DragonLance Chronicles

[Brian G Turner]

I read the big three together in a single volume...a looooong time ago.

From what I remember...it's more the "young and fun" sort of book. After all, attacked by a giant slug? I also specifically remember reading of a city being destroyed - then realising that the place had absolutely no sense of culture or identity, therefore I didn't really care (it was just buildings). Sometimes I lost track of what was going on...and sometimes there seemde to be far more than was necessary to the plot - perhaps even in spite of the plot.

Still, there were some good moments in it, specifically the great character of Raistlin. You don't forget him.

Anyway, I'd liked it enough to buy the Time of the Twins trilogy, and also three of the short stories...but then the rampant commericalism stopped me.

I saw that there really wasn't going to be an end to it all, and I had no intention of buying into that.

There also wasn't enough of a world to explore in the original trilogy anyway - it was essentially an extended AD&D session, with world-building tacked on as an afterthought.

I read some of the short stories. I never read the Twins trilogy - my friends told me everything of importance that happened in Twins, so I never bothered - and Oxfam got an unread set.

Anyway, that's my personal appraisal of something I read...oh, well over 10 years ago.

Let the disagreement begin.

 

[dwndrgn]

Let the disagreement begin.

Well dagnabbit! I can't disagree with you as I don't remember much of what I did read - if I read any of them at all. I do remember a book called Sanctuary, which is more recent, that I'm not sure is part of the same stuff but reminded me of it in that as you said, there wasn't a whole lot of substance to it.

 

[Sci-fi_gEEk]

The Dragon Lance series was pretty good, it's been awhile since I last read the chronicles though. I remeber enough to remember that I liked it, liked it enough to have read some of the other books in the series and enough to have bought some of the books as well.

The first one I read was Dragons of an Autumn Twilight. I picked it up off the libary shelf just out of curiousity and of course after reading the one, I had to read the others. I to was a little turned off by how commericalized it was, but by that time I was already into the whole thing.

Of course not all of the Dragon Lance books are good, I prefer the ones by Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and despite the commericalism, I'd still recomend them to readers, thier just a

"young and fun" sort of book.

 

[scifimoth]

This was the first set of books I ever read in the english language...as I originally grew up in germany. To this day due to nostalgia they are one of my favorites. Raist is an awsome character.
I also was a D&D player...the commericalization came from the company that produces the D&D game and the novels that are based off it, but some of the various books are no bad.

 

[Brian G Turner]

For some reason, I really fancy picking this up and reading it again. Or attempting to.

What do you reckon the chances are that I might find it in a local charity shop?

 

[svalbard]

It is so long in the past that I read those books I could start by saying Once upon a time in a bookshop far, far away...

Anyway, loved them at the time especially the character Raistlin and the relationship with his brother Caramon. If I remember correctly the second series The Time of the Twins was a much darker story, which, even then appealed to me. Maybe I should lay the blame of my love of 'grim-dark' at the doors of Hickman and Weiss

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I'm not even going to read the earlier part of this thread, because I know how much hatred there is for Dragonlance and it will only make me mad.

I read at least three sets of them, and I loved them, as a teenager. The Dragons of Autumn Twilight, etc., and the Twins books, and the Rose of the Prophet. I've been thinking of reading them all again, but I don't need to pick them up anywhere because they're still in a box in my house.

I will admit to the faintest possibility that some of them might not live up to my memories -- but I have read the Rose of the Prophet series as an adult, and it was still good.

 

[Null_Zone]

They are one of those series I read at the wrong age. I managed to somehow completely miss them in the 1980s D&D stage of my life, but in my early twenties I was hospitalized with a badly broken leg and the only friend I had who could visit was a great fan and kept bringing me fragrance books. Ten years earlier I would have loved them, but as is...Well the dwarf novels were particularly bad.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Ha, I just realized there wasn't a big, drawn-out "earlier part" of this thread, so I read it anyway.

I wouldn't even consider anything not by Weis/Hickman to be Dragonlance, really. I remember that there were a lot of spinoffs or ripoffs or whatever, but those two are Dragonlance to me. (I don't read Star Trek books, either, though, so I may be a snob.)

 

[Grimward]

The series that starts with Rose of the Prophet is awesome, Dusty, but an entirely different world, and only Weis and Hickman (as far as I know, but I could be wrong) ever wrote anything for that story, and just the 3 books at that. It's good to find someone else who's read them, too!

Weis and Hickman seemingly rubbed off well on some of the other authors who followed (Richard Knaak wrote a really good story on the Legend of Huma, for example, and someone else had a good offering about Lord Soth), but in general I agree with you; the other contributors don't quite make the grade.

More to say later...dinner calls!

 

[Fried Egg]

I enjoyed the Dragonlance Chronicles at the time and re-read them several times since but it is not the sort of thing I would read these days.

My favourite of what Weis & Hickman wrote was probably "The Darksword Trilogy" which is the only books of theirs I've kept in my collection.

 

[The Bluestocking]

I remember reading the Dragonlance Chronicles as a teen and yes, Raistlin is one of those characters that just stay with you (I can't even remember the name of his warrior twin off-hand...).

Would I read the series now? No, I wouldn't, but it was good school holiday reading fodder when I was 14 - 16 years of age

 

[biodroid]

I started reading Dragons of Autumn Twilight but the events just seemed too coincidental, like they accidentally happened just to get the story moving.

 

[soulsinging]

I loved these in adolescence and have re-read them on a few occasions. One time in my mid to late 20s I read it and was pretty underwhelmed. It read like a clear cut rip off of LOTR mixed with D&D. Oddly enough, I read them again more recently anyway, and found that certain characters I'd utterly ignored in the past were much more interesting to me (Sturm and Laurana), while others I had loved seemed less interesting (Tasslehoff and Raistlin, the ultimate emo teenager). In the end, I'd even make the blasphemous claim that I enjoyed reading it the last time more than I've ever enjoyed reading LOTR, which for all its brilliance is kind of a slog at times.

So I guess in short, I'd say they're worth re-reading. Neither the world nor the story is terribly original or interesting, but it's a total potboiler joyride with some characters that somehow manage to transcend their cliches. If nothing else, I found my own reactions to it interesting and revealing on a personal level, kind of like a measuring stick with respect to my changes in tastes and values.

As to the Legends trilogy follow up, despite my poke at Raistlin above, he IS a fascinating character and that trilogy is worth checking out. I even liked the closing volume (Dragons of Summer Flame), but that was when I jumped off the train as it was spiraling out of control.

 

[Toby Frost]

I read several Dragonlance books when I was at school. They were extremely popular, and the English teacher, a diehard Tolkien fan, deeply disapproved. The standard comment was “Ah, Dragonlance! Why aren’t you reading The Lord of the Rings, then?” He probably had a point.

About 10 years ago, I was writing the Great Unpublished Noir Fantasy Novel and looked over my bookshelves to see what other fantasy was there. I found Dragonlance and David Eddings, which weren’t really what I was looking for. I ended up re-reading Raymond Chandler and William Gibson.

There’s a kind of jollity to Dragonlance, even in the sad/grim bits, which I can’t help warming to. It doesn’t claim to reflect reality or even logic: the setting is a load of anachronisms thrown together, there’s magic everywhere and – well, it works, even where it shouldn’t. The peasants have an easy life, it always seems to be sunny unless some evil magic makes it snow (or they go to Snowland) and there are wizards and talking monsters all over the place. It’s blatantly a write-up of a role-playing session (even without the admissions from the authors) with all the flaws that that involves. I agree that Raistlin – I always saw him as a sort of supercharged Sherlock Holmes – does lose something, but Sturm becomes much more interesting. Also, I must admit that some of the writing isn’t all that great. There were lots of exclamation marks, as far as I remember.

But it was fun.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

There’s a kind of jollity to Dragonlance, even in the sad/grim bits, which I can’t help warming to. It doesn’t claim to reflect reality or even logic: the setting is a load of anachronisms thrown together, there’s magic everywhere and – well, it works, even where it shouldn’t. The peasants have an easy life, it always seems to be sunny unless some evil magic makes it snow (or they go to Snowland) and there are wizards and talking monsters all over the place. It’s blatantly a write-up of a role-playing session (even without the admissions from the authors) with all the flaws that that involves. I agree that Raistlin – I always saw him as a sort of supercharged Sherlock Holmes – does lose something, but Sturm becomes much more interesting. Also, I must admit that some of the writing isn’t all that great. There were lots of exclamation marks, as far as I remember.

But it was fun.

Now I HAVE to go and dig them out again!

I had a boyfriend at the time when I was really into Dragonlance who thought he was Raistlin. He acted like him, had all these (what now are called) emo thoughts and teenage angst. And, to be fair, he was really evil. He dumped me at prom. But I can't think of those books without thinking of him -- I need to read them again and see how much alike they really were.

 

[Nerds_feather]

I've been curious for a while to see how these would read as an adult. One of our other reviewers says he's going to take the plunge, so that might be interesting.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Oh, sure -- use us as your guinea pigs!

Note, just for the record, I'm not entirely sure I can claim status as an adult....

 

[Brian G Turner]

Looks like Dragonlance could be up for a revival.

I have to admit, the sample chapters available via Amazon look far better written than I was expecting.

Am very tempted to buy a second-hand TSR omnibus edition, as my own copy would have been quite old by now (wherever it went). However, if I bought it on Kindle, I could reference elements of it, if I needed to. Hmm...

 

[biodroid]

Brian Kindle probably would be easier than trying to locate a used copy I think I might try it again and see. I don't like to compare fantasy novels against the current styles out there today as that would ruin a lot for me if I did. They also seem quite cheap on Amazon compared to other mainstream authors. I shall give it a whirl.