Despite my well-known dislike of the way that the Dragonlance series changed AD&D (and roleplaying), the fact is that I actually looked forward to the appearance of the first Weis and Hickman novel in November 1984. As a TSR fanboy, I dutifully bought it, along with its two sequels, though, in retrospect, it's difficult to say exactly why. I suspect the sheer novelty of a "D&D novel" – Quag Keep doesn't really count in my estimation – was enough to inflame my interest.
I had just turned fifteen at the time and Dungeons & Dragons meant a lot to me. I suppose I saw the advent of the Dragonlance novels as some kind of validation of all the time, energy, and love I poured into this rather odd pastime. From the vantage point of middle age, it's mildly embarrassing, but adolescent enthusiasms often are.
"I suspect the sheer novelty of a "D&D novel" – Quag Keep doesn't really count in my estimation – was enough to inflame my interest."
ReplyDeleteBy 1984 I was two books in to Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series. While not technically a D&D series, it was certainly a portal fantasy (isekai these days, I guess) series revolving around obvious D&D-clone players and that was plenty good enough for me.
Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series was my personal tipping point for going from a kid that knew there was this game called Dungeons & Dragons (and to a lesser extent other role playing games) out there, to being actively involved in playing D&D and rpg's in general. After reading the first book or two in that series I was filling my living room with hand drawn maps (Tolkien had a definite influence here as well) and stacks of character sheets for a game with no rules beyond what I could glean from my understanding of the early chapters of The Sleeping Dragon.
DeleteSeeing this my parents got me started with D&D when for Easter they gave me Dragon Magazine #154 and the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy. I was in the 8th grade and it was 1990. Before the end of the 8th grade I had the AD&D Player's Handbook and during the summer before I started high school I had the DMG and the Monstrous Compendium and I haven't really looked back.
Regarding The Dragons of Autumn Twilight and the subsequent novels, as a junior high/high school student I enjoyed them a great deal. After rereading a few as an adult, while I can't say they are great examples of fantasy, I still maintain a nostalgic fondness for them.
The Guardians of the Flame was amazing. Holds up better than you'd think, too. And significantly better than Dragonlance, both then and now.
DeleteMy only regret about following the series is that Rosenberg's untimely and very unexpected death has left some threads permanently hanging, which is always frustrating. Still, he'd moved on to the "Next Generation" to some degree, and the original players' stories were pretty well sorted out.
DeleteI never bought the novels. They were loaned to me, and not at my request: a "you have to read this" sort of thing. Despite my dislike for the modules and setting, I read the first 3 and thought they were OK. Returning them I was loaned 3 more. The third time this happened I took a very long time to return them, which seemed to end the trend (as I desired).
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to Dragonlance novels, there are always 3 more...
Both my experience and my opinion of the DL books is nearly identical to yours, although I escaped after the first trilogy. OK is as far as I'd stretch my charity - and I say that as someone with a pretty high tolerance for mediocre fantasy. So many Eddings novels tainting my youth...
DeleteWhen I was growing up in the 90s in the UK we just didn't have d&d where I was, it was a full Fighting Fantasy game books into Warhammer/Warhammer 40k for nerds in my area. What we did have in the secondary school library some how was the dragonlance books and that was how I got my d&d introduction. How they ended up on the sparse shelves of our school library I'll never know. Eleven or twelve year old me loved the books, I'm too scared to go back and re-read them for fear they do not hold up at all.
ReplyDeleteMy local (UK) library was jam-packed with Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels for some reason. Aside from the adverts for the Red Box on the back of most of my Marvel comics, those novels were my first exposure to D&D.
Deletethese books were so popular at my high school that the library locked them up. Had to ask the librarian to get them out to sign them out.
ReplyDeleteThe Dragonlance novels were also famous in Portugal too in the late 80s.
ReplyDeleteTo many kids it was Weis and Hickman - and not Tolkien - who introduced young readers into Heroic Fantasy settings.
I loved that first trilogy. I was probably 13-14 when I discovered them and already years into D&D. I'd liked the Hobbit as a kid but always found LOTR turgid. These novels however were just the right "spot" for me at that age and it was D&D novelised but taken seriously- it felt "adult" to my early teen self.
ReplyDeleteLooking back it was melodramatic stuff and not nearly as grown up as I thought- but I found huge inspiration from these novels and they are the most succesful aspect of Dragonlance imo.
(I marvel at the poignancy of the recollections found here) Dragonlance appeared during an incredible transition for me - we now know it is entirely normal - from D&D to electric guitars. I was 12. We worshipped "older brothers" and they had departed D&D for the likes of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden and 100-Watt Marshall JCM 800 amplifiers that could blow windows out of your garage and have you summarily executed by the parenting group. I remember dropping the first DL book out of the library window so it wouldn't set-off the alarm, and taking it to the beach to read in Ocean City, MD. The sunglare made reading difficult with the small text, so the book came home to the woods where we had thrown 75+ dice among the trees and swamp owing to lost battles among the liches and troll warrens. DL wasn't great, but it felt like the first bricks in a road to better things. And it drove me to pick up a blue pen and Honeywell lined pad and start writing in 1985, using stolen names like Draco Stormsailor and Forsetta. Eight hundred pages later I had created a perfectly mediocre fantasy setting and humdrum campaignish story arc. But it was mine. I would never remember learning Bringing on the Heartbreak with that ghastly guitar. Dragonlance inspired me to create, and the results last forever. Waste my day listening to punk rock and staring at my skateboard? Eff the Bones Brigade.
ReplyDeleteOf interest to me was that Dragonlance told a decent story, while still managing to insert the trappings of AD&D: Chromatic dragons, wizards who are weak to begin but gradually gain in power, an adventuring party of various races and classes based at an inn(!), clerical healing. Somehow Weiss and Hickman took these very game-driven mechanics and tropes and managed to make them work in book form.
ReplyDeleteIs it great literature? Of course not. But it showed the potential of Dungeons & Dragons to have a wider audience than just gamers.
That's how I feel about the first three books. A rollicking yarn with some hints towards game structures and constraints, but not ever going to be great literature. I'd happily recommend the first three to my kids.
DeleteBack in the late 90's a friend of a friend who had done hard time told me the Dragonlance books were a big hit in prison.
ReplyDeleteHere in Spain these novels were also published in the late 80´s (I think that with decent success). I honestly have to say that I loved them (in fact I would wake up early before going to school in order to be able to read for a while). I guess it is partly a question of age (I was 11 or 12, I believe) and whether you had been exposed to other "better" novels.
ReplyDeleteI know a few people, now in their 40`s like me, who read them and we all have fond memories. But I remember that years later, being older, I tried to read them again and very soon concluded that it was not a good idea.
I actually gave them to my 10 year old recently (what do I know, I have to admit that I enjoyed David Edding´s novels). Moorcock and Leiber will have to wait...
I'm fascinated to read other people's recollections of the novels at that time. For me, it was quite different: I was entreated to read the first one, but I bounced very hard off of it. The writing was terrible to me at the time! The Dragonlance novels were a very significant part of why I moved away from D&D and anything TSR (except for Marvel Superheroes) for many years, only really coming back for more than novelty's sake in this millennium, with the OSR and a reevaluation of the mechanical basis of that game. I was always much more taken with Traveller, then GURPS after TNE turned the Third Imperium's metaplot into a story that I didn't much appreciate (and I still think that the dissolution of interstellar society should have relied on Hard Times rather than Virus, though I am considerably less fiery about it than I once was; but I digress). For me, the fiction was a sign, and there were others, that TSR was no longer serious about the games. It led to me developing my theory that a good RPG should embrace the things that make RPGs distinct from other types of fiction - and thus, as mentioned above, leading me back to the OSR after forays into other modes of play.
ReplyDeleteAfter the Renaissance there was an art movement known as Mannerism, where every artist learned to draw by going to Rome and copying the masters — and while competent, the work lacked life and originality. I was deep into another semester of Art History when Dragonlance came out, and I immediately dismissed it as the fantasy equivalent of Mannerism. My gaming friend also rolled their eyes and immediately wrote it off as a TSR cash-in.
ReplyDeleteYears later when I was working for well-known gaming magazine, I found myself hanging out with Weis and Hickman in their hotel room at GenCon and discovered them to be utterly delightful and great story tellers in person. Deciding I judged them too harshly, I finally picked up Dragonlance — and got maybe 2 chapters in when I threw it across the room in disgust. It was indeed utter dreck.
Which doesn't mean I don't appreciate the nostalgia for the novels. I myself am guilty of reading all the Gor books, which I thoroughly devoured at age 12, only to realize to my horror years later they were a complete and total rip-off of Edgar Rice Borroughs' Princess of Mars.
You may now cast the first stone...