Dragonlance: Dragons of Deceit

Readers of this blog are probably familiar with the Dragonlance D&D setting. Here is the short of it (from Wikipedia):

Dragonlance is a shared universe created by Laura and Tracy Hickman, and expanded by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis under the direction of TSR, Inc. into a series of fantasy novels. The Hickmans conceived Dragonlance while driving in their car on the way to TSR for a job interview. Tracy Hickman met his future writing partner Margaret Weis at TSR, and they gathered a group of associates to play the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The adventures during that game inspired a series of gaming modules, a series of novels, licensed products such as board games, and lead miniature figures.

I have read the first (and probably most famous) trilogy decades ago. At the time, I found it... okay-ish. Certainly not as interesting as the classics I was reading at the time (Tolkien, Poe, Lovecraft, etc.) but I still liked it better than The Icewind Dale Trilogy. 

It had an appropriate epic scope, diverse (if stereotyped) characters, and a setting that was almost create enough with its draconian foes, three moons and their respective mages, and deities walking the earth. It was maybe a bit "young adult-ish" for my tastes, but the main flaw was a few instances of "tell, don't show" where the author would bafflingly skip an epic scene only for it to be told by other characters later.

Mildly interesting, but not something I was willing  to pursue further.

However, I've recently found Dragons of Deceit on a sale and decided to give it a try.

It might have something to do with nostalgia or the fact that I had a friend who read ALL novels and told me some of the stories with an obvious passion. I imagined the books might have become better as the authors gained experience.

Well, this is not the case for this Dragons of Deceit.

The book tells the story of Destina Rosethorn, the young daughter of a brave knight who goes into battle against the same villains of the first trilogy. Trying to save her father (and herself) from all the problems that come with this fact, she goes searching for an artifact that would allow her to travel trough time.

The first problem with this book becomes obvious right in the beginning, as it adopts the "Poughkeepsie" style criticized by LeGuin in her famous essay; i.e., the setting looks exactly like modern days with some magic and pointy ears (and even more D&D-isms than the first trilogy as far as I can remember, such as people starting working miracles for no reason).

Feudal lords spend vast amounts of time with lawyers and merchants, with some of the main battles being resolved in courts or with a few coins. There are "magic shops" willing to sell potions and time-traveling devices. Gods walk the earth like common folk, and they talk funny. Dragons are nice and willing to be ridden just because. The mage police is called when there is a problem with mages. And so on. 

Everything is magical... which means nothing is.

The second problem is common in many trilogies (the worst offender in recent memory is probably The Blade Itself): nothing interesting needs to happen because we have two more books to tell a story. Dragons of deceit, however, is a duology; so only the first half of the book feels a bit stale. In the second part, LOTS of things happen, and the universe is potentially turned upside down.

Well, kinda. Like the death of a comic book superhero, you often feel that the stakes are mild, and no permanent damage will be done (or, worse, nothing will "really" happen because time travel will solve itself).

The third problem is the "tell, don't show" I've mentioned above. Few important scenes are skipped, but even when you see them happen, it gets told again nevertheless. A character often explains to others something that has happened a few chapters before. 

Stories get repeated again and again. Characters and scenes from other novels get "repeated" too, as they get retold or revisited with time travel. 

You would expect the author of the original trilogy to come up with new characters and battles, but alas, these are few (come to think of it, the book has only a couple of real fights).

In short, the tone of this books is light and vanilla. 

The characters get into multiple hijinks and marriage jokes that might make you smirk if you're in a great mood.

All "good" characters are nice to each other regardless of circumstance, there are almost no shades of gray between good and evil, and so on. This is closer to "young adults" and further away from "dark fantasy" than the original trilogy.

Compared to other books reviewed in this blog, this it is not great. Not as funny as proper comedy, not as epic as something like Anderson or Tolkien, not as imaginative as Vance or CAS.

On the other hand, it is a reasonably quick and easy read and the second half at least gets you curious to get to the end (and maybe read the other half of the duology). I think it deserves at least a few points for being reasonably short.

In short, if you really liked the original Dragonlance books or setting, this could be is a fun read that might hit you pleasantly in the nostalgia. If you haven't read the original trilogy, try that first - Dragons of Deceit obviously relies on the fact that the reader is probably a fan.