Book Review – Dragons of Autumn Twilight

My little brain started wandering in the direction of fantasy novels just now, so I thought I’d tell you all about the book that, after The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, really got me hooked, lined and sunk into the genre.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Volume 1 of the Dragonlance Chronicles, was one of the first novels produced by TSR, that roughly paralleled the plot of an epic series of AD&D adventures that came out about the same time, in the mid-1980s.

(And yes, in answer to your unspoken question, not only do I have all 14 adventures, but the sequels, the sourcebooks, the atlas, the boxed set, the art book. . . .)

The book’s gone through a couple of editions over the years. Here’s a couple of the cover paintings, by Larry Elmore:

Deuced mean-looking dragons, wot?

Written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the book followed a group of adventurers in a standard quasi-mediaeval fantasy setting, with a nifty twist – while there had been dragons in the world in the past, no-one had seen hide nor hair of them for some 356 years (Yes, I remembered exactly how many years and I haven’t read the book for a long time).

Then, all of a sudden, they were back, along with lots and lots Really Nasty Evil Guys. The chief Nasty Evil Guy is named “Verminaard,” by the way. Now that’s a name to conjure with!

There were the hell of a lot of protagonists to keep track of in this book, including the Melancholy Half-Elf, the Crusty Dwarf, the Barbarian, the High Priestess, the Gronk Warrior, the Sinister Mage (twin brother of the Gronk, just to make things interesting), the Knight and the Kender.

What’s a kender? Sort of a kleptomaniac hobbit.

Anyway, they all get pitched headfirst into this mess and charge off into the thick of things. Mayhem ensues.

If you think this sounds like hackenyed genre fiction, you’d be partly right. It’s no LOTR, but it’s nowhere near the realms of guilty pleasure either. The characters are snapshots, but they’re well-drawn, sympathetic snapshots, with enough quirks and foibles to make them interesting. The writing is well-done and the dragons are introduced sparingly enough to keep them interesting. The dragons are the same ones as recorded in a Previous Missive of this digital diary.

Here’s how the first dragon we meet introduces herself (Elmore, again):

Her name’s Khisanth (Onyx to mere mortals). Nasty-looking, isn’t she?

There are dungeons explored, elven cities visited, dragons fought (and slain) prisoners rescued, loves lost (and won) and much fun had by all.

So clasped within the covers of this tome you’ll find exotic locations, interesting people, good rousing fights and giant flying lizards with really bad halitosis. There’s even a unicorn and a bar brawl, although not at the same time.

All in all, this is a great introduction to genre fantasy and the fact that it’s still in print after over twenty years says something. I’ll let you figure out what.