Authors: Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Narrator: Paul Boehmer
Genre: High Fantasy
I purchased this audiobook and chose to do an honest and unbiased review. The authors and Audible Studios neither requested nor are associated with this review.
Goodreads Description:
Life-long friends, they went their separate ways. Now they are together again, though each holds secrets from the others in his heart. They speak of a world shadowed with rumors of war. They speak of tales with strange monsters, creatures of myth, creatures of legend. They do not speak of their secrets. Not then. Not until a chanced encounter with a beautiful, sorrowful woman who bears a magical crystal staff draws the companions deeper into the shadow forever changing their lives and shaping the fate of the world.No one expected them to be heroes.
Least of all themselves.
Here's What I Thought:
First off, I will say that I listened to this book on Audible so I did not read this book in the traditional sense. One of my long-time friends has been after me to read this series for years and now I finally took the plunge. Looking at the reviews on Audible, I went into the book with fairly low expectations. Paul Boehmer did not exactly receive standing ovations for his performance in narrating the Dragonlance Chronicles. I struggle with audiobooks on the best of days so this was far from reassuring.
I was, however, pleasantly surprised. I am in the minority that actually enjoys his narration. His voice is soothing in my opinion. One complaint was that he was monotone with little vocal range. I disagree with the monotone, wholeheartedly. Although I do agree he does not have a lot of vocal range, as someone who does not routinely listen to audiobooks, this is not beyond my expectation. I was expecting one person to read the book, not have a menagerie of voices you would expect with a full cast, and that is what I received. He does do character voices, but I guess people expect a greater differentiation between them. The one complaint that I do agree with, although I don't consider it to be life altering by any means, is Boehmer does make awkward extended pauses fairly frequently. It's almost as if he inserted random commas. Sometimes, they were long enough to make me check my app to ensure it was still playing. Annoying? Yes. Deal breaker? Not for me, at least.
Now onto the book itself. Overall, I thought the book was good. It was interesting enough for me to be excited to move on to the next book and be invested in the characters. However, I will say that the plot is not highly original and follows the roadmap paved by most epic fantasies before and will be followed by many more fantasies in the future. A group of friends start off on an adventure and find there is a great evil lurking in the realm. In trying to just simply live their lives, they somehow find themselves in the thick of it all and end up on a quest to determine the fate of the world.
The heroes seem to follow the classic archetypes commonly found in fantasies. Tanis is the Ruler, Raistlin is the Magician (who'd have thought?), Caramon is the Caretaker, Sturm is the Warrior, Tasslehoff is the Joker, and Flint, I would say he is bordering on Mentor--he defers to Tanis as the leader, but his experience is often drawn upon and he frequently talks about how he is not able to fight the way he used to--although it may be a stretch for him. Honestly, I'm not sure which archetype he would fit in entirely, but I'm sure it's one of them.
Despite the characters being very stereotypical, they had enough personality to become attached to them. By far, Tasslehoff is my favorite character and I love watching his and Flint's dynamic. Tass is like a 4 year old child with ADHD pumped up on sugar and Flint is like the crochety, old man trying to keep him in line. Tanis is alright, but I did find him to be pretty cliché for the genre. Raistlin... Well, Raistlin I really don't know what to make of yet. He is very questionable more often than not it seems. I like Caramon, although he is nothing spectacular. Finally, Sturm kind of irritates me with all his talk about honor and the Code. He really is the knight in shining armor from days of old. He was kind of a yawn.
Another character that I was left with high hopes for actually came in later in the book. Laurana is Tanis's childhood flame, so to speak. Initially, she comes across as a spoiled princess (which she kind of is, I guess...), but by the end she has already begun to show growth. This leaves me excited to see where she goes in the subsequent books.
There are also a few characters that I expect to find there is more to them than meets the eye as time goes on. The first is Fizban. Rule one of fantasy is that the senile, old wizard should always be taken seriously. The other is the man with a green jewel in his chest. I have no idea the part he plays, but I'm curious to find out.
So, overall, not entirely original but still a fun read. I actually liked that it was familiar so to speak in the world building since I listened to it as an audiobook. I'm also currently reading the Wheel of Time series and with that massive and extensive world building, I don't think I would be able to wrap my head around it all listening to it as an audiobook. It's an easy read/listen and despite what people say, Paul Boehmer is really not that bad if you just give him a chance. Final rating: 3 stars.
Any Thoughts?
I would love to hear what you think! If you have any additional thoughts or want to talk more about the book, be sure to leave a comment or send me an email!
About The Authors:
Fantasy novelist who, along with Tracy Hickman, was one of the original creators of the Dragonlance game world. I've written numerous novels and short stories set in the world of Krynn, as well as series in other, original worlds. These include: Darksword, Rose of the Prophet, Star of the Guardians, DeathGate, Dragonvarld, Sovereign Stone, Dragonships, and the Dragon Brigade. I also wrote two paranormal romance novels, Fallen Angel and Warrior Angel, with my daughter, Elizabeth Baldwin. I graduated from the University of Missouri–Columbia and now live in Wisconsin with dogs, Max, Dixie, Joey the Thug and Clancy the Hooligan.
I am currently working on the third book in the Dragon Brigade series, the Seventh Sigil. The first book is Shadow Raiders. The second book is Storm Riders, coming out from Tor in July 2013.
My hobby is flyball racing with my dogs, Dixie, a border collie, and two crackhead Shelties, Joey the Thug and Clancy the Hooligan.
I am the owner of the company, Margaret Weis Productions, publisher of RPGs. Our newest project is creating the RPG for the wonderful TV series, Firefly. Shiny!
NYT Best-selling fantasy authors Tracy Hickman, with his wife Laura, began their journey across the 'Sea of Possibilities' as the creators of 'Dragonlance' and their voyage continues into new areas with the 'Drakis' trilogy, 'Wayne of Gotham', a Batman novel for DC Comics and his 'Dragon's Bard' collector's series . Tracy has over fifty books currently in print in most languages around the world. A record of both Tracy and Laura's DNA currently orbits on the international space station and he is the writer and editor of the first science-fiction movie actually filmed in space.
Links:
http://www.trhickman.com/
@trhickman
No comments:
Post a Comment