After trudging through both books in the trilogy, I had no choice but to continue on with the War of the Souls trilogy. Dragons of a Vanished Moon is the last book in the series. For some reason, while reading this book, I now realize it for what it is: this series is not as good as I initially thought it would be. A little late, but I discovered it nonetheless. For some reason, I wasn’t that irritated with the previous two books (I actually gave them good scores on Amazon) as I am with the final one. The realization hits me that this series seems unorganized and rehashed with a whole lot of boring characters. I seemed OK with it in the beginning maybe because I was away from the Dragonlance world for so long but now the truth is hitting me in the face and in full force. Don’t get me wrong though. I don’t regret having read the series. I just came out very disappointed.

Let’s get the ending out of the way first. There is a satisfactory ending to the series but suffice it to say, many questions are still left unanswered! I understand by doing so it gives the readers something to think about but this book is the end of the series! There should be closure! While this isn’t really a deal breaker, it can irritate you for while because it deals with one of the main character in the series. You’ve read about her throughout the books and now at the end, you don’t know what the heck happened to her. I don’t want to spoil it but I’m sure you know who I’m talking about.

Cast wise, I don’t know if there is a single character I hate more from all the fantasy books I’ve read than Mina. Yes, I still don’t like her and won’t pretend that I do. After reading about her for three books now, she is absolutely the same as the first time around. Nothing has changed. Nothing! She is a vessel for Takhisis, the One God, and she does what she is told to do. That’s it. Why do people think her interesting? She is loyal to her God and has mysterious amber eyes that seems to trap you if you look into them. The only one redeeming action she did that made me respect her somewhat is when she did battle with the big red dragon. Mina is not the only one with a somewhat boring personality. Many of the other casts suffer the same fate. For example, Silvan had some redeeming qualities until he saw Mina and thought it was love at first sight. He then started chasing after her throughout the series like a man possessed. The shift then goes to Gilthias whose struggling to deal with the exiled Qualinesti elves. Gerard is a fine and loyal Solamnic Knight. That’s all you need to about him. Odilla was fun in the beginning but then became stale afterwards. Tas will always be Tas but he’s starting to get on my nerves even though he’s one of the more interesting characters. Palin and Dalamar are a shell of their former selves. That’s all you need to know of them.

The boring cast of characters could have been redeemed if only the story had a little more exciting parts to it. There’s just this strange feeling that nothing much really happens. Throughout the series, one theme doesn’t change and that is the amount of coincidences happening. There will be a lot, trust me. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation to all that what with time traveling, spirits and Gods in the picture but to me, it feels like the author didn’t put too much effort into planning out everything. If you also read carefully, there are a lot of plot holes or things that doesn’t quite make sense once you put your mind to it but I won’t spoil that for you here. Hopefully you’ll catch some of them while reading.

All in all, the War of Souls trilogy is a average read if nothing more. However, this series is far below the previous works of these two great authors. The Chronicle series (the holy grail of them all) is miles and miles beyond the War of Souls trilogy. But I’m sure readers who are reading this series have already read it and you can easily see why. This book feels rushed in the end and there is no solid ending. Well, there is one if you choose to ignore all the unanswered questions. Suffice it say, it will be another long while before I return back to the Dragonlance universe. The good news is that there are a lot of books and stories to read from that are not part of a three-book series or more.