This volume is an anthology of short stories as could be discerned by the name of the series: Tales. In the name of completeness, I'll give micro-reviews of the individual short stories here.

1. Daddy Dearest
After the Cataclysm, a librarian wanders about trying to record the tales and oral histories of Krynn before they are lost forever. He finds an old knight who tells him a tale of the evil a father does to his daughter.

2. Pictures Of You
A tragedy claims the loving husband of a young wife. She spends the rest of her life striving to be worthy of his love.

3. Hunting Destiny
A detailed history of the Darken Wood, the passing of the Heroes of the Lance and the redemption of guardians of the wood. I really liked this little piece.

4. Amber Alert, Krynn Style
A young messenger gets kidnapped. Tas gets kidnapped along with him. It's then up to Raistlin, Caramon, Tanis, Sturm and Flint to discover that Tas has been abducted, track them down and rescue them from a couple of bloodthirsty bandits.

5. Death Knight
A lone Solamnic knight is charged with the defense of the High Clerists tower. So he does the only thing he can do - decimate the Dragon Highlord's entire army. I really enjoyed this one as well - the ultimate sacrifice for one's duty.

6. Young Sturm
We have here the story of young Sturm's flight from Brightblade castle with his mother, her maid and a sergent at arms. They get captured by pirates and delivered into the hands of an evil mage who has a thirst for young, noble blood.

7. Winning Goldmoon
This is the story of Riverwind and Goldmoon's meeting and of Goldmoon's discovery of the True gods of Krynn. I thought this one was also quite good - aside from the rather one-dimensional feel of Loremaster and Hunting-sky.

8. Raistlin's Daughter
Just after surviving the Test, Raistlin and Caramon take shelter from a blizzard in an Inn. Joining them is a mysterious young woman who entrances young Raistlin. There is a way to remove the enchantment, but the price could be death... Quite enjoyable and a bit of a surprise ending, as well.

9. Silver and Steel
The tale of Huma's final victory over the Dark Queen. A tale, also, of the love shared between Huma and his silver-haired companion. A tale, also, of the sacrifice that those two made in order that the world should continue to live.

10. Blind Man's Letter
A veteran of the battle at the High Clerists Tower writes home to tell his younger brother of the true nature of battle and of war.

I thought there were several very strong stories here. There definitely wasn't the same set of Poe-esque shockers as in the first volume. There was more filling in of the details of some of the back history of characters, which I found quite interesting. All in all, well done in my view.

Read 9/2007 ( )

I bought this volume just to read the story, "Raistlin's Daughter," since he's my favorite character from the series. An almost perfect anti-hero. I was happily suprised to find almost all the stories were worth reading as well. Whenever Weis and Hickman are involved, the Dragonlance world seems to be better off. They edit the Tales series of books and nearly all have enough good stories to justify buying the book. ( )