Customer Reviews

The Irda (Dragonlance Lost Histories, Vol. 2)

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

 

 

To start I am an avid Dragonlance fan, in fact, it is my favortie series and I personaly have over 35 paperbacks and a few hardcovers. I am writing this review to tell all other Dragonlance fans to find another book before reading this one. This is the first Dragonlance book I had to put down because I just couldn't read any more. I dont even recall what the story involved. Usually with a Dragonlance book I read untill the roof falls on my head. Even then if I didn't die I would keep on reading. However this book bored me, failed to excite me in any way, and was in my opinion poorly written. It took me a span of 2 years to finish. Other novels have been devoured in a day. Now Linda P Baker has written other books and Im not saying she is a low caliber author, but this book was just plain bad. I didnt like it, and this is the first Dragonlance book I have said this about. Thank you for reading, thats my two steel.

This book follows a group of characters, mostly Ogres, in the months that lead up to the downfall of Ogres from the favored of the gods to the brutal beasts that most people know them as. It also explains how the Irda separated from the Ogres, and how they ended up on the Dragon Isles.

I think this book could only appeal to fans of the Dragonlance world and would be confusing to those who've never read Dragonlance. Overall it is a decent novel, but it starts very slowly and ends too quickly. Instead of a sweeping history of the Irda, it is a snapshot of the downfall of the Ogres. Instead of relating the history of the Irda through the War of the Lance or even the Chaos War, it ends with their arrival at the Dragon Isles. I think this topic could probably have been handled in a short story, rather than a novel.

Due to the extremely slow start, it is very hard to become attached to any of the characters. Even after one begins to relate to some of the characters, they do things that seem inconsistant with their character quite often.

True fans of the Dragonlance series should read this, as it does give some insight into the fall of the Ogres. Anyone who wants to start reading the Dragonlance series should stay away from this one until you're hooked- else it might scare you away!

Not the best book from the Dragonlance world, but a pleasurable read none the less. The truly intriguing thing about this book, is that I could not tell which characters were the antagonists and which ones would ultimately become the heores. Every chapter was a guessing game, following Khallayne's selfish desires, then Lyrralt's, then Jyrbian's, never really being told who the champion of the Irda was going to be. It could have been all of them or none of them at all, and that is was makes this such a solid read. Fantasy books sadly, can become quite predictable and this book was anything but that. Another point I enjoyed about this book was the setting. Imagine having a wonderful gift that could significantly alter your life for the better, but the pratice of it was illegal. Not only that, imagine living in a society where any teaching contrary to the status quo brands you as a heretic and worhty of death. The conflict and plot is thick and other than a few glossed over character transitions or spans of time this novel is a pleasant change from the mainstream yet still true to the Dragonlance saga. Probably the best thing about this book is no other Dragonlance novels need to be read before opening this one. This story is not entertwined into others and proudly stands alone.

I read this book after reading the book "Dragons of a Summer Flame" and after reading the short story "Raistlin's Daughter". I was hpoing this book would be about the Irda after they left the ogres. I thought maybe this would be a closer look at their society. It's not. If anyone else wanted to hear more about their pact with the gods of good, this book only mentions it once. It was ok, although at points the story seemed to be a little much. It is about why and how the Irda left the ogres. That's it. The story makes no mention to how the Irda began their new life on the Dragon Isles or anything of that nature. It just is about how they got away. If you want a good Irda story, read "Raistlin's Daughter". Maybe read the first few chapters of "Dragons of a Summer Flame". This is alright, but it doesn't satisfy any cravings.

I had looked forward to reading this one because I had found the Irda to be fascinating when they were mentioned in other Dragonlance books. But this novel was an absolute disaster. First of all, the author does not know how to write and should be sent back to grammar school. Secondly, where was the fantasy? Basically, the Irda were depicted as Krynn's version of blue-skinned, modern-day Americans. On top of that, the most important element of their culture -- the fact that they were transformed into ogres -- happened so fast and ended so abruptly that you had to wonder if the author was just plain tired from writing such a pointless story. The book was boring, disappointing, and a waste of time and money.

Don't waste your time or money on this waste of paper.

This is one of the most boring Dragonlance books period.

Just read the first 2 chapters and the last 2 chapters of the book, and you got the essential storyline of the whole book.

It is that pathetic of a book.


Hardly anything intresting happens in this book at all.

I don't want to read 300 pages of how Ogres enslave humans and elves, and mistreat them through-out the entire book, and the only excitement in the whole book happens at the end, when some good Ogres break away and make their own civilization.

This is not essential reading for Dragonlance at all. You can skip this book completely and still not miss any crucial storyline or timeline elements of the whole Dragonlance Saga.

This was an outstanding book. The plot was very well developed, the writer had a very good grasp of the overall "DL" saga, and she new her races of krynn. Now for the problems:

(1) This was the biggest and most frequent problem I had with this book. The Events would jump for one thing to the next, without filling you in on how it happened. Example: The characters would be in one town in one paragraph, and a whole new one in the next, and the author doesn't tell you how that character did it.

This book was full of that. There was very little or no transitional material at all. That can be very annoying. In one part of this book, one character was sitting in a hotel bar, and the story leaves him, when it comes back to him, he is locked in a castle dungeon, and you left asking huh? Because there is no explination on how he got there other than that he was captured.

Those Jumps are my only problem with this book. If you can deal with that, then by all means this is an outstanding book. If that would annoy you, you might want to skip this one.

My advice for Mrs. Baker: Its called "Transitional Material", look into it, because those jumps are annoying.

This is a good book, but it's not DragonLance - it reminds me of a soap opera. It's really odd for a DragonLance book. By no means a failure, but I expected something more along the lines of a typical fantasy novel when this is more dramatic (of sorts). I didn't like it that much, but I have to give it credit because it's storyline isn't that bad and everyone wanted to know how the Ogres fell from the light.

It's about time we get a story on how the Ogres became Ogres. Well told story of fallen glory, and how some managed to escape the destruction by putting thier wisdom to use.

This book was about the Irda, a race of ogres. They lived when they were the most beautiful and intelligent of the races on their planet. But then some of them began to practice evil things and the ogres became corrupted, except for a small band who sailed away to live on a island.