Dragonlance

I managed to read two (2) books in the month of June. 100% improvement, I guess! I’ll review them probably at the end of July, in hopes that I have a couple more books to talk about by then.

But today I want to talk about some other books!

Dragonlance

I read these books in high school, shortly after I discovered fantasy fiction via Tad Williams’s Memory, Sorrow & Thorn (still my all time fave) followed by The Lord of the Rings. I wanted to find more books like those, but these were pre-internet days when you couldn’t talk to a bunch of other fantasy readers for recommendations. I saw Dragonlance in Barnes & Noble, saw that there were a lot of them, and decided to give them a try.

They are… very different than Lord of the Rings. They are, in fact, the very things that had kept me from picking up fantasy fiction before - pretty dang cheesy. Their covers look like they should be painted on vans that reek of weed.

But I liked them. I was embarrassed to like them, but I liked them.

Recently my mother-in-law was moving, and begged me to go through her books and take some so that she wouldn’t have to deal with them. And GUESS WHAT I FOUND??

They were from my brother-in-law’s youth. He had the entire original Chronicles trilogy, and most of the Twins trilogy, which is as far as I read back in the day. You bet I took them home.

And you know what? I still enjoy them. And I don’t even really find them cheesy anymore? They just don’t take themselves seriously. And good God has fantasy writing been taking itself too seriously for the last couple decades (I blame GRRM). They’re adventurous and occasionally comical, and they don’t require a huge mental or emotional investment from the reader. They give so much and ask so little.

They do have some issues. The characterizations are a little thin, compared to more modern fantasy, but no worse than Robert Jordan (yeah I said it). But even worse, there are eight (8) members of the party and only one (1) of them is female. And she’s the god-damned healer. UNACCEPTABLE. I can’t even excuse it because it was the 80s - they should have known better. And Margaret Weis was in charge of characters! For shame, Margaret.

Anyway - I’m still Team Raistlin.