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horizon_brave 's review for:
Dragons of Autumn Twilight
by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman
I’m starting 2022 off with a read through of the Dragonlance series. I’ll be reading most of the main core books and some of the tangent side stories... This is going to be a slow progress but I’m leading up to the newly announced next book from Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I don’t know how these two still have life to breathe into this world, but I grew up with these fantasy novels...they along with the Magic the Gathering books are what whetted my appetite for fantasy. So for better or for worse, I’m doing a re-read of the books. Have they aged well? Will I ruin the mystique and high praise that I remember them for? If they do pale in comparison with my more adult mind, alas, so be it, but I do wish to return to the world of Krynn. So here goes, into Book I...
Overall coming back to book I is, I must say comforting. I barely remember a single note of this book. However the character tropes, and archetypes are so germaine..so foundational to fantasy genres that it’s easy to slip back into. It was returning to friends that I never met. (Of course I did meet them but having read this back in 2002, one tends to forget...) So yea the book I feel still holds up. The characters are cliched and we know their personalities from the instant you hear them speak...and there’s little nuance. But the fantasy D&D lover in me just eats it up. The real complaint I have is that the two ‘Plainsmen” Goldmoon and Riverwind stumble into enough fake out deaths that it looses the impact... I liked the two characters but they grew annoying...
What I really love is how much of a mediaz res the story begins in. We’re suddenly introduced to this group, as if we knew them all along. Hell, Raistlin returns from what’s hinted at, as being a pretty monumental life changing event. And yea it’s just there. And we meet him after it. It’s wonderfully initiated but it never feels like you’re lost. You jumped in and caught up with them.
This even extends to the personal lives. The relationship of Tanis to Laurana Kanan the elf to whom he grew up with and is technically betrothed to..is fascinating, if not too familiar (Looking at you Aragorn and Arwyn) It’s a trope for sure, but making him half elf does make their bond seem like it should hold more weight. So I love that we’re just tossed into that. Again the book does such a good job in having these currently in motion stories that we just better get caught up with.
I re-iterate the character are stone cut cliches. Literally they’re classes and races from a D&D Players Handbook.
Well this is going to be a long year... I’m planning on getting through as many of the core Dragonlance books as possible.. so we’ll see how and where we end.
Overall coming back to book I is, I must say comforting. I barely remember a single note of this book. However the character tropes, and archetypes are so germaine..so foundational to fantasy genres that it’s easy to slip back into. It was returning to friends that I never met. (Of course I did meet them but having read this back in 2002, one tends to forget...) So yea the book I feel still holds up. The characters are cliched and we know their personalities from the instant you hear them speak...and there’s little nuance. But the fantasy D&D lover in me just eats it up. The real complaint I have is that the two ‘Plainsmen” Goldmoon and Riverwind stumble into enough fake out deaths that it looses the impact... I liked the two characters but they grew annoying...
What I really love is how much of a mediaz res the story begins in. We’re suddenly introduced to this group, as if we knew them all along. Hell, Raistlin returns from what’s hinted at, as being a pretty monumental life changing event. And yea it’s just there. And we meet him after it. It’s wonderfully initiated but it never feels like you’re lost. You jumped in and caught up with them.
This even extends to the personal lives. The relationship of Tanis to Laurana Kanan the elf to whom he grew up with and is technically betrothed to..is fascinating, if not too familiar (Looking at you Aragorn and Arwyn) It’s a trope for sure, but making him half elf does make their bond seem like it should hold more weight. So I love that we’re just tossed into that. Again the book does such a good job in having these currently in motion stories that we just better get caught up with.
I re-iterate the character are stone cut cliches. Literally they’re classes and races from a D&D Players Handbook.
Well this is going to be a long year... I’m planning on getting through as many of the core Dragonlance books as possible.. so we’ll see how and where we end.