Welcome to the very first week of our reread of the Dragonlance Chronicles by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. The Chronicles—Dragons of Autumn Twilight (1984), Dragons of Winter Night (1985), Dragons of Spring Dawning (1985)—were originally published by TSR. They are tie-in fiction, but more than that—the Chronicles were written in parallel to, and by the same creative team as, a series of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure modules. They’re not novelisations of the adventure as much as they are the world bible and underpinning and overarching story.
As well as (many) modules in (many) editions of Dungeons & Dragons, the Dragonlance setting grew to inspire computer games, board games, card games, and a movie that is better left unmentioned. And, of course, almost 200 novels, written by Weis, Hickman, and dozens of others. Not only is Dragonlance one of the most successful shared worlds in fantasy, it is also one of the most popular—influencing generations of fans and writers alike.
Over the next… counts on fingers… million weeks, we are going to poke and prod at these three fascinating, important, influential and really, really fun books, one chapter at a time. We’ll also take a few side-quests to talk about the history of these books, have chats with contemporary authors about Dragonlance, watch that terrible movie (argh) and maybe even play a game or two. Stick with us—Krynn won’t save itself!
“Canticle of the Dragon” and “The Old Man”
We start Dragons of Autumn Twilight with two (very) short chapters: “Canticle of the Dragon” and “The Old Man.”
“Canticle of the Dragon” is actually, er, a poem. And not even by Weis or Hickman—the poetic contributions to the initial series came from Michael Williams. “Canticle” is an impressively concise history of the world of Krynn.
It begins in “ages” deep, describing the world and its three moons and—you’ll hear this word a lot—dragons. Dragons, dragons, dragons. In case you forget what sort of lance-book you picked up, the first two stanzas of the series use the word “dragon” five times. Anyway, the poem begins with the Age of Dreams, and times are rough—dragons are making war (on one another). Then a knight, Huma, with the aid of the gods, wields the first Dragonlance and starts winning for the side of good. With help from Paladine (the big Good God), Huma banishes the Queen of Darkness (the big Evil Goddess) and her ‘shrieking hosts’.
Next up, Age of Might. The empire of Istar arises, and the “long summers of good”. But the Kingpriest of Istar gets a little, well… troublesome… and in his attempt to “purge the world of sin” tries to summon the gods, and pisses them off instead. Enter: “a mountain of fire” (known as the Cataclysm), and the world is radically reshaped—and not in a pleasant way.
Finally, the Age of Despair. The old gods have lost their power, the face of the world has changed and the survivors of the Cataclysm have fled the “hulks of cities”.
And this is where our story begins… Except not quite. With the scene set in such a grand way, we now focus in on the utterly prosaic with “The Old Man”. This prelude chapter begins with Tika Waylan working at the Inn of the Last Home. The Inn is based in the small town of Solace, and like the rest of the town, is build high in the branches of a gigantic vallenwood tree. After the Cataclysm, the townfolk decided they’d be happier up in the air, and now, centuries later, they’ve built a tidy little arboreal culture.
For Tika and Otik (the innkeeper), this is another ordinary day. As the two fuss about, straightening up for the evening crowd, they do a bit of handy infodumping. Solace is tense—the town seems to be ruled by a ‘Theocrat’ and the Seeker guards. Otik is pretty snooty about this local militia, but Tika is worried by rumors of war. Also, strangers. Hooded strangers. The worst type.
Their gossip is interrupted by a mysterious old man in a gray robe. Although he sounds scattered, the man seems quite together—and much to Tika’s shock, he starts rearranging the furniture. Is he throwing a party? Is he slightly senile? Is he a powerful sorcerer with precognitive abilities? WE MAY NEVER KNOW.
(I bet we will)
Notable Quotes
“Dragons, terrible and great, made war on this world of Krynn”
I like the wordplay with both terrible and great here. The “Canticle” isn’t shy about using the words “good” and “evil,” but this adds a little more variety. Also, both words kind of mean the opposite, which is sneaky—“terrible” as in “awe-inspiring” [adding to the ‘good] and “great” as in “really very large” [to the ‘evil’]. Also “made war on” makes it sound like they are fighting one another… and the world itself. The impact from these awe-inspiring, very, very large creatures is taking its toll on the land itself.
“It will be a party such as the world of Krynn has not seen since before the Cataclysm!”
This is the old man’s response to Tika’s question about the furniture shuffling. It represents his (dark?) humour and, of course, sets up the Vast Importance of the things that are about to occur in the next chapter. This is also one of the two references to “since the Cataclysm” in this short chapter. One of our handy sourcebooks helps us date the Cataclysm to 348 years before the events of this book, so we can kind of infer that not a lot has happened since then.
Monster of the Week
DRAGONS!
A great galloping “shrieking host” of them. They’re “unspeakable” and “coiling” and “terrible” and “great” and they have wings and throats and presumably other body parts as well. Granted, our first and only monsters so far are in the intro poetry, but, hey—they’re dragons. We’ll take ‘em however we can get ‘em.
Jared’s Take
Every week we’ll also put in our own two cents. The person who writes the week’s recap gets to go first. This week, that’s me!
These two micro-chapters are the Chronicles in a microcosm. We’ve got the sweeping scale, the inventive approach, the epic tension… and also some ridiculous (and occasionally self-aware) cliché. How can a series this creative also be so clunky?
I’ll admit that I’ve read the Chronicles a dozen times, but I’ve never paid much attention to the poetry. It is a quick and useful way to boil down an epic background (much of which isn’t actually relevant) into a few short pages. Granted, it uses the word “dragon” five times, it doesn’t rhyme, and it uses anachronistic words like “sin” and is possibly written by a narrator that couldn’t exist within the world it describes, BUT STILL… very handy.
“Canticle” also does a good job of boiling down one of those things that makes Dragonlance so special. The conventional epic has already happened: evil was ruling the world, then good skewered it with a pointy object. (See: most fantasy.) But then, the revisionist epic happened as well: good ruled the world and botched the job. The “Age of Despair” is an open playing field—evil’s had a shot, good’s had a shot… now the god’s have taken their toys and gone home. In a purely Hegelian way (pretension alert!), we’ve had thesis, antithesis and are now in some sort of interesting new synthesis. Go Chronicles!
And then… we start at the Inn with a ridiculous barmaid (19 years old and letting Otik “pat her cheek and tweak her red curls”?! Really?!) and a Wise Old Man staggering in—hood and all—to push the plot together. The Annotated Chronicles, which I’ll be referencing occasionally to make me sound well-researched, has a note from Hickman saying that this was a deliberate reference to D&D games, as starting off in an inn was already a cliché for role-playing games.
So what’s that mean? In any other book, I’d immediately call this out as ungood writery. But Dragonlance is a special case, and probably deserves more consideration. First, we have Hickman’s note. So maybe some of the awkwardness is actually tongue-in-cheek? And second, we have Dragonlance’s unusual origin—books and modules written in parallel. How much of the clunkiness is because the books are being ‘railroaded’ by the necessities of the game?
And, most importantly, where does this leave us, as readers? Does authorial intent count? Basically, when the writing is… well… bad… how much are we allowed to blame everything but the text itself? This may become a recurring theme.
Mahvesh’s Take
It’s interesting to have found out many years later that the books were tied into a larger universe of gaming modules—as a kid living in Karachi in the dark days before the internet and finding the Chronicles in second hand book stalls, I had no idea that there was any more to these stories than what I was reading. The books were the entire canon, as it were, and if there was clunkiness then well, it was just clunkiness. As for the cliches that existed in RPGs at that time—I didn’t even know what RPGs were! I haven’t read these stories for over 20 years—maybe more—and this is the first time I will read them knowing that they tied in with other modules. So forgive me for blaming the text itself when it is bad, or questioning when it is so because of another storytelling model.
Having said that, wow—was the writing always this awkward? Jared pointed this out about a year or so ago and I didn’t want to accept it but it’s true. The first two chapters encapsulate a great deal of what we’ll be seeing in the future: all the things that make Dragonlance special, as Jared said above, and also a lot of exclamation marks, a great deal of exposition and so much painfully detailed description. Everything that I probably loved as a teen, I bet.
But what I still like about these first two chapters is how they set us up to the wide open possibilities—again, when all you know are the books, you never consider starting off at an inn a cliche or something that happens in D&D (news to me!). The inn of becomes hearth and heart of the adventurers and a place where much information is released to the listener—I suppose that’s how it works in the games too. It’s a home base, a familiar safe spot—a warm room with a roaring fire, food, drink and friends. Everyone can relate to that, even if you live in a city where you didn’t really need a heater, let alone a fireplace. Such exotic appeal—a fireplace!
What I like especially about these ‘micro-cosmic’ chapters is the wide openness of things, the limitless possibilities of things to come. “Canticle” tells us,
we called to the blank sky
into the cold, dividing gray to the ears of new gods.
The sky calm, silent, unmoving.
We have yet to hear their answer.”
We know that we are awaiting something—something massive, important and potentially life altering. The sky is calm, still and so wide open to potential—potential dragons, gods, directions for lives to take. This is what we all loved about Dragonlance—anything could happen and everything that did would be an adventure.
Of course, now that I think about it, it was all about the random roll of dice, wasn’t it?
Onwards!
Mahvesh loves dystopian fiction & appropriately lives in Karachi, Pakistan. She writes about stories & interviews writers the Tor.com podcast Midnight in Karachi when not wasting much too much time on Twitter.
Jared Shurin is an editor for Pornokitsch and the non-profit publisher Jurassic London.
Well this is incredibly exciting! Dragonlance was my gateway drug into the world of fantasy literature and I still love the books today. I’ve thought about doing my own reread of the series, influenced by all of the rereads here at Tor.com but i’m glad you beat me to it. I think it will be more fun to tag along with your reread in the comments than it would be to work on it myself.
Thanks for this reread. I already look forward to next week!
Dragonlance was my gateway drug, too. This should be fun. I’m reasonably sure I read The Legend of Huma first, though. And possibly something that thoroughly spoiled Kit’s arc.
It’s been ages since I read them but I’m cautious to go back to them given what you said about the writing.
These were my entrance into Fantasy literature as well. I had been heavily into sci-fi for some time and had plummed most of the books in my local bookstore and was to the point of having to wait for my favorite authors to write new books for my book fix. I can’t exactly remember why I decided to read these books in particlular. May have been a friend but I had also played a number of crpg games at that point. But I will admit they very much appealed to my teenage self at the time. I do know that after finishing this triology that I went on and read the Lord of the Rings(which i liked but felt was a bit dull compared to Dragonlance).
Dragonlance was one of the few non-Tolkien fantasy series that my smalltown public library had for checkout.
Having *just* reread this (maybe two/three weeks ago), I also noticed the preponderance of exclamation points for the first time.
Overall, I have a fine and gentle nostalgia for the series. The Suck Fairy didn’t visit me, even though, Mahvesh, I really do this the writing is always that awkward. There’s just something about the Weis & Hickman books in particular that are just … sweet.
(And I think the first time I read them, I wasn’t yet a Mormon, then I was, and then I left the church, so I’m reading these with “post-LDS” eyes, which makes a great deal of difference to the way the story feels and plays out. I have Thoughts about this, but I’ll wait until we get to a certain love triangle to discuss.)
Query to the mods: What’s the stance on spoilers for this reread? These have been out for a loooooog time.
I actually squeed when this came across my newsfeed. Not very manly of me. Oh well.
@everyone: I’m glad you’re all as excited about this as we are!
@noblehunter: The books really do have some dubious writing at times. But, as we’ve discovered during the reread, there’s also some really exceptional writing as well. And even when it is clunky, the books are never slow (or boring). And there’s lots to talk about. (And even some of the clunky writing is pretty funny.)
And for the record, this re-read should most definitely cover the Legends series as well. Do all six of the main sequence books, please!
Seconding @Anthony Pero! While the first trilogy is good, the second one is excellent. I’d love to see all six of them covered.
I believe that this was the first novel Tracy Hickman had ever written, and the series didn’t go through editing at a traditional publishing house. This reads like a lot like the three or four pre-edited fantasy manuscripts that I’ve read. I assign the clunkiness more to that than anything else.
The characters are great, however. I love the ensemble cast of these books. Like Star Wars, they hew close to the archetypes, but there is enough variance, flaws, and other differences to make them interesting and memorable.
And Kit… we just had a discussion on a different thread regarding the dearth of likeable female antiheroes and villains… Kit works. Well.
YAY! Happy to see this here when I logged in. Chronicles was the first of the Dragonlance novels I read, still have a fond place for them. Even still reread them every other year or so. Also going to third what AP @@@@@ 8 said. Legends series is worth doing as well.
I rememeber discovering these as a teenager! Even then I remember thinking the writing was a little clunky or silly at times. However, the imaginative world and setting really sang. I think one of the things that drew me to the books at the time was the cover art, those Larry Elmore covers really poped; even if they would not be rated so highly by todays standards. I will concur with others that Legends was a far better written and paced story; probably a combanition of not being as closely tied to a game and the growing skill and experience on the part of the authors (I believe Weis & Hickman even said as much).
I also agree that Legends is far superior to Chronicles… but only as a sequel. Because so much of the plot revolves around retconning things that happened in Legends, and giving them a new perspective. Its also impossible to talk intelligently about the characters and events in Chronicles without referencing Legends, because of these retcons. It completely alters and reinforms the perceptions and motivations of these characters.
@Anthony Pero and @arianrose: Totally agree. Legends is definitely better. I suspect it is because Weis/Hickman were allowed to write it as a novel, and not as the odd-ball simultaneous game tie-in that Chronicles was. Also, maybe they got better? And had a proper character-focused narrative to work with? Whatever the reason – much better.
If folks are happy with the Chronicles reread, Mahvesh and I would be delighted to keep going forever and ever and ever. Like some sort of time loop that eventually resolves in an apocalyptic future with a single Tor.com-shaped constellation floating alone in the sky.
Pow! My new favourite re-read on Tor, instantly. I’m in the camp that’s been scared to revisit these treasured memories directly, so thanks for creating in this bit of distance that allows me to relive the highlights.
I’ve always attributed the clunkiness to them being new authors at the points these books were written (something I have never actually verified is the case or not however). The Legends trilogy always seemed to be better written, similarly with the Deathgate cycle later on.
Will the re-read mention how poorly the companions treated the gnome Virum, to the point of COMPLETELY LEAVING HIM OUT OF THE HISTORY?
In all seriousness, I remember starting to read these as a teenager, although I don’t remember how early into finding Sci-Fi/fantasy they were (probably fairly early, along with the Xanth novels by Piers Anthony).
At one point I had probably close to 50 of the novels, before an ex sold them all to a used book store. I was quite unhappy and have never been able to rebuild the collection.
I reread the original trilogy last year; the prose was mostly … inelegant but serviceable, with occasional flashes of something better. The story still held up, though, and I do plan to revisit Legends at some point this year.
Having said that, I have to admit that there was a pretty significant nostalgia factor involved; I’m not sure how I’d feel if I was coming to these books for the first time today. (And I’m at least a little reluctant to venture into new DL books, even Weis/Hickman, for precisely that reason.)
@16, as I recall (and this may be from the anotated version) when they were writting the first 2 books, they were constrained by events that were already written into the modules. Once they out paced those, they had much greated liberty to flesh out and take the story where they wanted to.
As others have said, I’m really excited for this re-read. Enough to come out of lurker mode! Can’t wait for next week.
I just remembered something!
If memory servers, much more recently a second set of chronicles was written that covers events that happen between each of the books in the original chronicles (like what happens up at the ice wall, and between the rescue of the prisoners at Pax Tharkas and everyone being safe in Thorbardin).
I’ve never read the second trilogy, but since its events are interspersed throughout, it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to include them at the appropriate point in the story.
Most excellent. This was also my gateway into fantasy literature. I will always owe Weiss and Hickman for that.
@5: Regarding spoilers, I believe the posts themselves will be more or less spoiler-free, but give that it’s a reread, the discussion in the comments will not be. We’ll try to put a note in upcoming posts to clarify that policy. Thanks!
I read the first Dragonlance book after I finished Lord of the Rings for the first time and discovered fantasy literature. Should be fun to reread all of this and discuss it!!
Yay!! I am so excited. I have so been wanting a re-read of this series for the longest time! I loved this series. It has been so long since I read them. I too was considering doing my own re-read and I am so glad it is being done here. Really looking forward to all the summaries and commentary.
OMG DRAGONLANCE REREAD YAY!!!!
The very first fantasy book I ever read was Stormblade, the second novel in the Heroes trilogy (randomly chosen from a local bookstore). I remember not liking it that much, and I moved on to the first Shannara trilogy. Then I picked up Dragons of Autumn Twilight, and I was a ‘Lance fan from then on. I read and owned almost the whole line at one point, and loved them all (well, almost all, the Rise of Solamnia series bored the hell out of me, I don’t event think I finished it).
Almost 20 years later, I picked up The Lost Chronicles trilogy, and boy, is it not what I remember. The writing was just awful, and I thought “Was it always this bad?” I’ve been thinking about going back and re-reading Chronicles to see if it was that bad, but then you came along with your awesome reread, and we can all do it together! Yay!
On a side note, I kind of hope you add Dragons of Summer Flame to your reread, just because I remember loving that book.
Looking forward to this and I hope you keep going to Legends and beyond! :)
Autumn Twilight was my least favorite, because even to my not-very-experienced D&D high school self, it felt like someone just wrote down their campaign. I don’t think I reread that one again, but I enjoyed the blue and green ones. I certainly haven’t reread them since, though. you are braver souls than I am. :)
Holy crap I’m so excited about this. Dragonlance was my introduction to the whole fantasy genre and their importance in shaping my adolescence can’t be overstated. I still remember the summer I spent hunting around my public library, trying to figure out what order these hundred books were supposed to go in . . .
So looking back at it, is the writing clunky at times? Is it cliched in places? Hell yes it is, but you better believe I love it wholeheartedly because of it, not in spite of it, and I’m really looking forward to this reread!
Gah, I’d forgotten that movie! How dare you bring back those draconean nightmares!
Chronicles was my favorite thing in middle school, and the twins and Tasselhoff have been with me ever since. I haven’t looked at the books since 1990 or so (though I did play D&D in Dragonlance throughout the early ’90s), but I’m so excited to re-read along with everybody.
I’m excited about this! Like a lot of other people have already said, Dragonlance was my entrance into genre fiction. I found them in my school library when I was a preteen, then searched out and devoured any sff I could find afterwards. I was into historical fiction before.
Whenever I see the Dragonlance series comes up in conversation, or on some website, so many people criticize them with, “They were OK, when I was a kid,” “very infantile writing”, and “not very well written,” etc. Thanks for doing this reread and attempting to give them some loving attention. I think there’s more to Dragonlance than just entry-drug appeal.
These books were also among my first introductions to fantasy (although I believe the first Dragonlance book I ever read was “The Gullydwarfs” of all things). The only time I remember the writing being awkward was where at one point in the second book they had clearly cut a significant chunk of the story out (which was covered in a short story later). Even at the time I thought that was a bad writing choice
The Chronicles aren’t the most complex writing, but these books have more heart than most other books that I’ve read – I can honestly say that my concepts of friendship and sacrifice, even as an adult, delve very strongly from the Companions. I’m not to reread novels (compared to many of the Tor crowd – I have shelves and shelves of nonfiction to plow through as constant research, being a historian), but the Chronicles and Legends trilogies are books I do end up revisiting time and again (being a twin myself helps). It’s funny how, decades and multiple editions later, whenever any of my old D&D crew is together and plays, we always contiue in the same Dragonlance campaign that’s been on-and-off for more than twenty years just because of how much this series affected all of us growing up.
I reread all of these and the Legends books a few months back. They’ve aged fairly well, though the Legends are substantially better written. I was actually surprised to see how little actually happens in the Chronicles, an awful lot occurs offscreen as it were.
Still, they were a good attempt to bring a more approachable feeling to epic fantasy – while the books themselves are fairly simple, the world itself feels real, with a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes.
Plus dragons. As Mounts. And People. And cool weapons.
Fighting, torture, revenge, dragons, chases, escapes, true love, miracles … it hasn’t the humor of the princess bride, but it covers a lot of the same ground ;)
The first books were alright, but I stopped when too many bad things happened to characters I liked (including turning/ being Eeevil).
I knew the series continued, but 150?!
Chronicles is one of the few books I’ve reread only once, so I look forward to the reread!
The movie left much (oh, so very, very much) to be desired, but I do listen to the soundtrack from time to time.
Excited for the reread! I read these as a kid and anxious/curious to see how they are as an adult.
Mahvesh, I also had no idea of the tie-in aspect as a kid — growing up in a very small town in rural Tennessee, we weren’t allowed to play D&D (bc of the 80s fear that this would lead to Satanism & suicide — ugh). Of course, now it all makes sense.
I read this book so much in middle school, and then went on and finished the next(?) two series as well. I tried to reread them not too long ago, but found that I really couldn’t get into them again. I’ll be following this reread regardless.
I started a reread on my blog a few years back and it kind of petered out between summer school and some other things. Anyway, I think one of the “gripes” I had rereading the book was game mechanics getting in the way of the story.
I’ve said for a while that these books might be more important to writers of my generation than even Tolkien.
I still have the modules and the books though I prefer some of their other series. Tracy lives just a couple of miles from me and I see him at the grocery store all the time.
I am very excited to see this reread on Tor. These were my gateway drug to D&D novels as a kid and also led me to finding out that this whole thing could be played as a game which lead me on a search of my city for the adventures and rules to play it. At the time there was no internet and I couldn’t have named any comicgaming shops in my city at all so there was some actual searching involved. Looking forward to the trip down memory lane.
Like seemingly everyone else commenting, these books were how I found my way into the wonderful world of fantasy novels. I filled at least two bookshelves with the never ending extended series before moving on to Eddings, Rawn, Jordan & Martin. I still try to re-read Chronicles & Legends every few years, and this seems like the perfect opportunity to do so. Thanks for putting this together.
I feel a little out of place here, as these were definitely not my entry into genre fiction (my mother is a sci-fi and fantasy fan herself, so I grew up reading Tolkien and Asimov and things of that ilk). But in a way, they were my entry into roleplaying. I found Chronicles at the local library while I was still in primary school, devoured them, found Legends, devoured them, begged all and sundry for a copy of both series for my next birthday, then set about systematically reading every Dragonlance book I could find in the three libraries I had access to. At that point I had no idea about the gaming connection. I did, however, have a deep and abiding love for Raistlin.
Fast forward a little over a decade. I started university and was looking for a social club to join. I stumbled across the Roleplaying Club, and had someone explain the concept to me. It sounded interesting, and then someone actually asked if I was familiar with the Dragonlance books by Weiss and Hickman. “Oh! Yes, I love them!” says I. “Well, they were originally based around a roleplaying game,” says my new friend. That did it. I joined the club, and it’s a hobby I still practise nearly 15 years later. And introduced me to my finace, so, you know…
Which I guess is all a really long-winded way of saying I’m super excited for this re-read, because these books are amazing. I’ll forgive them their clunky writing and occasional down-shifts into describing “encounters” in all their five-foot incremental glory (which now make me laugh, after so many years of gaming). How can I not, when they have such wonderful characters?
Oh man Mahvesh you sound like you could be me! I also read them as a young teen, and I knew of D&D but had no idea these books were at all related or had anything to do with RPG. Like the inn–had no idea that was a cliche at the time. I just figured it was as good a place to start as any.
I do remember liking the books a lot. I likely didn’t notice anything wrong with the writing because my senses were not very well honed then.
Anyway, this is definitely nostalgia inducing. I’m looking forward to following along. Kind of makes me want to reread them now that I have actually played D&D and other RPGs…
Although initially, it was a bit jarring reading the take of a person named “Jared” (for a moment, I thought that perhaps I had done this work and completely forgotten about it), I cannot wait to read along with you two and relive the trilogy that I ended up reading AFTER the Legends Trilogy (so, I had a bit of a different initial perspective on things, knowing how certain people’s actions resulted in the success or demise of others).
This series was also my gateway into Fantasy. My high school BFF had them and pressed them on me, and I was hooked. Then I discovered a lifelong friend was also a fan, and I had someone to pour over the books with.
It’s hard to judge these books on their own merits, because they are so influenced by the genre, while at the same time so influential, so when you read you have to ponder, is this trope tired because it’s been done? Or was it fresh and new when they wrote it?
The beginning at the Inn was definitely a wink at the audience, but it’s used so well, I can’t complain. And I heart Fizban.
Having read Weis & Hickman’s other series The DeathGate Cycle, I have to put most of the writing flaws down to inexperience. I recently went back and read a story I wrote just 6 years ago, and wanted to cry at how terrible the prose was.
@48: I prefer Zifnab myself…
Deathgate was fantastic… ended a bit flat, but overall, for traditional epic fantasy with elves and dwarves, it was very, very creative and well executed.
@49, “My Hat!”
While I like Zifnab, I like the hints of the burden that Fizban carries that we see, and his compassion(like how he helps the gnome after the orb gets destroyed).
@49 — The first four Death Gate books were possibly the best things Weis & Hickman ever did; I thought things started to fall apart a bit after that, though. Having said that, maybe a Death Gate reread at some point would be in order?
@50:
I just… the moment when I realized who the crazy wizard in Elven Star was supposed to be… Its one of the most joyful experiences I have ever had reading a book.
Of course, I’d never have felt that way without Fizban. So there is that. Its sort of like how an original movie can be better in every way, but the sequel still holds a higher place in your heart. Or how my favorite moment in any Marvel movie ever is when Loki turns into Chris Evans in The Dark World, when the Dark World is obviously the worst of the MCU movies.
@51:
I don’t know if they fell apart. Structurally, I think they were fine. Its just the dynamics of the Labyrinth, and how completely idiotc the Sartan were regarding the “great evil”, maybe even the snakes themselves, were not as interesting as the mechanics of the separate worlds.
But, then again, I’m less harsh on LOST than most people I know, so maybe I’m not the best judge, lol.
@52, Unfortunately, my fellow Dragonlancer totally spoiled me for that so I knew he was coming, so I didn’t get that experience.
@53, It’s been years since I read them, so they may very well have fallen apart, but I’m a sucker for stories where the author is all “These are the “good guys” and these are the “bad guys”” and then totally flips the script on you later(Sara Douglas, RIP, I’m looking at you).
I reread them about 7 years ago. They hold up a LOT better than Chronicles.
I loved the magic system and the world building. It all made so much sense. I’d be up for a Death Gate re-read, even if it was just a by book one.
It’s possible “fell apart” is too strong; but I do remember liking the individual world books more than the books where they started bringing things together.
Having said that, it’s been many years, so a reread is probably overdue (after I reread Legends, that is).
I’m yet another “Dragonlance was my first adult fantasy series” kid. Takes me back to 1994, seeing all the Dragonlance books a couple shelves up from the Star Wars novels.
Of course, in 1998, I picked up Diana Wynne Jones’ Tough Guide to Fantasyland, and could never read the series in the same way again–I think the first two Dragonlance trilogies between them hit just about every entry in the Guide.
This is funny. My friends and I, some of whom have read DL and some who have not (like me) are doing a read-through right now. If you want an additional perspective/discussion space, I would invite you to join us on Google+ (https://plus.google.com/communities/116347049367978190956?sqinv=dW9hTVhQcUpYdVRNNjBWTkRNZmxRRFc0MFZRVjNB).