Dragonlance: What's the point?

[Dr._Weird]

Recently I read the Dragonlance book "The War of Souls part 1" and found it to be... boring. The characters were put in situations that I guess could have been exciting with better writing. The characters were all one-dimensional, or, at best, two-dimensional.

What's the point of all the hype? Did I read the wrong book? Did the writers burn out after the good stuff?

[Bob_the_Mighty]

Some of the books are pretty good. Others aren't. I've noticed that a writer only writes like one book in the series' they have, so it really depends on which book your reading.

[Talanic]

It really depends on the book and author. I haven't read much beyond the original series, plus the war of souls.

If you haven't read the original series, the war of souls will not make ANY sense. The original series will probably seem cliched now, though, as it was early along and has been heavily derived from now.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight is the first one; after that is Winter Night. Then comes Spring Dawning; then, if you're still interested, read the War of the Twins 1-3. Summer Flame comes after that is done, then the Second Generation, and THEN comes the War of Souls. Backtrack if you want to really understand what the hell was going on in the War of Souls.

Also, Dragonlance really isn't for everyone. Love it, hate it, or in-between; I've seen the gamut.

[bosssmiley]

Read the Chronicles (Autumn Twilight, Winter Night, Spring Dawning) and *maybe* the Legends (the twins trilogy). Stop there. Everything else with the Dragonlance label stuck on it will simply spoil what initially attracted you to the series (we like to call this "the George Lucas effect").

Proof of assertion: "Flint the King", "Gully Dwarves, Kenders and Gnomes", the execrable Tasslehoff 'Prelude' story, "Lord Toede", "Emperor of Ansalom", etc, ad nauseum. Sometimes less is more. :-/

[CombustinPorcupine]

@^: Exactly what I was going to say. Read the originals and Legends. There's a few other one's that I might recommend but for the most part the rest of it is crap.

[Matthew]

I believe the correct terms for these sub genres of Dragonlance are 'Tanis goes the toilet' and the even less interesting 'The descendents of Tanis go to the toilet'.

Basically, I agree with the above posters. The Chronicles (Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winters Night and Dragons of Spring Dawning) are pretty much the best of the series, followed closely by the Legends Trilogy (Time of the Twins, War of the Twins and Test of the Twins).

I wouldn't bother reading many of the others (and I say that as somebody who did), unless you are really interested in the minutia of Dragonlance.

Dragons of Summer Flame was pretty much where I drew the line and so I can't comment on the newer books, but by all reports they're largely of a similar quality.

So, the point is, if you are already a hardcore Dragonlance fan, these books are probably right for you, if not, well don't expect much from them.

[Krade]

The point is the end you stab with ;)

[Em]

Chronicles and Legends. The Legends especially are great. That's six books altogether. Don't bother with the rest, you have better things to do.

[Argent]

I largely agree with Matthew -- the original Chronicles and Legends trilogies are definitely worth a read. The first few Tales collections are also decent. However, like any successful setting, as more sequels and stories got produced, they ran out of good material and started producing total dreck. I wouldn't bother with anything including or after Dragons of Summer Flame.

[Talanic]

As I read the War of Souls, I couldn't help but think that Weiss and Hickman were deliberately killing off all remaining characters and closing off plotlines just to be able to say "And that's how the story ENDS. PERIOD."

[Chris_Chandler]

Aside from the two trilogies mentioned above, some of the Heroes line were decent - The Legend of Huma was actually a solid book.

[Matthew]

I remember thinking that at the time, but it has been a long while since I read it...

[Eldhrin]

I remember enjoying Chronicles a lot when I was twelve, and Legends was okay, but I tried to re-read Legends a while back and found it dull, boring and highly irritating. I couldn't even get past the first bits, as my desire to feed Crysania to an angry black dragon grew too strong.

Looking back on it, the characterisation is, for my liking, far too close to the archetypal character for the D&D classes they represent. The entire series was written to sell D&D, and it shows. Oh how it shows.

Personally I would recommend spending your time reading something else.

[sapphail]

Stop at the end of Legends. Trust me. And don't read any of those friggin' spinoffs like Dalamar the Dark (can't believe I paid money for that) because they're almost invariably awful.

Be especially wary if it's a spinoff not written by the original author/s, it's bound to be dross (as in all the drow/underdark books spawned by the Drizzt series) as they're apparently only briefed on the milieu in general and given free reign to do what they like with it as long as it fits the genre. Example: some subliterate genius describing Menzoberranzan's streets as being lined with 'chic cafes'. :o No joke. Stay away.

[Democratus]

Legends sucked.

Read the Chronicles if you absolutely must read any Dragonlance. But be aware that the books are written at a junior high level.

[Mistborn]

Yeah. It really depends on how old you are, and how experienced with fantasy. The more you read in the genre, I've found, the more you want to push away from the stereotypes. And, Dragonlance has--helped make--the stereotypes.

If you're younger--I read them when I was 14--and haven't been reading fantasy for a decade already, then Dragonlance (Chronicles and Legends, as mentioned. I also liked Huma) is a good choice. If you've already read a LOT in the genre, then I'd skip Dragonlance and pick up Weis and Hickman's ROSE OF THE PROPHET series instead. More original, same humor, better story. (In my opinion.)

[happyjenn97]

Chronicles is the way to go. A few of the Preludes are okay, but some of them are not so good.

I started the Legends and couldn't get into them.

[TheUdjat]

As others have mentioned, Chronicles/Legends are pretty much the only worthwhile books, unless you get really obsessed about the setting (and often even if you do, because of how mutilated it ultimately becomes). But even as a fan os the setting, I have to admit that those core six books are not particularly revelationary in their content. I read them when I was young, so they hold a special place for me, but all in all, there are better books out there.

And if you plan on gaming in Dragonlance, save yourself the trouble and don't read past Legends. But... there are apparently people that liked Age of Mortals, so that's really just my opinion.

Oh, and yeah, War of Souls was kinda... frustrating. They hadn't touched the settings in ages, and it had changed greatly from when they last had it. Major changes in the setting's custody and theme necessitated a novelization of those changes (an explanation, if you will). Because of mutations Dragonlance underwent earlier, 'fixing' those changes made for a large, unwieldy trilogy. I still bought them, read them, and enjoyed them, but I can recognize that they were 'just okay' objectively.

[Umbral_Arcanist]

I've never found the inclination to get into Dragonlance, i see them as guilty pleasure popcorn novels, with entertaining stories and that's about it and for that particular fix i already read the Drizzt series.....


But my real reason for posting is that at my high school (which also has 7+8 grades) one of the summer reading books is a Dragonlance book.... twilight something i think....

[Matthew]

Dragons of Autumn Twilight? I would have loved it if that had been the case at my school...

[Umbral_Arcanist]

Dragons of Autumn Twilight? I would have loved it if that had been the case at my school...

that's the one....


We also read the ender's game series (save children of the mind), and used to read Fellowship of the ring.

[Dr._Weird]

I would be glad about the Ender/Bean series. LOTR, though...

[Umbral_Arcanist]

I would be glad about the Ender/Bean series. LOTR, though...

The teacher said he had fun quizzing students solely on bits not in the movies/that were different..... because he was cruel like that.... bloody excellent teacher though....

[Don Beegles]

The teacher said he had fun quizzing students solely on bits not in the movies/that were different..... because he was cruel like that.... bloody excellent teacher though....

I can just imagine the response to a quiz like that:
"Man, Mr Smith must have been zy when he made the answer choices for that one. I mean, like half of them were Tom Bombadil. You'd think he'd at least keep it to people who , you know, actually in it."

[clarkvalentine]

To answer the question posed by the OP, the point is taht some people enjoy it. :)

I'll break the trend here and say that I enjoy Dragonlance. As has been observed, Dragonlance isn't everyone's cup of tea, and that's OK. But I like it, and it's gotten noticably better in the past 5 years or so.

If you don't like War of Souls, it could be because you missed a lot of the story up to that point (highly recommend reading Chronicles, then Legends, then Next Generation, then Summer Flame. Dragons of a New Age trilogy is optional, but gives a good idea of what the early 5th Age is like. War of Souls occurs next, and brings you up to pretty much the "present time" in the setting.)

Or it could be that it's just not your thing. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't mean it's pointless to everyone. :)

Full disclosure: I'm a freelancer on the game side of Dragonlance, so I'm not exactly fully objective.

- Clark

[Wayril]

I tend to notice that although Dragonlance can be really awesome at times, they overdo the whole god thing. It seems (at least in the many books I've read) that the Gods keep appearing and dissapearing, creating the same plot over and over and over.

If you haven't read much dragonlance I would suggest starting with the chronicles, but if you get bored (99% likely) switch to the Darksword Trilogy (one of my favorite although I didn't like the third book to much) or Wheel of Time.

[Thayan]

Dragonslance is pretty good, but to be fair, The Autumn book was written after the Module was written and as Hickman has said in a recent INterview, Writing Novels From Game Modules is hard to do.

There is a great interview ove at the Round table (www.harpingmonkey.com) Podcast with Tracey Hickman and he discusses some of the thoughts into the Origional Dragons Lance Novels and the creation of Krynn

Very Interesting....