Customer Reviews

The Last Thane (Dragonlance Chaos Wars, Vol. 1)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I absolutley loved this book! I have long been a fan of the Dragonlance series and Douglas Niles is one of my favorite writers. I think this book could be one of his best, and I hope he writes more about the dwarves of Krynn.

You don't realize the extent of damage The Chaos War had on Krynn until you read this series. Good Lord! In many ways, the war did destroy Krnn.

Nobody suffered as great a loss as the dwarves. It's truly saddening to read what happened to Thorbardin. It';s amazing the race survived at all. The book had the right amount of plot twists, good heros & villians & the last 1/3 of it is absolutely gut-wrenchingly sad. A great read.

After the disappointing Dragons of Summer Flame, Douglas Niles succeeds in writing an extraordinary background of the Chaos War. Niles plainly manages to give a detailed description of the Maze-underground kingdom of Thorbardin along with the mass destruction caused by the creatures of Chaos. This is one of the finest, most complete novels depicting the Hylar and Daergar clans. Simply astounding.

Niles is at his best with well-rounded villians and well-rounded heroes, as in _The Puppet King_. _The Last Thane_, regretably, lacks them and suffers because of it.

The action of the book, and there is certainly a lot of action, revolves around a civil war of the dwarves in Thorbardin and the sudden appearance of a vast army of chaos creatures.

The plot has a great deal of potential, but the characters Niles creates seem one-dimensional, almost cartoonish at times. They seem to be more stereotypes of each dwarven subrace instead of individuals. They lack credible motivations and they are sometimes uninteresting because of it. It is hard to care about the protagonists or antagonists.

Bundled into the mix is a number of highly unlikely events, even for a Dragonlance novel. Some of the circumstances are so improbable, such as the numerous encounters of the protagonist and his gully dwarf friends with an assasin, that the reader loses his suspension of reality.

If you're looking for an action novel and don't want to worry too much about thinking, purchase and enjoy this novel. If you are on a quest to read every Dragonlance novel, it's worthwhile. Otherwise, skip it.

This is another example of what Niles is capable of. Not only does his book provide very enjoyable reading in itself, it answers some questions from one of his previous novels, The Dragons. The scholarary personality of Baker Whitegranite is very nicely written and is followed all the way through the book. The only thing against this book is that the personality of Tarn is underdeveloped compared to everyone else.

The book was great. It made me want to keep reading. I had a hard time putting it down it was so exciting. And It explained all about the dwarf government. It is a great book for anyone who likes dwarfs.

Most of this book was well written except for the ending. It should have been a little more detailed or maybe extended. Niles is one of my favorite authors and has written many good books , but he could have done better.

I always felt that Douglas Niles was one of the best Dragonlance writers. His latest book is good but lacks. It has a very exciting storyline and very evil villians and great battle scenes. It gave a lot of insight into the Dwarven realms, more than some other books featuring the dwarves. The end is kind of a quick fix scenario though. But I recommend to read it anyway. P.S. People keep saying that the idea about how after all these years the Hylar dwarves finally come out to fight is ridiculous and that it would never happen. Well, I seem to recall that it was mentioned briefly in Dragons of Sping Dawning that the dwarves of Thorbardin did come out to fight at the end of the War of the Lance. So its not so ridiculous and stop ridiculing Douglas Niles about it.

Reading throug this mess was like banging my head to the wall. Niles is undoubtedly one of the most talentless writers in the TSR/WoC branch. The whole book is on autopilot, characters fall out and then fall back in, but you don't care, because you can't get a hold on them. The villain and the surprise, even the setting are all obviously just plot devices, I couldn't care less. The dwarven kingdom has never been sooo boring and dull. There is no sense of time, doom and loss, and the whole is impersonal. Skip it and you won't miss a beat [in the series].

The forces of Chaos are launching a full-scale attack on the Dwarven peoples of the Dragonlance world. So right away you know the focus of this novel is the plight of the Dwarves in their underground lair. Like most novels in the Dragonlance world of TSR, there are plenty of surprises and a fair number of thrills, and Douglas Niles is one of my favorite Dragonlance authors. Still, the entire experience seems rather dry. It is definitely not memorable, nor are the characters. None the less, it's a decent fantasy yarn set in the Dragonlance world which focuses solely on the Dwarves.