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kleonora 's review for:
Dragons of Autumn Twilight
by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman
A few words on Dragonlance. Dragons of Autumn Twilight started a chain reaction that would consume my middle-school years. Please allow me to stress that I read this book at exactly the right place in my life. My reading up to then had been young adult and classic read-for-class literature. This book caught my imagination and I in turn passed it onto all my friends like the satanic virus my mother believed D&D to be. (I never played the thing myself, but she didn't like the books much either. Dragons are a sign of the devil you see...) Anyway, defining, yes. Defining was the word I'll use. I had a close knit group of nerdy friends in those days and between us we embellished these books, discussed them, traded them (though, of course, the Hickman/Weiss tomes were the most valued) and associated with our own characters.
Strangely enough there was never a fight over who was who. We didn't all clamour to be Kitiara, we weren't that type of girl. Mary C quickly claimed Flint, Karkar was naturally attuned to Fizban, Courdita championed the controversial Raistlin and I, well I was Tasselhoff. Obviously. 10 years later Mary C is earning a PhD in latin and the double bass. Karkar has joined the Peace Core and is building libraries in Costa Rico or the Dominican Republic or one of those islands and Courdita is going through med school and plans to be a geneticist. Maybe it's just me, but it all seems to fall in line. As for myself, I've expatriated and am the proud owner of an acquired television (It's not stealing if the lady at the checkout removes the security tag but forgets to actually scan it!) and it occurs to me that perhaps a kinder is not the most aspirational of figures. C'est la vie.
But enough on my thieving wanderings, I actually have a point. A few years ago I stumbled on a copy of Dragons of Autumn Twilight, an old one with the exact cover of the one I read. I was overcome with nostalgia and instantly begin re-reading this old friend. Semi-instantly later I had quickly closed and replaced the book and was walking away from it at speed trying to forget what I had seen. It was just so bad. The dialogue, the description, even the story had deteriorated. How is that even possible? I can only assume that over the years my personal embellishments had been assimilated into my recollection of the actual text. As for the quality of writing, I was quite simply appalled. Sure I read these when I was around 12, but I had always considered myself a clever little adolescent. I was a bit ashamed of my younger self for lapping up this sub-par prose, but my overwhelming urge, the reason I dropped the text and tried to forget what I had read, was to protect my own memories of Dragonlance.
The characters and the stories are still bright in my mind. They were placed there by my happy unjaded childhood self and grew with me into something that, 13 years later, bears very little resemblance to the original source. The first chapter of DoAT now read to me like a grotesque parody; like ::shudder:: No Fear Shakespeare. Had I pressed on it would have degraded my recollections and I didn't want that. It's left me in a sad place though. The stories I love aren't actually books but the result of a singular adolescent alchemy. I can never go back and re-read them. (Well, at least not until I take my rightful place as companion to The Doctor.) Nevertheless, Dragonlance will always have a special place in my heart and that is why Dragons of Autumn Twilight gets a token 5. If I ever get around to rating the full library of these books I've read the rest will be honest 1s and 2s.
Finally, Tasselhoff is fantastic and I would fight Tolkien himself if he said otherwise.
Strangely enough there was never a fight over who was who. We didn't all clamour to be Kitiara, we weren't that type of girl. Mary C quickly claimed Flint, Karkar was naturally attuned to Fizban, Courdita championed the controversial Raistlin and I, well I was Tasselhoff. Obviously. 10 years later Mary C is earning a PhD in latin and the double bass. Karkar has joined the Peace Core and is building libraries in Costa Rico or the Dominican Republic or one of those islands and Courdita is going through med school and plans to be a geneticist. Maybe it's just me, but it all seems to fall in line. As for myself, I've expatriated and am the proud owner of an acquired television (It's not stealing if the lady at the checkout removes the security tag but forgets to actually scan it!) and it occurs to me that perhaps a kinder is not the most aspirational of figures. C'est la vie.
But enough on my thieving wanderings, I actually have a point. A few years ago I stumbled on a copy of Dragons of Autumn Twilight, an old one with the exact cover of the one I read. I was overcome with nostalgia and instantly begin re-reading this old friend. Semi-instantly later I had quickly closed and replaced the book and was walking away from it at speed trying to forget what I had seen. It was just so bad. The dialogue, the description, even the story had deteriorated. How is that even possible? I can only assume that over the years my personal embellishments had been assimilated into my recollection of the actual text. As for the quality of writing, I was quite simply appalled. Sure I read these when I was around 12, but I had always considered myself a clever little adolescent. I was a bit ashamed of my younger self for lapping up this sub-par prose, but my overwhelming urge, the reason I dropped the text and tried to forget what I had read, was to protect my own memories of Dragonlance.
The characters and the stories are still bright in my mind. They were placed there by my happy unjaded childhood self and grew with me into something that, 13 years later, bears very little resemblance to the original source. The first chapter of DoAT now read to me like a grotesque parody; like ::shudder:: No Fear Shakespeare. Had I pressed on it would have degraded my recollections and I didn't want that. It's left me in a sad place though. The stories I love aren't actually books but the result of a singular adolescent alchemy. I can never go back and re-read them. (Well, at least not until I take my rightful place as companion to The Doctor.) Nevertheless, Dragonlance will always have a special place in my heart and that is why Dragons of Autumn Twilight gets a token 5. If I ever get around to rating the full library of these books I've read the rest will be honest 1s and 2s.
Finally, Tasselhoff is fantastic and I would fight Tolkien himself if he said otherwise.