The all Dragonlance all the time thread!

I don't quite know what I would think if I reread them now, it's been many, many years, and for a while there I was literally collecting all the spinoff books. Must have been nuts. But the original six in their own stop-start way (much more smoothly flowing with the second trilogy -- I remember counting down the days to the release of Test of the Twins with desperation) were quite something. Mechanistic and shoehorned at time, sure, but still pretty damned good, a touchstone for a slew of us at that time and place, eighties fantasy kids who loved D&D and wanted a Lord of the Rings of our very own.

And Larry Elmore's art and, again, Raistlin. Best damned Goth in fantasy lit pre-Gaiman's Sandman, easy.

As a portrayal of adolescent-derived rage and frustration taken to literally apocalyptic levels, it's quite something.

Well, yes. ;-)

me: "we should give some of these to our friends".
mr: "you're assuming our friends don't already own them all."

I ended up giving away all of mine in the move last year. Something had to give and it was them, plus a lot of other stuff. That said, I still definitely want to get those omnibus-with-notes versions of the first two trilogies at some point.

Dragonlance novels, as awful as they were sometimes, were almost always lightyears ahead of the Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, etc. books.

"LORD - SOTH - IS - DEAD."

NER-NER-NER-NUH-NUH-NUH

FR books -- Ed Greenwood and R. A. Salvatore seem to have been the only ones in that batch worth a damn, Greenwood cause he actually came up with the whole thing before his involvement with D&D, Salvatore cause, you know, Driz'zt.

Ned: The omnibus editions are massive and unwieldy and have tiny tiny type.

I collect Folio Society editions, this is just like that. ;-) I actually had the original hardback omnibuses from the early nineties or whenever they were.

I could never get into this stuff. The only Forgotten Realms book I liked was The Ring of Winter, and I don't remember who wrote that one.

I recall trying to reread the main trilogy around the age of 18: the experience was seriously shameful. They're really, really crap (except for Weasel's Luck).

but drizzt, yeah!

My Secret Cheesy Fantasy Love -- The Iron Tower Trilogy by Dennis McKiernan. Here's the deal in brief:

MCKIERNAN -- "Hey, I've got this great idea for a sequel to The Lord of the Rings talking about how the Dwarves eventually take back Moria a century or so after the Fall of Sauron."

TOLKIEN ESTATE -- "Die and rot."

MCKIERNAN -- "Erm." *changes all the names but writes it anyway, shops around to various publishing houses*

SIGNET -- "Fantasy book eh? Yeah, looks good, sure...but you know, this seems like it's following on from some other story first. Could you write that one instead?"

MCKIERNAN -- "Erm." *makes a few...SLIGHT...changes*

And so if you ever wanted to read a version of The Lord of the Rings minus the Ring, the Nazgul, Gandalf and Gollum but otherwise pretty much is almost exactly like the original story but with all the names changed, The Iron Tower Trilogy is for you. The actual 'sequel' was eventually published -- The Silver Call Duology (oh brother) -- and as a piece of dedicated fan-fiction which essentially DOES imagine that Dwarf reconquest of Moria under another name, it's not all that bad. Not GREAT but it's cool. But The Iron Tower Trilogy makes The Sword of Shannara seem like the most original book ever written anywhere.

(ten or eleven times.)

Oh, you don't know the half of it. The Elven names alone should be taken out and shot.

I don't believe you.

That's reassuring!

So it's actually an allegory for Lord of the Rings and not the bible?

^^ totally gully dwarf, man, 8080

"two, not more than two"

Further proof that Ta-Nehisi Coates knows what it's all about. Check the first entry.

What a great thread. I re-read Chronicles last year for the first time since around '88, and man do they stink. Didn't taint the memories exactly, but I do wonder why I read them over and over again from ages 12-15. Of course, I was also reading the Gor books, which make Dragonlance look like Pulitzer Prize winning material.

Larry Elmore may be known for these covers, but Snarfquest was his finest achievement. Which is no achievement at all.

i described the old videogame adaptation of the first book as 'frustratingly arbitrary' on twitter the other day; then this account (@the_arbitrator) automatically retweeted it as 'frustratingly definite'. i was confused.

I had that game - "Heroes of the Lance" - for my Tandy 2000. It looked like the screen shot here. I think I might have beat it once or twice - arbitrary and hard as hell, like many games from those days. Played the hell out of it - only had that and the Nine Princes In Amber game, which was also rather difficult.

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/original/1211426248-00.png

it was a bit better looking on the master system:

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HqTC1nIImxs/0.jpg

because

Revive the thread Remy. You know you want to.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, October 13, 2010 4:26 PM (24 minutes ago)

i did want to

Wasn't there supposed to be an animated film or something?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHrOfJ8_D0o

Oh dear.

The comic adaptation was quite good.

God, Dragonlance. I was obsessed when I was about 10, before moving on to longer (not sure about better) fantasy. I still have at least the core six books somewhere though I dread revisiting them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8yyhaB3qII&feature=related

Unleash the arguments

http://io9.com/why-dragonlance-should-be-the-next-fantasy-film-franchi-1520791414

that is a long book report

I loved these books so much. I think the last one I read was Dragons of Summer Flame, before progressing to more mature reading material (Death Gate).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dragon-Lance-The-Minotaur-Wars-Trilogy-MMPB-Richard-A-Knaak-/331149360459?pt=US_Fiction_Books&hash=item4d1a0a3d4b

where are all the people clamoring for an in-depth exploration of krynn's minotaur culture? and why?

He wrote Kaz the Minotaur also, so his credentials are definitely unassailable.

the wikipedia page on raistlin majere describes him as possessing "relative depth"

From a few weeks back but it's a good read

http://www.avclub.com/article/first-dragonlance-novels-gave-dungeons-dragons-new-205614

And basically hits the nail on the head re: Raistlin.

joe abercrombie* : weis/hickman :: arch deluxe : big mac

(or grrm or scott lynch or patrick fuckin rothfuss)
(adding swearing and embarrassing fedora sex to your rollicking childrens adventure story takes away a lot more than it adds imo)

(in re: My reading preferences now lean more toward George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire series—the source of the aforementioned Game Of Thrones—as well as other contemporary fantasists like Joe Abercrombie, Patrick Rothfuss, and Scott Lynch.)

Yeah the guy's current path is more than a little "Uh...you COULD expand a bit."

i thought it was interesting how much he harped on the unoriginality of krynn as a setting as i find krynn to be much more amorphous and suggestively drawn than say the lazy 1-to-1 mapping of the forgotten realms or something (tho i did prefer FR to dragonlance once upon a time tbh as i came of age during the drizzt do urden era)

Bump

Cataclysm time?

Of a sort

I named my tabby cat Tika.

I'm playing my first ever d&d game this weekend and bought Autumn Twilight for prep, to get et into the spirit.

I'm pretty sure I read one of these as a kid but god knows which one, there were 1000s by the time I got there. I wouldn't call it great so far, but it's super fun and readable. I lasted longer with this than Glen Cook, say.

shout-out to Dragonlance for predicting the entire 2000s nerd-jock dichotomy with Raistlin and Caramon including the nerd's slow descent into bitterness and evil

— sads mikkelsen (@corgzone) January 31, 2019

Figured we'd end up here:

Fantasy writers Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (of Dragonlance fame) have sued D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast. Complicated allegations, but the gist is they were writing a new Dragonlance trilogy and WoTC said it would not approve further drafts, "no reason was provided."

— Cecilia D'Anastasio (@cecianasta) October 19, 2020

Weis and Hickman's complaint references rewrites following controversies around WoTC re: cultural insensitivity/bias in content and corporate culture. If anyone has more information, my DMS are open. https://t.co/jIeK7Yk4sH

— Cecilia D'Anastasio (@cecianasta) October 19, 2020

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I expect that once the details of this come to light, there will be plenty of facepalms for everyone

Although as the person who posted Taz Takes A Tentacle upthread, I am no position to judge the poor choices of others

We're all in this together.

I don’t really understand the background here – fuckery at WOTC aside, why did the problems with one product (magic the gathering) result in the cancellation of another?

as I said, I expect facepalms all around

Annnnnd all is resolved

https://io9.gizmodo.com/that-new-dragonlance-trilogy-from-the-series-classic-au-1846125826

Although as the person who posted Taz Takes A Tentacle upthread, I am no position to judge the poor choices of others

― shout-out to his family (DJP), Monday, October 19, 2020 11:25 AM (three months ago)

dying

A legend that lives on.

give me Otik's spicy potatoes STAT

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.

Everything about the Raistlin bullying is OTM

Really is!

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

Bricken gets around to book two of the original trilogy

https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragons-novels-revisiting-dragons-of-wint-1847942044