You may be wondering what has happened to the
good Dragonlance sentences project. To be perfectly frank, Chapter 1 of
Time of the Twins defeated me. I'd forgotten a number of things about the
Legends, as I've read it fewer times than the
Chronicles; in my mind it's a better trilogy, but that's if you forget (as I did) about Raf the Gully Dwarf (who can just about count to 3 but can always be relied upon to make 'hilarious' comments at opportune moments), the weird anachronisms (Tika saving up money to 'buy the business' of the Inn of the Last Home), the clumsy internal dialogue ("He knew me better than I know myself. He knew of the chaos that raged inside my soul. He knew I had a lesson to learn." Because that's how people actually think.) and the comedy that isn't funny ("'...I was...busier than a draconian drill sergeant!' That always got a laugh." Why?).
Sigh.
That's not to say that the writing isn't
functional. It draws you in. You want to know what happens next. Like Dan Brown, I'm quickly remembering, Weis & Hickman have a great talent for never allowing the ending of a chapter to resemble anything like a conclusion. So you are lead inexorably onwards, like a boulder in full flight down a mountainside, chapter after chapter, heading ever lower and lower, unable to stop yourself, yanked on by the force of Dragonlance gravity, until you plough into a farmhouse and vineyard somewhere in the North of Italy.
The challenge is still on if you'll take it.
ReplyDeleteBut all that in paragraph 1: that is maybe closer to what I meant and should have said--the classic authors you mentioned not only had more good sentences than Dragonlance but they also had less sentences that sat next to you on the bus going "Guess what? And y'knwo what else? And Guess what?" while eating tuna salad.
There are more good sentences and there are less bad ones. And the bad ones are nearly always less bad.
In other words: The price is lower so the value is higher.
Oh yes, it's still very much on. But you're right, obviously. Bad sentences cancel out good ones, probably, and on that score Dragonlance is already in the negative...
DeleteI never really read anything Dragonlance back in the 1980's (it just didn't look appealing to me) but I recently picked up Dragonlance Adventures to complete my 1st edition hardback collection and it is ATROCIOUS... the worst of all the 1st edition hardbacks by quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteIt's very readable. If you want something to pass the time and turn your brain off, it isn't bad at all. And as I said in a previous entry, it's perfectly good for youngsters and better written than most 'YA fiction' (though I despise that term).
DeleteYeah that's one of the worst AD&D books. Lots of interesting ideas, but the implementation and editing are horrendous.
DeleteGosh, I think I've read Legends more than once, but it's been awhile. I also remember it being better, though I found the trilogy less emotionally climactic than the first trilogy.
ReplyDeleteBoy, those Hickmans had some kick-ass endings to those novels.