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A review by cwt88
Dragons of Deceit by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman
adventurous
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
A bit of a mess of a reboot here, that just about saves itself in the last third.
Weiss and Hickman still write better than a lot of RPG tie-in material (especially if we throw Warhammer into that mix as well), but you could tell they stuggled to figure out how to piece this one together into their narrative.
The first half of the book is really rather painful. I wasn't against the idea of a recap of events, given I haven't read Dragonlance since 2002. But the 'semi-recap' from Destina's perspective is the first of a series of very odd decisions: it's not clear enough to be a recap, as it introduces new ideas and characters into the mix alongside recapping old ones, and skips around, often leaving me very confused about any events that aren't already burned into my memory; yet I also think it doesn't add enough to be interesting for anyone's who's recently read the War of the Lance. That's not to mention that Destina is an extremely annoying character and we don't get other perspectives until around the halfway mark, when they gradually become more common until by the end she's one of several.
The plot is also a weird mix of messy and basic. It follows the standard boring pattern of a D&D scenario, I suppose: set up context in part one, a sort of 'mini-quest' in part two, and then really taking off in part three. But it's also all over the place in what it's trying to achieve in terms of tone, characters, information and so on, obviously grasping at how to set up a lot of context for the third part where things start to move.
However, as we start getting into more of the heroes we know, as well as some who are being expanded on like Dalinar, I started feeling warm and fuzzy. Even Tas: I know people hate him, but he's OK by me (possibly teen nostalgia). He feels like a very genuine D&D PC and his babbling is written surprisingly well when it could be utterly painful. We start to get a lot more POVs, and a lot more fun, genuine insight than Destina's unreliable and frustrating voice, and it all started to come together for me.
In contrast to our powerful, knowledgeable heroes and anti-heroes (and Tas), I started to see what the authors are going for with Destina: a sort of 'anti-player character', bumbling around making selfish and stupid decisions that are quite uniquely bad in a D&D player character. Typically we either see good, evil, intentionally stupid, or comic relief in D&D novels, but very rarely 'inept'. Which is what she is; she's like a bad player, who's bad not because she makes bad dice rolls or actively tries to do the wrong thing, but because she plays the game badly, and as if she's competing with everyone around her, yet thinks she's great. And that's kind of... refreshing, in a way, as I can't think of anyone else like that. But it really needed the contrast from the other POVs to make this work, because she's a real drag to read about on her own for 200 pages.
I probably would have given this 2 stars... generally well-written, and Krynn still being my favourite setting, but otherwise urgh. But I ripped through part 3 of the book in an afternoon, and it feels like Weiss and Hickman *just* managed to turn it around into an opening of a new saga I'm excited to read.
Weiss and Hickman still write better than a lot of RPG tie-in material (especially if we throw Warhammer into that mix as well), but you could tell they stuggled to figure out how to piece this one together into their narrative.
The first half of the book is really rather painful. I wasn't against the idea of a recap of events, given I haven't read Dragonlance since 2002. But the 'semi-recap' from Destina's perspective is the first of a series of very odd decisions: it's not clear enough to be a recap, as it introduces new ideas and characters into the mix alongside recapping old ones, and skips around, often leaving me very confused about any events that aren't already burned into my memory; yet I also think it doesn't add enough to be interesting for anyone's who's recently read the War of the Lance. That's not to mention that Destina is an extremely annoying character and we don't get other perspectives until around the halfway mark, when they gradually become more common until by the end she's one of several.
The plot is also a weird mix of messy and basic. It follows the standard boring pattern of a D&D scenario, I suppose: set up context in part one, a sort of 'mini-quest' in part two, and then really taking off in part three. But it's also all over the place in what it's trying to achieve in terms of tone, characters, information and so on, obviously grasping at how to set up a lot of context for the third part where things start to move.
However, as we start getting into more of the heroes we know, as well as some who are being expanded on like Dalinar, I started feeling warm and fuzzy. Even Tas: I know people hate him, but he's OK by me (possibly teen nostalgia). He feels like a very genuine D&D PC and his babbling is written surprisingly well when it could be utterly painful. We start to get a lot more POVs, and a lot more fun, genuine insight than Destina's unreliable and frustrating voice, and it all started to come together for me.
In contrast to our powerful, knowledgeable heroes and anti-heroes (and Tas), I started to see what the authors are going for with Destina: a sort of 'anti-player character', bumbling around making selfish and stupid decisions that are quite uniquely bad in a D&D player character. Typically we either see good, evil, intentionally stupid, or comic relief in D&D novels, but very rarely 'inept'. Which is what she is; she's like a bad player, who's bad not because she makes bad dice rolls or actively tries to do the wrong thing, but because she plays the game badly, and as if she's competing with everyone around her, yet thinks she's great. And that's kind of... refreshing, in a way, as I can't think of anyone else like that. But it really needed the contrast from the other POVs to make this work, because she's a real drag to read about on her own for 200 pages.
I probably would have given this 2 stars... generally well-written, and Krynn still being my favourite setting, but otherwise urgh. But I ripped through part 3 of the book in an afternoon, and it feels like Weiss and Hickman *just* managed to turn it around into an opening of a new saga I'm excited to read.