The Druid Queen

Forgotten Realms: Druidhome #3

by Douglas Niles

Restored to his throne, King Tristan Kendrick must confront the fearful costs of his rescue from the Coral Kingdom. One of his daughters suffers tragically from the curse of an evil god, while the other must face a decision that will chart the destiny of the kingdom.

At the same time, near the heart of Gwynneth, a new evil stirs...

Genres: Forgotten Realms, Fantasy, Fiction, Dungeons and Dragons, Science Fiction Fantasy, Collections, Ebooks

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Douglas Niles is a fantasy author and game designer. Niles was one of the creators of the Dragonlance world and the author of the first three Forgotten Realms novels, and the Top Secret S/I espionage role-playing game. He currently resides in Delavan, Wisconsin with his wife, Christine, and two Bouviets, Reggie and Stella. He enjoys playing his guitar, cooking, and visiting with family.

Reviews

[Kevin Zuech · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have not been a fan of any of the books from the Moonshae trilogies. This book was no different. Oddly I like all of the characters a lot but the stories are just way over the top. I know these books are writing about truly heroic tales but these just haven't gotten my attention. I loved the Maztica trilogy so it isn't Douglas's style. I haven't looked through all the FR books published after this one so if there are more with these characters I would still read them since I really do like the characters he has created.

[Cesare Bartolini · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is definitely better than the previous book (which was a major failure in my opinion), but it has a flaw that cannot put in on par with the first installment.

Douglas Niles goes back to doing what he does best: writing a story with several parties converging in a single plot. He does this remarkably well, as it often happens, without creating any significant confusion like some authors do.

The plot is good and quite original for D&D standards. While the second book takes over directly from the ending of the first one, this book takes on a novel plot, starting with something that had not been introduced before (apart from Talos's plotting which is sort of the general background for the whole trilogy).

The conclusion is quite expected, given the evolution of one of the major characters in the whole trilogy. Although, I must say, the author fails at any attempt to portray the characters' emotions. The lack of emotional development appears to be almost essential to any D&D book.

After the botches of the previous book, Douglas Niles again proves to be very careful in following the game rules. There is a number of spells and special occurrences that are described in a way that is very satisfactory for any player.

The real problem with this book, the one thing that takes one star down in my opinion, is something which has become very annoying. In the previous book, Tristan had been saved at the last moment while about to be killed by Coss-Axell-Sinioth. I found it a bit of an extreme deus ex machina, but after all Coss-Axell-Sinioth decides to kill Tristan only after his minions in the sea have been repeatedly thwarted, and the Moonshae crew is coming for him. In this book, Tristan is again saved at the very last moment not once, but twice in the space of a few pages, first by the arrival of the dwarves with Hanrald and Brigit, and shortly after by the arrival of the human armies with Alicia and Keane. Considering that the three parties had departed separately and gone different ways, even though they were aiming for the same destination, the fact that not two but three groups arrive with the perfect timing to save Tristan twice is too much for me.

It is also a bit unclear why a certain character kills another certain character at the very beginning of the book. If there were any reason beyond the fact that Keane was going to ask him for help, then it is not explained in the book. If, on the other hand, the reason was exactly the fact that Keans was going to look for his help, then it doesn't make any sense, because the killer doesn't seem to expect Keane's visit. So maybe that one is a bad plot hole.

[Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like Douglas Niles's books overall. I like his prose, he creates moderately interesting characters (for pulp fantasy paperbacks), and evokes physical environments effectively, whether they be the mix of rugged highlands, coasts and untamed nature of the Moonshae islands, or the humid jungles of Maztica in another of his series. I could truly appreciate the beauty of the Moonshaes as written here. Unfortunately, he falls short in plot structuring at times, and this has marred many otherwise enjoyable books of his. In The Druid Queen for at least the third time in his nine Forgotten Realms novels, we see multiple forces, good and evil, large and small, taking separate journeys that eventually converge on a big climax involving a god or gods or their avatars. I must say that this was handled much more smoothly here than in his earlier books, and had I not read those first it might not have stood out as a tired plot. Really, I found most of this book quite enjoyable. But then, I reached the end...

Thirty pages from the end of the book, I was thinking, "Gee, there sure is an awful lot that needs to happen still", with all that was built up to that point. Twenty pages from the end, I was still thinking the same thing. Fortunately, the next eighteen pages delivered a satisfying, tense, action-packed conclusion. The last two pages (I am estimating the numbers here, don't quote me) leave a number of huge, practically existential questions and concerns unaddressed, such as (major book spoilers here, don't click it unless you mean it):

-the Peaksmasher, a mountainous demi-god who could destroy the whole island chain by whim or carelessness, is just left standing there once he frees himself from bondage. No one cares to ask "what will we do about him?" despite literally standing at his enormous feet.
-there is extremely little concern that the princess just murdered her power-crazed sister. Maybe a little mourning before moving on to your final plans for the rest of your lives and the entire kingdom, mom and dad?
-the love triangle between Alicia, Brandon and Keane is obviously resolved and Brandon is totally cool that it's not him. There was some implication earlier that Alicia and Brandon had a little talk, as witnessed from a distance by another uninvolved character, but this was very vague.
-less crucial, Hanrald having a sad in a touching scene that gets little notice by the rest of the crew.

Needs more denouement. Seriously, the book would be so much stronger with another ten to twenty pages to process all of this stuff. It took six books (the original Moonshae trilogy plus this one) to build up to this, I would think the author would have liked to take more time to say goodbye to his characters. Was there a firm publishing deadline to meet? Did the author suddenly have other life matters that compelled all of his time? Did this book simply need a better editor to identify this glaring weakness? There was certainly room for a few more pages, as other Forgotten Realms novels published in the same era clocked in at up to 30 pages longer. Perhaps one day I will meet the author and I can ask him. Currently I harbor a hope that some of the Forgtten Realms short story anthologies that I have not yet read may contain stories to follow up on some of these characters.

The other major failing of the whole trilogy is Deirdre's character treatment. As the other princess of the kingdom, she was raised with the same love and resources and could have been developed as a character with as much interest as Alicia, even in opposition to her. Instead, she is merely a tool of evil forces throughout the trilogy, used and discarded, with no personal motivation displayed other than a shrill, desperate need for power, no matter what she gave up of herself to get it. Even this could have played better with some appropriate background, but this was not the case. Three times, her family remained incredibly dense to her status until the very end, rendering her a victim of their cluelessness as much as to scheming gods and others. I thought this treatment was a failure of potential.

[Sherrey Worley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will rate this final novel following the Kendrick family a four out of five because I thoroughly enjoyed the novel! However, I did not like the ending as much as I have a couple of the other novels. I wish that Douglas Niles had gone a bit more into detail about the ending, but the rest of the content was very satisfactory.
I also did not super appreciate how the Alicia love triangle story ended. As a reader, I knew from about 1/4 of the way through the second book of her story that she would not have ended up with Brandon and I think there should have been more interaction with Keane.
Douglas Niles has become one of my favorite fantasy authors and I greatly appreciated the Moonshae stories.

[PRJ Greenwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

While being as easy to read and digest as what came before, this series ends with a gaggle of tragic events that pose more questions than answers. That's all well and good for most stories, but not for these tightly-plotted pulp novels, which are more expositions of the fantasy world of Faerun than they are anything else.

Further, it ends rapidly, hastily tying up every plot thread there is before the novel (and series) concludes. To my knowledge, there are no more novels in the Moonshae series, so one will have to make do with the decidedly inconclusive character arcs some of the players here experienced.

[Mark Adkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed with this book. I felt it was not a satisfying conclusion to the series. The ending felt rushed and I thought the author did not do a good job handling the character of Deirdre (in both this book and throughout the series). It did not seem very satisfying her turning out the way she did. The love triangle was also an annoying aspect of the book.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was amazing from the beginning, but I expected more from the end.

[Benjamin Hesdorf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this novel could have been better by certain passages being longer and covering more details, other than that I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. I'd recommend the Druidhome trilogy.

[The Batman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somehow feels the last 20 pages tell 200 pages worth of story. The original moonshae trilogy had more heart gripping scenes. Both had characters you come to appreciate by the end.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one started out really slowly. And after the epic of the book before, it seemed a little less than exciting. I gotta say, I was feeling better about Niles's writing with the first two books in this series, but this one kinda' let me down. It also brought to light something that I didn't like about the entire series; the character Derdrie. From the begining of the three books you know that she is going to become an evil force to be reconed with, and that eventually, her family will have to deal with her....and after you understand that, her character plays such a minor role throughout the story, only arriving at the climax to remind you that she is still around and becoming more and more warped and powerful. Also, Niles just keeps adding new gods to the same plot structure...this makes stories rather predictable...

As always, I know I keep writing scathing reviews, and I don't really mean to be so harsh. And you can see that I keep reading these books, so something in there keeps me entertained. I will add that there is a battle sequence in this book that lasts several chapters and definitely kept me enthralled.

[Ward G · Rating 3 out of 5]

After racing to get to the finish.
The final novel, and the pay off. Just did not seem worthy of the rest.

It seemed as if, maybe author had so much more planned. Then told end it now.
The ending, just does not satisfy.
A lot of great points of plot. Plus what could be.
Yet just did not seem realized.

Ending seemed a poor wrap up.
Also including a rather pointless, and meaningless. Death of a main, fave character.
It served no purpose.

Enjoyed most of the trilogy. Yet as you can see by my rating.
The endings, just did not do justice. To the build up.

A decent read, keeps you turning pages.
Then the finish leaves a bad taste, so to speak.
Least it did for me.

[Ronald Wilcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miles is one of my cavorts authors writing in the Forgotten Realms setting. In the concluding book in this trilogy set in Moonshae, the firbolgs (giants) and trolls team up to obtain a sacred artifact, a silver and diamond axe. They begin to slaughter humans and dwarves so the king of the Ffolk of Moonshae in collaboration with his family members and friends must stop the evil group before they resurrect the God of the Firbolgs. Throw in a cleric of the New Gods who is trying to bring his diety into the isles and you have a nice adventure.

[Greg Strandberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm bumping this up to 2-stars, and as anyone that's read my reviews of the other books in this series, I just didn't care for this series that much.

It's on the Moonshae Isles, a different area of Faerun that's just not as exciting, especially around the tail end of the '80s.

So why did I read Book 3 then? Because when I get a series I read it all, and I won't apologize for that, anymore than I'd apologize for reading all the books I bought, even if some of them sucked ass.

This one did not suck ass, it just dragged a little.

[Gustav Grotius]

Was a good book, nice completion to the series.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent fantasy story. I love the Moonshaes. =)