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I read this book about 15 years ago, so it is that old at the very least.

I remember it was a Dungeons and Dragons novel. I'm not sure about the main characters, but there was a party of adventurers and at some point they meet a scientist/inventor(?) who owns some sort of flying machine.

They travel to a different planet (I think) and meet gnomes, glass ants and sentient trees... I might have some of those details confused, possibly glass trees.

Does anyone know what this is?

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  • I know your an old hand round here but worth taking a look at this guide (if you haven't already) to see if it can jog your memory.
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    May 14, 2018 at 9:22
  • @TheLethalCarrot I know that's definitely on the vaguer end of the spectrum but that's about as good as I can come up with right now... if anything comes to mind I'll definitely update the question, thanks.
    – Daft
    May 14, 2018 at 9:27
  • seems something that would relate to the Spelljammers setting, but with so few detail I can't really be sure.
    – SPArcheon
    May 14, 2018 at 9:35
  • Could it be any of this? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelljammer#Novels
    – SPArcheon
    May 14, 2018 at 9:35
  • Eberron is a D&D setting with a magical steampunk feeling including trains and flying machines.
    – aloisdg
    May 14, 2018 at 14:14

1 Answer 1

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You're probably thinking of the Dragonlance novel, Darkness & Light.

Cover of *Darkness & Light*

Darkness and Light begins in the town of Solace at the time the companions decide to pursue rumors of war and embark on their own personal quests for five years. Sturm Brightblade and Kitiara Uth Matar both decide to go north to Solamnia to learn more about their families.

Shortly after they leave Solace, they encounter a group of gnomes who are in the final stages of building a flying ship. The two companions decide that taking the flying ship to Solamnia would be much faster than on horseback or walking, so they assist the gnomes in finishing the ship. The flying ship is a success—but too much of a success, as mechanical problems lead the ship up and up until it eventually touches back down on the red moon Lunitari.

This message board post mentions the glass ants as well:

I love gnomes. I love airships. I love the giant glass ants, and the crusty pudding plants, and the magically inclined swashbuckling elves and the tower of dragon eggs, and the trip to sturm's home, and the meal sturm eats with the random mercenaries where he helps make stew by cutting up meat and adding flour to the pot, and they tell him that he's not baking bread here, and i love calculating the exact number of rasins in muffins, and the making of language from birdwhistles and and and.

Darkness and Light takes awesome dragonlance concepts and turns it into a fun romp of an adventure, and it makes me happy every single time i read it. My copy is so worn that the only way you can tell what it is is by the spine color. Yeah, it's noncanon or whatever, but i don't give a crap. I'll easily put D&L over any other dragonlance book any day of the week.

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  • 1
    That's it! Sturm and Kitiara, those names bring back some very old memories!! Great work!
    – Daft
    May 14, 2018 at 9:40
  • ^_^ I read that one as a kid. Gnomes and airships was suggestive, and I vaguely remembered the glass ants as well.
    – FuzzyBoots
    May 14, 2018 at 9:41
  • And it's Volume 1, in a series. Brilliant, I thought it was a standalone story. I'll have to read the whole series. Nice one.
    – Daft
    May 14, 2018 at 9:53
  • Ah. It's a loosely connected set of interquels explaining what the Companions were up to between quests. And possibly non-canon. But fun.
    – FuzzyBoots
    May 14, 2018 at 10:11
  • While Preludes is a series, each of the books deals with a different set of characters, so there isn't much overlap. They are even by various authors, not the same one or two throughout, so the quality varies quite a bit.
    – Michael W.
    May 14, 2018 at 16:30

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