The Dragonlance Books

[Ebenstone]

Let's say someone wanted something in the same vein - close knit friends/lovers/siblings who get swept up in world changing events. Setting cleaves close to classic fantasy. Some are redeemed, and some fall to the darkness.

I think, more than anything, it was the friendships and how they evolved or dissolved that makes people remember them fondly.

That said, I went back and checked and yeah, I gotta put them lower than the easy reading but better prose (and likely plotting) of Sanderson, Prince of Thorns, Night Circus.

That sounds so much like the book I wrote! Wrong thread for this, it's just funny how deep an influence those books must have been for me.

[Grack21]

I think you may be thinking of McCaffrey on this one. I remember branching out past Pern a few times, and quickly realizing Pern was all I was reading of hers. Either that or its a common theme in books and I didn't know it.

Oh no, It was Weiss series from TOR. Dragonvold? SOMething with Dragons.

[williamjm]

The Dragonlance Chronicles were one of the first Epic Fantasy series I read after Lord of the Rings (although I originally started reading them because I'd previously read Weis & Hickman's Darksword books), and although it didn't impress me as much as LotR, I did enjoy it a lot. As others have said, Chronicles and Legends were enjoyable when I was 12, but re-reading them a few years later made it clear that Chronicles may have been a fun read but wasn't particularly well-written. Legends was significantly better written and had some interesting ideas but after that the later Weis & Hickman books declined significantly. The later books may have had better quality prose than Chronicles, but the plotting kept getting worse.

The biggest problem with Dragonlance is that the world and setting are geared too much around the War of the Lance and its aftermath (particularly Raistlin's story arc). Other stories set in the world outside of those events and that time period feel redundant. The later degeneration into constant world-shaking events and the gods being around and then vanishing and then returning got completely tedious.

As well as the W&H books I probably read about a dozen Dragonlance books by other authors. I think one of the biggest problems with those is that the main Dragonlance storyline was so successful that a lot of the other books featured often convoluted attempts to involve the main Chronicles cast in the stories of the spin-off novels. There's quite a lot of competition for the silliest plotline in the prequel books, there was Kitiara and Sturm flying in a wooden spaceship to a moon where they discovered dragon eggs, Tasselhoff fighting off an attempt by Takhisis to invade through the Land of Chocolate, Flint becoming King of the Gully Dwarves, or Tanis fighting off the reincarnated wizard Fistandantilus with the aid of a juggling dwarf before spending several years carving a statue which presumably illustrated Important Human Themes. I wouldn't really say the Forgotten Realms had a higher standard of writing, but at least they had a better variety of stories.

Out of the non-W&H books, I think the The Legend of Huma and the comic fantasy of Lord Toede were probably the best out of the ones I read.

As someone who at one point made it a goal to read every DL novel, and almost has, I can tell you that 99 percent of them are shit. There is a few OK ones in there were the authors were actually allowed to do their own thing that weren't too bad. Douglas Niles had one a few years back that actually had a main character who was kind of an asshole, and a non happy ending. but yeah, when I reccomend DL I'm kidding. I mean I like it, and maybe it gets shit on too much, but cmon.

Now I'm curious what the worst Dragonlance novel was out of the ones you've read?

[Grack21]

Wow, the worst huh? I'd have to look at a list.

And OMG I forgot about Lord Toade. That book is a classic.

[SkynJay]

Wow, I guess I am stupid. I had Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms as the same series. But I realize that no one asks if I have read Forgotten Realms, always when they see me reading fantasy its OMG, have you read any Dragonlance?

[Grack21]

That was actually an awesome series. I cried at the end of the trilogy, when our major anti-hero is redeemed by the love of his lost/past lover, whom he had betrayed. Or maybe he thought she betrayed him. Anyways, they were on different sides of a war.

Not to give major details away, but the aliens who ate people were the enemies. And the Paradise Lost parallels were pretty good, and actually inspired me to read a bit more as a teenager.

Ah, the Star of the Guardians novels -

http://en.wikipedia....s#The_Lost_King

Oh I'm not saying they were bad. Just that they were pretty fucked up for someone known for writing much lighter stuff.

[Ser-Arthur-Dayne]

:dunno: As someone said befire, Kitiara and Raistlin were by farrr the only tolerable, and somewhat enjoyable characters. The dwarf (which was a staright copy of Gimli) was also tolerable. Everyone else is horribly done. And the only tolerable books were the Legends trilogy and the Soulforge, which I thought Weis did a better job solo than co-authoring with Hickman.

[Antonius Pius]

Curious why this would be silly, as this is pretty much a large swath of people throughout history though.

I understand it's because of the D&D game, with the three faction of good, balance and evil, but I think it would be silly for some guys to decide they're going to be the best they can be at being evil. The entire honour-code that the knights supposedly uphold is ridiculous. If they're evil, they should all be backstabbing eachother to hell, not sacrifice themselves for their ideal, because then they're good. The entire principle of serving a faction known as evil with honour and morality seems to me to be silly. I know there's a formal justification for it in the books, but from Dragons of Summer Flare, it seems odd to me.

Potential double standard, I know. There's a lot of other silliness (kender being outside the time-line and shaking citadels upside down to make the bad guys fall out) and that's fine-ish, but the knights of evil was a bridge too far for me. Maybe it's because I was a lot older when I read Summer Flare.

[Greywolf2375]

I enjoyed them - I my order was The Hobbit, then DL, then Shannara, so...it definitely went off a cliff. But, since I was playing D&D at the time it was very easy to picture the DL scenes & scenarios as part of a session which made it more fun for me to read. The characters were absolutely thinner than the paper they were printed on, but I still go back to them once in a great while and read them again.

The major problem I had with the franchise was that everyone that got even a mention in the books ended up having their own book written - when Kaz the Minotaur and Toede have their own stories, gone too far.

[Grack21]

Hey the Toade book was fantastic. 300 pages of Grubb mocking DL and D&D RELENTLESSLY. I'm surprised it got through the editors at TSR at the time.

There was a semi recent book about sea elves or something that I think may win the worst DL book award. Andi read the one where they go to the fucking moon. (Which even is made fun of in later books. "You here bout that time Sturm went to the moon? What a bunch of horseshit!"

[alguien]

Larry Elmore's Dragons of Autumn Twilight cover is one of my favorite pieces of cover art evah. Perhaps it was the first time since Narnia that I began to imagine other worlds where you could have adventures and those golden hills just seemed to have depth.

I think I started reading these at age 12. I loved them at the time. I thought the Twins trilogy was great stuff. Still remember feeling sad about Flint. Then, when I read the Summer Flame book and Tanis's death, I remember feeling actual sadness.

Nothing wrong with remembering them with a fond nostalgia.

Pretty much agree with everything Wert wrote about them.

[a wooden chair]

Hey the Toade book was fantastic. 300 pages of Grubb mocking DL and D&D RELENTLESSLY. I'm surprised it got through the editors at TSR at the time."

Lord Toede is still at the top of my favorite book list. I haven't touched any of my DL books in forever though. Toede is such a magnificent bastard in it that I cannot help but dub him the less emo Tyrion. The satire almost approaches Pratchett level, but at the same time stays true to DL without breaking it.

[TheSwordofHappyHour]

I loved the Dragonlance series. Fast, easy and fun reading. You can remember the characters years later and read a new (to you) book without having to do a re-read.

Ah to be 14 again and think they are just the greatest! haha

[Lady Cheesevillage]

I can't say these books have stood up as adult re-reads for me, but I did enjoy the first trilogy as a young teenager, and back then I also thoroughly enjoyed the authors' Rose of the Prophet trilogy. Oddly, I think some of the things I find most problematic now are the very things that attracted me to the books back then: The sense of humor and predictable story lines.

When I was 11, 12, 13ish I loved books where the good guys won, the grey characters were redeemed, and the whole ride of the tale was spiced with comic relief. At 11 I loved Tas. I liked being able to predict the plot "twists" and be right -- it made me feel clever. As a young reader, there's a certain comfort in reading books that don't challenge you too hard, but engage the imagination and make you laugh. I think they appeal to the same pleasure center in the brain that made me laugh the Valdemar books (predictable stories, true love, and telepathic horses, OMG!) and the Menolly books (talented girl misunderstood by family goes to a place where she accepted and telepathic mini dragons, OMG!)

[williamjm]

Wow, I guess I am stupid. I had Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms as the same series

They were both from the same publisher and written by many of the same authors, but they were set in two different worlds.

I understand it's because of the D&D game, with the three faction of good, balance and evil, but I think it would be silly for some guys to decide they're going to be the best they can be at being evil. The entire honour-code that the knights supposedly uphold is ridiculous. If they're evil, they should all be backstabbing eachother to hell, not sacrifice themselves for their ideal, because then they're good. The entire principle of serving a faction known as evil with honour and morality seems to me to be silly. I know there's a formal justification for it in the books, but from Dragons of Summer Flare, it seems odd to me.

It's been a long time since I read it, but from what I remember most of the Knights were trained from a very young age and brainwashed into believing into the admittedly contradictory ideals behind the Knights, which makes it a bit more believable. I thought Dragons of Summer Flame would have been less rubbish if it had stuck to that plotline rather than getting bored of it halfway through.

[Werthead]

Wow, I guess I am stupid. I had Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms as the same series. But I realize that no one asks if I have read Forgotten Realms, always when they see me reading fantasy its OMG, have you read any Dragonlance?

That illustrates the difference between the two. The Realms are a whole world where lots of (mostly) small-scale stories take place. Dragonlance is more of an epic focused on a single narrative (the struggle between the gods over who will control Krynn which goes on through several successive, multi-generational conflicts), though with some side-stories thrown in. With Dragonlance there is the central 'core' books written by Weis and Hickman which you pretty much have to read in order to understand everything else that goes on. The Forgotten Realms doesn't have anything like that. You can read the FR novels generally without worrying about anything outside of that particular trilogy/sub-series etc.

So people don't talk about 'reading Forgotten Realms novels' so much as they might say they're a Bob Salvatore fan or a Paul Kemp fan, to the point of ignoring most of the other books in the setting (the same thing happens with WH40K, where a lot of people are actually fans of Dan Abnett or Sandy Mitchell and don't read any of the other books in the setting).

[Nukelavee]

I enjoyed them when they came out, when I was 13 or so. I'm totally aware that ever reading them again would be painful.

But... fuck all you literary elitists in your ringmeat! It was whole fucking books based on my favourite game! Slamming them would be pissing on a fond memory.

and...

Dragonlance, dragonlance, I see Tika's underpants!

[Ser-Arthur-Dayne]

Larry Elmore's Dragons of Autumn Twilight cover is one of my favorite pieces of cover art evah. Perhaps it was the first time since Narnia that I began to imagine other worlds where you could have adventures and those golden hills just seemed to have depth.

I actually like Dragons of Summer Dawn cover , it looks really well done.

[Grack21]

I actually got it in to my head sometime back in 02 to collect every Realms books and read them all. Collection? Complete. Reading? Fuck no. Got to 1999ish and those Baldur's Gate Tie ins just killed me. I suppose I'll get back to them someday, i here a lot of stuff from the Kemp era is decent.

Also, I present to you, the worst Dragonlance book:

http://www.amazon.com/Alien-Sea-Dragonlance-Champions-Vol/dp/0786940824/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323228168&sr=8-1

[Grack21]

Sturm goes to the moon is definitely on the top "What the fuck TSR" list. Anything about kender is up there too, and I could have a field day with FR, but Once around the Realms probably stands out as THE WORST BOOK EVER WRITTEN IN ANY GENRE OR LANGUAGE EVER. Like, good god. I've read the Pools of Radiance tie ins, and Greenwood, and Goodkind, and shit ,some later Ann Rice, and I even tried TWLIGHT once, and they do not compare to the shit that is that book.

Fuck. I've read better Xanth novels.