Customer Reviews

Dragonlord of Mystara (Ad&D : the Dragonlord Chronicles, Book 1)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

An epic story of a group of people from a Barbarien, Dwarf, Drake, and an un-known race who are trying to figure out why the rougues are attacking. This book is a must read book for the ages of 12 and up. It containes a large amount of adventure and a little romance but not much. The author has expressed the life of the past in the way of Dugeons & Dragons. The book is revolved around a man named Theylvin Fox Eyes, even though that isn't his real name. He is an orphan that comes from an un-know race of warriors that have remarkable abilities compared to no other race except the immoratals. I give this book a rating of 4 because it has a large amount of fantasy, suspense, mystery, and adventure. The other reason is simply based because I have read many books and this book is a excelent book to read! I hope you like the book if you will or have read it.

I am one extremely picky person when it comes to the way dragons are written and actually take it to heart when they are described as dumb beasts or are not one of the main characters in the DRAGON BOOK I am reading, thus it is very easy for me to find a faults in books. Never, in my life knowing these wonderful creatures, which has become an abscission for me, have I read a more amazing books as these! In this trilogy, the dragons are perfect! everything about them, from there look and size, to there social structure, to there interaction with humans. I could not find even one problem with this trilogy. If you want a top notch dragon book, pick up these!

If you come to this trilogy because you are interested in the Mystara world, you probably will get annoyed at the liberties the author took.

However, if you 1) like intelligent dragons as important characters (particularly in books 2 and 3), 2) don't mind some standard fantasy cliches (not especially bad here, really), and 3) are willing to let the books stand on their own (rather than as part of the Mystara mythos), then you'll probably like this series a lot. The plot relies on standard fantasy tropes, but the story actually goes in some fairly unexpected directions as the trilogy progresses. The series is considerably less derivative than it initially appears.


SOME SPOILERS

Regarding other reviewers' complaints:
-The main character's invincibility: Yes, the armor of the dragon lord does make the main character ridiculously powerful. However, that's kind of the point. The armor is built up in the story as granting incredible powers to fight dragons. Whether the main character gives up that awesome power is pivotal to the plot: he doesn't want to be vulnerable, but he doesn't want all dragons to fear him unreasonably, either. Also, in later books, he faces much higher odds, and comes close to death multiple times.
-Dragons' "personal space" issues: this trait is not handled as inconsistently as another reviewer said. This trait was very much a "personal space" (very close proximity) issue more than unthinking territoriality between dragons. On the whole, the author did a great job establishing dragons as intelligent beings, while still differentiating them from humans.

END SPOILERS


Overall, I've read a lot of fantasy novels, and while I wouldn't put this trilogy at the very top of the list, it was still quite good and completely worth my time. If you like fantasy novels about dragons, you could do a whole lot worse than the Dragonlord Chronicles.

I loved this book. First it treated dragons the way they were meant to be treated: As smart life forms not dumb animals: Very smart.

I found this trilogy to be poorly written. The mystara setting has a developed history that this book contradicts, it is set in Mystara's gaming past but the cultures are from the current game time and the events of the book would ensure that they changed significantly. The author's writing style seemed a bit awkward, due, I believe to English not being his primary language.

For a medieval fantasy series I don't like seeing characters say things like "we had a Dickens of a time" and other anachronisms.

It seems as if part of the books were written as chronicling the author's RPG game experiences, and that does not translate well in this instance for making this an enjoyable read.

Plotwise, the trilogy is OK in parts with some neat surprises, but there are annoying elements, and part of the invincible superhero aspects are grating.

I enjoy the Mystara RPG game materials, the setting background, and fantasy writing in general, but this series did not meet my expectations for quality writing and consistency with the setting.

I am going to review this trilogy as a whole because no one book stands out in my mind as being any better or worse than another. They were all equally terrible.
The three books, Dragonlord of Mystara, Dragonking of Mystara and Dragonlord of Mystara make up the 'Dragonlord Chronicles'. I should have been suspicious from the start given the obvious play upon the immensely popular and infinitely better concieved 'Dragonlance Chronicles' from the same publisher.

These books are set within the Dungeons and Dragons world of Mystara and chart the course of the cliched farm boy orphan of unknown parentage on his meteroic rise to his righteous destiny among the stars.

It could be reviewed in one of two ways, as a fantasy novel in its own right, or as a piece of the Mystara universe. Neither would be flattering. For a fan of the Mystara universe this book is an abomination, totally disregarding the world's established fan base and re-writing the history past, present and future of a much loved world. It adds nothing, nor appears to be derived from much resembling the world the fans know and love.

As a fantasy novel it relies greatly on cliche, we have the stoic Dwarf Fighter, the independant Amazon, the Wise Old Mentor and the Impressionable Do-No-Wrong Orphan Hero-Boy. That is about as far as the characterization goes. After ploughing through the entire trilogy I could tell you little else about the main characters. I could mention that they all 'talk' for the author, the unsurprising advancements of plot are simply revealed all too often in unbelieavable dialogue rather than revealed by events and actions. Likewise the character's thoughts and motivations are never revealed through action but always in a very clumsy monologue fashion. They also often talk in obvious D&D game terms, even going so far as to describe each other by class and level.

The dragons of the books are just awful. I cannot stress this enough. At once described as wise, powerful, majestic beings we then learn that regardless of colour or species they are such a territorial race that if two or more are around each other for very long they degenerate into wild beasts and savagely rip each other apart. This is stressed time and again in the first book, but yet the second two books have literally thousands of dragons on each page and unfortunately this never happens. The dragons are also laughably weak. Our uber-powerful hero, in one memorable moment kills six with a single blow from his sword.

The bad moments are too many list but I will try. The hero is simply impervious to all damage by anything, and can kill anything effortlessly - this does not help to add any dramatic tension whatsoever to the story.

His mysterious origins are really very predictable and boring and I found I could really care less.

An army of several thousand dragons surrounds a city, trying to get to our hero - but they fear him too much to attack! Come on, these are dragons! In the meantime, a couple of allied armies 'sneak' into the besieged city under cover of darkness without the supremely wise and knowledgable dragons noticing.

I could go on, but I will spare you. I am, and ever will be a fan of fantasy novels and the Dungeons and Dragons genre lines. I have read the good, the bad and the indifferent. This trilogy falls way below the bad. It is the dire, the terrible, the abysmal and reallyshould not have been written much less read.

Thanks but no thanks, Thorarinn.