― Wooden (Wooden), Sunday, 8 August 2004 17:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 8 August 2004 18:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― Lukas (lukas), Sunday, 8 August 2004 18:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 8 August 2004 18:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 9 August 2004 01:14 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 9 August 2004 01:15 (nineteen years ago) link
I forget about the "Twins" trilogy.
― Bumfluff, Monday, 9 August 2004 01:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― Bumfluff, Monday, 9 August 2004 02:14 (nineteen years ago) link
_____________*loved, as in the preterite.
― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Monday, 9 August 2004 02:23 (nineteen years ago) link
I'm reading the first chunky book of George R R Martin's Song of Ice & Fire series at the moment (someone at my local library is an enormous geek and stocks the SF&F section well) but it's a bit dull. I think I may finally be over dodgy fantasy.
― Liz :x (Liz :x), Monday, 9 August 2004 09:06 (nineteen years ago) link
OTM fer sure.
His sci-fi stuff's shite, though.
Most definitely not OTM. His Otherworld series, though very craptacularly titled, is rock fucking SOLID.
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:22 (nineteen years ago) link
-- nickalicious (nickaliciou...), August 9th, 2004.
I read the first two Otherworld books and found them dreary, meandering and lacking in original ideas. Slow-building, picaresque stories are fine for fantasy, but I like my sci-fi quite punchy.
― Wooden (Wooden), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:54 (nineteen years ago) link
Otherworld gets much more rewarding the longer you stay with it. I lost the will to live after wading through the first book, then the ball started rolling down the hill as the strands started to come together. Still not as tight as Memory, Sorrow and Thorn though - that trilogy is the cod-Arthurian bomb. And I got my (one-volume hardback, heavy as hell) copy of To Green Angel Tower signed when Mr Williams did a talk at the crappy local library near where I was living at the time. I was 15 and agog.
― Liz :x (Liz :x), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― Wooden (Wooden), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― Liz :x (Liz :x), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:23 (nineteen years ago) link
That I admit I liked.
Nick, for me the problem was -- I sorta mumbled this up above, but to repeat -- that Williams' treatment of the historical analogues throughout didn't get as really involved or interesting as I hoped it would in comparison to Kay's similar efforts. And I read Kay first, which might have also had something to do with it. For me, the interest with Kay is the balance of historical what-if mixed with fantasy then further mixed with that moral ambiguousness I found so striking in his stories. It's very heady stuff.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:26 (nineteen years ago) link
Nick, that's the Chronicles trilogy, get it STRAIGHT dude!
Those are pretty hazy in my mind, actually, I mostly remember Raistlin befriending the gully dwarf and wanting to eat spicy fried potatoes.
― Jordanio, Monday, 9 August 2004 13:28 (nineteen years ago) link
Every time we actually tried to play a Dragonlance module, it would devolve into arguments as to where the best fried potatoes could be found should Otik not be available.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:29 (nineteen years ago) link
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― Wooden (Wooden), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jordu, Monday, 9 August 2004 13:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:48 (nineteen years ago) link
The draconians were great because they were all about GENETIC MUTATION via magic. Also because of that great unsettling scene describing a dragonlet born of a corrupt egg that maintains its shape for a second or two before bursting and turning into draconians.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 13:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 9 August 2004 15:48 (nineteen years ago) link
The story of the Dragonlance which started in the Inn of the Last Home under the vallenwoods ends in this wonderful book. Raistlin (Caramon Majere's frail twin) opens the mystical Portal to the Abyss to challenge Takhisis, Queen of Darkness. At the exact same time, his twin Caramon operates the magical time-traveling device. The fields of magic shift and collide sending Caramon and his kender friend, Tasslehoff Burrfoot, are sent into an unknown time and place while Raistlin enters the Abyss. Meanwhile the planet the full continent of Ansolon on the planet Krynn is undergoing one of the most destructive wars ever recorded by Astinus. Tanis Halfelven and Caramon take over a giant flying catedal and had Tasslehof and a gully dwarf fly the catedal to the Tower of High Sorcery. Once there Caramon and Tanis went past Dalamar's guardians (Dalamar- one of the most powerful sorcerers in all of Krynn) to find him laying on the ground after being stabbed by the Dragon Highlord Kitiara (Kitiara is the friend and foe of many people throughout all of the Legends and Chronicles)...
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 9 August 2004 15:52 (nineteen years ago) link
(um, x-post, yeah)
― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 9 August 2004 15:53 (nineteen years ago) link
Caramon, I think.
Basically, Caramon and Tas end up in the future after the Dwarf War catastrophe in the 2nd book and find out that not only has Raistlin won over Takhisis but that he's essentially about to destroy Krynn via sucking all the life out of it and laying everything waste. It's been too long so I'm fuzzy about what happens after that, but the book splits itself between Raistlin actually fighting Takhisis in the Abyss, Kitiara and Lord Soth leading an attack on...cripes, I forget the name of the city, where Raistlin's tower is and where Crysania has been based...and Caramon having to face up to the fact that if he wants to save the rest of Krynn, Raistlin can't be allowed back from the Abyss. Tas's little gnome buddy get iced by Raistlin at some point and that finally wakes him up to the fact that Raistlin isn't much fun anymore. Caramon and Raistlin have a final faceoff via the Dragon Portal in Raistlin's tower, Caramon gets hold of Raistlin's humanity somehow (I forget the details) and the Portal is sealed, essentially damning Raistlin to eternal torment at Takhisis's hands, but the book suggests that his soul is able to retreat into a small quiet place where his brother still looks after him in a very abstract sense.
I'm probably missing some details. Oh yeah, and Kitiara dies and Lord Soth claims her for himself, the dead perv.
Double x-post! I don't care, I'm posting it anyway!
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 15:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 9 August 2004 16:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 9 August 2004 16:02 (nineteen years ago) link
I'm enough of a Weis/Hickman groupie I've got the Darksword and Rose of the Prophet books. And all of the Death Gate cycle -- in hardback!
But after that, my interest declined, and I really can't believe there's much good about the new Dragonlance books they've done.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 16:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 9 August 2004 16:04 (nineteen years ago) link
Ladies and gentlemen, I should note we are excluding another important factor in all this -- Larry Elmore!
ihttp://www.steamfantasy.it/gallerie_artisti/elmore/1/larry_elmore_dragonlance.jpg
(And if that doesn't work, just go here).
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 16:05 (nineteen years ago) link
1. Kitiara2. that one elf chick3. that one moon-chick what was with Riverwind4. Tika5. that one ice-chick
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 9 August 2004 16:07 (nineteen years ago) link
― Wooden (Wooden), Monday, 9 August 2004 16:07 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 9 August 2004 16:08 (nineteen years ago) link
Dan is keeping too quiet on this thread but I KNOW he must surely have had a high regard for Kit.
Who's the chick with the curly hair in that jpeg?
Tika. Kitiara is the figure in the armor looming behind them all.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 16:08 (nineteen years ago) link
6. Tasselhoff on the cover of Winter Night
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 9 August 2004 16:09 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 August 2004 16:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 9 August 2004 16:11 (nineteen years ago) link
Rob Bricken's (very great) column on old D&D novels, which has mostly been looking at Forgotten Realms stuff and a few side notes too, has, after dispatching one of the first spinoff novels, gotten around to starting the original trilogy:
https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragons-novels-revisiting-dragons-of-autu-1847446582
Unsurprisingly he says it's the best of the books he's read so far, which, yes.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 17 August 2021 16:31 (two years ago) link
Everything about the Raistlin bullying is OTM
― a gentle push against my Wonder Bread face (DJP), Wednesday, 18 August 2021 00:48 (two years ago) link
Really is!
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 18 August 2021 01:19 (two years ago) link
i'm sure i've mentioned this before, but just to reiterate, I once read a Margaret Weis series that was, if anything, a *more* fascist take on Star Wars
also the protagonist was named Dion Starfire
― mookieproof, Thursday, 19 August 2021 01:33 (two years ago) link
Bricken gets around to book two of the original trilogy
https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragons-novels-revisiting-dragons-of-wint-1847942044
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 3 November 2021 19:57 (two years ago) link