f13.net

So back in the day I read Dragons of Summers flame. It was *supposed* to be the last book that Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman would write together.

A couple days ago in the book store I ran into The War of Souls trilogy, dedicated to Peter Adkison who "made the magic happen for Dragonlance again."

Sooooooooo, I picked up the first book, Dragons of the Fallen Sun. Before I get deep into it though and read the rest, am I wasting my time with the trilogy? I really fucking loved Chronicles and Legends and I'm hoping the new books are up to par.

I'm sure at least someone here has read Dragonlance.

Edit: I should not have read a single sentence about these books on Amazon. Spoiling bastards.

Though I haven't, I'm pretty sure your audience has a large proportion of people who have indeed read Dragonlance.

I loved Chronicles (caveat- I was about 14 when they came out, so take that with a grain of salt), and I enjoyed Legends (mainly because they contained many of the same characters). Chronicles is what got me interested in playing D&D again- I played in grade school, but it wasn't cool enough for middle school =)

Yea, I was about 14 as well. That's why I'm interested if anyone has read these new books. I know Caramon and everyone all but died in Dragons of Summer flame (the fourth book in Chronicles, released I think in 1996), but we still have Mina, Alhana Starbreeze, Silvanoshia and a number of other people still alive to continue what storyline was left (basically Gods = Gone, Dragons = new gods).

I liked the original trilogy, but that was many moons ago.  You know, about the same time I thought that Xanth didn't suck donkey balls.

Oddly enough,  earlier in the year when I was on a reading binge, I picked up the Dragonlance books again and re-read them.  Boy, was that a disappointment.  I guess I was more easily impressed when I was teen.  The writing just seemed on a more childish level than I remembered. Still they were entertaining and it didn't take me long at all to tear through them.  

Heh, and like you I picked up the first book in the new trilogy.  It's still waiting to be read as I'm currently reading some more of Orson Scott Card's books (the ones concerning Bean from Ender's Game). So I too am eager to hear hopefully that they dont' suck.

Change donkey balls to 'underage children' and I think you have the basic premise for most Xanth books these days.

Does it play before the Fifth Age? Fifth Age ruined Dragonlance for me. Too much munchkinism going on.

Actually it seems they dumped the 5th Age. The books that came out immediately after Dragons of Summer Flame had 5th Age on them (That's where I thought the series turned to shit as well, so I stopped reading). I read the first chapter of Dragons of a Fallen Sun and it picks up with a Knight of Takhisis group in Neraka (they are now called the Knights of Neraka). Seems Weis and Hickman hated that 5th Age shit as well. Right now the writing *seems* to have matured and has picked up after Chaos has left (at the end of Summer Flame).

The dragon lance books I liked the best were some of the very very preequals like the dwarven nations trilogy and the kaz the minataur books.

Most of the ones I have read are decent although I must say I have not read the  most recent ones. The main reason for this is I was annoyed that they went through all that trouble to get the freaking pussy ass gods to come back and the bitchs stick around for only a couple books before taking a hike again WTF. If your gods are that much of whiny bitchs its time to stop bothering with them.


Kaid

Makes me wonder if I should actualy check out Dragonlance again.  As a teen I as BIG into them (to give you an idea, I think I have around 45 or so Dragonlance books in a drawer in my bedroom at my parents place), and my brother was big into the other stuff (I think he has he all of the Ravenloft and  Darksun Books pre 1999).

I stopped collecting roughly around when 5th age came out, but if these new ones are any good, I might start up again, just for the sake of nostalgia.

Most of my books are still in pretty good condition too (including the Chronicles with origional covers)  Wonder if I could get anything for a full set of pre 5th age Dragonlacen books on E-bay.

Richard Knaak - who I believe did the Kaz novels has done a set called the Minotaur Wars. I think it finished in 2003.

As for Dragonlance and the newer trilogy - I'm glad I picked it up, I just finished chapter 3 and it left me all nostalgic. If you have the time to read them, I guess I should suggest you at least give The War of Souls a chance.

ahh, Richard A Knaak.

He was one of the better authors on the whole Dragonlance project.  I also have another book series of his, set in a seperate world, called the Dragon Realm.  Very good books (much better then a good bit of the Dragonlance stuff) with a very, VERY interesting setting.

I actually read all three of the books, and they were actually pretty enjoyable. Quick reads though, if you have the time. It was kind of predictable at some points, but I liked the epic feel they attatched to the whole series. Second one was probably the best, with an ending that let you say "duh". Don't let it turn you off though, they're still entertaining.

I agree. Knaak had a......sigh....knack for pacing. Besides Weis and Hickman (beyond the ridiculous number of Dragonlance novels I own), Knaak was my goto author in the series. After I finish this trilogy I plan on picking up his Minotaur war series.

So how many DO you own?  We can get into a "My stack of books is bigger then your stack of books" fight :P

Every single one of them and the first 3 in 5th Age.

As every one else here, I read the Chronicles when I was around 12 or 13. I really enjoyed the latest triligy. It has Tasslehoff in it, and also a sort of perverted Joan Of Arc theme going. It IS set in the piece of crap 5th age, but they sort of change it a bit, and make it a LOT better than some of the other crappy authors who wrote about it.

While the level of writing is nothing like Neil Stevenson, it IS pretty good for "Lite Fantasy", or "Junk Food Reading" as my girlfriend calls it.

The War of Souls Trilogy is definitely worth the read.  I picked them all up when they came out on Hardback and didn't regret it one bit.  It certainly helped that I didn't have Amazon to spoil anything though :D

I read the original Dragonlance series.
It sucked so bad, that I swore to never touch one again. The only good part about the whole trilogy was finishing it and being glad it was over. It felt like I read reading a saturday morning cartoon.

I've only read the first two trilogies.  They were good for what I believe they are: juvenile (as in young reader) fantasy.


BTW, Hickman is a very nice guy. He's from Utah and I've met him a couple of times.  

For W&H stuff though, I'll take the Death Gate Cycle.

I liked it... when I was in the 5th grade.  That's a pretty sure indicator that I'd find it to be teh suck now.  However, I did recently run across an old Dragonlance graphic novel and a couple comics and that did bring some nostalgia for the series.

I tore through the first two trilogies by W&H when I was 16, basically played out the Caramon/Raistlin story.....and I've read the Legend of Huma by Knaak like 3 times. Huma was easily my favorite, and I was a big fan of Sturm in Dragons of Autumn Twilight and Dragons of Winter Night.

Every now and then I think about the visuals of Huma flying to face Takhisis, Sturm's death against Kitiara, or the final battles in Autumn Twilight (no so much Verminaard as the battle between the dragons).....someone could make some decent movies, or at least a solid animated feature out of Huma or the Chronicles.

Unfortunately, the writing hasn't gotten much respect from even fantasy literature buffs, as shown in this thread.....and it is even more obscure to the general public. Probably deservedly so, as W&H borrowed a lot from LOTR, and aren't great authors by any stretch.....but I think it's gotten pretty fashionable to bash Dragonlance in general.

I'm tempted to go read Summer Flame, but I suppose I should probably leave well enough alone. Odds are that if they started whacking the Companions, I won't care for it.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

Minor derailment coming up- please fasten your seatbelts and return your seats to the upright position.

Has anyone read any of Michael Stackpole's fantasy stuff? I read a couple of his sci-fi things YEARS ago (IIRC, he wrote a couple of decent short stories in the Shadowrun universe), and I read Talion:Revenant a couple of years ago (I enjoyed that).

I ask because I picked up The Dark Glory War yesterday. I was in a hurry at lunch, so I skimmed the Fantasy/Sci Fi section at Barnes and Noble quickly. Ended up with the above, along with The Diamond Age and Zodiac by Stephenson (the Baroque Cycle books were still in hardback, and fuck THAT noise- 3 paperbacks still cost me $31!). Is it worth a read?

Stackpole makes some decent sci fi lite stuff, fun reads.  He made a couple of battletech books that were pretty good.   Haven't read what you mentioned but if its Stackpole I'd give it a shot.

Yah,  I think so.  Thought it was a pretty entertaining read.  The book sets up a trilogy Stackpole just finished this spring.  Interesting characters,  very interesting ending.  

The trilogy started out real strong,  but I was pretty disappointed by the final book.

I'm going to pimp Glen Cook's Black Company again here,  since no one has in about 6 months.  Good stuff.

I just finished the War of the Souls. Very entertaining. Not near as epic as the original novels. I guess the problem was inherent to the story though. A number of characters were either undeveloped or just outright shitty from conception.

The Heroes of the Lance had backstory. They had a good 50 books establishing them before most of them died (or died soon after) the Chaos War in Dragons of Summer Flame. In the War of Souls a number of the characters appeared in the past books, Lauranathalasa for instance, but were of no concern back then.

It was nice to have Tas back for 3 books. But without Flint to offset him (Gerard was a horrible replacement) and Raistlin to slap him around, it just wasn't the same.

Good to go back to the Dragonlance world though. It will remain as one D&D world that I wished someone had used as the basis for a decent game. (I say that because I hate Forgotten Realms and every other D&D realm except for Planescape [now defunct] - which we all know gave birth to Black Isle's Torment).

But then Krynn got the most mileage out of all TSR worlds next to the Realms.

They even had two Strategy Games and a Dragon Flight Simulator, you can't milk a setting for more than that...

And the Gold Box Krynn Games I even found decent, for the standards of those times. Special Cleric Spells from your chosen deity and changing power levels for white/red/black mages depending on moon phases were kinda neat.