Series: Dragonlance Chronicles Vol. 1
And so we jump 5 years into the future into one of the most popular series of books in the history of RPG related fiction. The popularity of this book and its follow-ups is quite easy to understand. They are written in a clear and attractive style, managing to attract both young adults and adults (I first read them at about the age of 12), and they appear at a time when there was not much else in terms of popular high-fantasy fiction going on, with the exception of Tolkien and the Shannara series by Terry Brooks. This is an easier read than Tolkien and a better read than Brooks so... it's success is no surprise.
This is not to say that there are no issues with these books, and even though in my case they are tainted with nostalgia, my older self can spot a lot of problems here. The first problem is related to diversity, there is no character here which isn't white, the majority of characters are either blond or red haired, and the excuse "oh but it's like medieval Europe, there were no black people there" doesn't fly. Not only is it untrue, there were indeed black and brown people in medieval Europe, but if you can have spells and dragons and gods walking among humans, you can also have people of a different color. Well I'm not being fair here, Raistlin is golden-skinned, but that's due to a spell or curse, we'll find out later. Diversity problems also arise when we mention the female characters, yes there are 3 of them, Tika, Goldmoon and Laurana and they can defend themselves in a fight, but they are all connected, defined and protected by male characters (respectively Caramon, Riverwind and Tanis), they are not self-sufficient. There is a mention of a character which will appear later, Kitiara, who seems to be tough as nails, but is not in this book at all. All the characters are also straight as an arrow, of course.
That being said, and this is a problem that will appear in many other books in the following years, it is an enjoyable read, the heroes have well defined characters, more so than the villains who are a bit one-dimensional with the exception of Matafleur, and if you can turn off all the diversity problems which our 21st century brains are attuned to you will have a great time reading this. It's not a masterpiece but it's a rollicking adventure in high-fantasy style, and quite original in itself, unlike the Shannara books it's not openly stealing from Tolkien, although there are songs and meetings and a party of heroes in it of course. There are a few moments you can almost hear the dice rolling, but it's fun and that keeps an element of surprise in the story. It ends leaving itself open to the inevitable sequel, which is the next book on this list!
Tl;DR: 7/10 Marred by problems of lack of diversity which were common at the time, it's a fun adventure story for all ages.
No comments:
Post a Comment