....And so, I finally located (read: "found and dug out of deep
storage") my copy of "The Wayward Knights" yesterday, Book IV of
Green's Sir Pirvirt saga. And I re-read it after eight or nine years.
And on *the first damn page* of that book, there's a hard dating-lock
staring me right in the face -- 181 PC, the second novel occurring in
171 PC, Book III in 161 PC, and Book IV in (from what I'm reading) 158
PC, three years hence. So...there's the answer, and I have no earthly
idea why that book even got separated from the rest on my shelves
originally, but there you go.
Truth be told, looking over the timeline proper, I'm rather glad that
these books *do* take place around a century prior to the Cataclysm (as
opposed to the 280 PC dating some had proposed), as there would've been
a fair-sized gap in the chronicled histories between Doug Niles's
"Icewall" books and Chris Pierson's Kingpriest trilogy. What we need
now is an historical "Rise of Istar" historical series (preferably
penned by Pierson, or -- failing that -- Thompson and Cook) covering
Istar's barbarian era, the gradual cultivation of civilization there,
what the hell precisely occurred there during the Third Dragon War
(ending in 1018 PC), with the nation rising to world ascendancy a mere
two decades later.
It's a massive, unexplored "empty area" that exists within the DL
timeline, and one that -- in my opinion -- needs to be explored, and to
answer some of those major questions surrounding the exact
cir***stances of Istar's unprecedented, rapid-fire hegemony over
Ansalon a scant few years after Huma's death. It would be analogous to
covering the -- arguably less im****tant, yet no less well-executed --
history of Ergoth in the Thompson and Cook novels (and a few others),
but one far more vital to the history of Krynn in the grander scheme of
things.
Frankly, I'm utterly shocked that no one has even told this story yet,
and Pierson would be perfect for it, having (literally) written the
book on Istar itself, surpassing even Weis and Hickman's world-building
-- his development of a working Istarian church language, fle****ng out
its many previously-undeveloped regional cultures, and the deep history
of the church and nation overall. The series could hypothetically
climax with the crowning of the very first Kingpriest in 280 PC -- a
reasonable culmination, and with the potential for a decent, rousing
enough finale -- and could also bring to life a number of the
historical personages Pierson created as backstory for his trilogy.
Granted, I'm loving the hell out of his current Taladas novels right at
the moment -- he's clearly the best writer we've got working in the
Dragonlance stable -- but if he ever thinks about a return to the
pre-5A settings, this would be an ideal (and perhaps even triumphant)
story for him to tell.
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