Dragonlance, the 1st two trilogies

Occasionally people have compared my books (especially the MALISON and the DRAGONTIARNA series) to the DRAGONLANCE setting, which is interesting because I never actually read any DRAGONLANCE books before 2021.

I first tried reading a DRAGONLANCE book back in the mid-1990s. It was a book club omnibus edition of the first trilogy, and I got about a third of the way through it, developed an intense dislike for how non-linear and nonsensical the plot was, and I didn’t think about the setting again until I saw a DRAGONLANCE book on Bookbub in summer 2021, and decided to give it another try.

I was surprised by how much I liked it. It was my kind of thing – adventurers wandering around fighting monsters and dragons and wizards and stuff. I couldn’t figure why I had disliked it so much in the 1990s.

And then the penny dropped.

The book club omnibus edition I read in 1990s had a ton of misprints! Specifically, the chapters were all out of order. Like, in the first chapter, the characters were in the town of Solace, and then in the next chapter Raistlin and Caramon were in the caverns below the Temple of Takhisis. That takes place like three books apart! No wonder the book didn’t click with me in the 90s.

Anyway, the first DRAGONLANCE trilogy is a standard fantasy adventure. You can tell it was the authors’ first novel, and that it was based off a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. In fact, I believe it was basically written as a novel version of a DRAGONLANCE campaign module. The first book especially feels like it was set up with dice rolls and consultations with the charts in the Player’s Handbook. Tanis Half-Elven is a Fighter who is (rolls dice, consults Player’s Handbook) Conflicted About Leadership. Flint is a Fighter who is (rolls dice, consults Player’s Handbook) Always Grumpy. Sturm is a Paladin who is (rolls dice) Honor-Bound. Riverwind is a Ranger who is (rolls dice, consults Player’s Handbook) Distrustful Of Outsiders. Raistlin is a Mage who is (rolls dice) An Enormous Jerk. The biggest weakness of the first trilogy is that a lot of significant events take place off stage, and the reader only finds out about it when the characters discuss them at the start of the next chapter.

Despite that, the books get interesting, especially with the love triangle between Tanis, Laurana, and Kitiara (who in the illustrations always looks like an 80s pop star about to launch into a power ballad), and the toxic relationship between Raistlin and Caramon. The first trilogy reads like an epic Dungeons and Dragons campaign, which is fair assessment because I think the books actually started that way.

The second trilogy goes from Pretty Good to Very Good, since it focuses on Raistlin and Caramon. It also deals heavily with Kitiara, who seizes control of the forces of evil and makes some very ill-judged choices in allies. Raistlin becomes a genuinely tragic character, and Caramon has the most interesting arc in the second trilogy as he finally finds the inner strength to redefine his relationship with his brother.

So, if you’re looking for something to read as you wait for CLOAK OF IRON and DRAGONSKULL: BLADE OF THE ELVES, the DRAGONLANCE trilogies will serve you well. 🙂

-JM