his nature and absolutely right! I can’t wait to tell the story.”

“We are so pleased that we’ve reached agreement on the publishing schedule for this book,” said Casey Reeter, Vice President of Marketing for Wizards of the Coast. “We know how important this book is to the fans.”

“This is the book the fans have been waiting for,” added Tracy Hickman. “We’re delighted that we will be able to share it with them.”

Here is the most current book cover:

Here is the original artwork for the book cover created by Matthew Stawicki: