Rating: 
Summary: Dragons Of Autumn Twilight
Review: I loved this book! There were many reasons why I felt that this book was so good. One of those reasons is that the way the authors wrote the book that he and she tried to keep it so that it would have some relavance to actual feelings and thoughts while still keeping the classic out-of-the-ordinary fantasy subjects such as mystical monsters and races of people that you would never think of in your wildest dreams. The story has excellent set of characters that have a very deep background in their imaginary world and complex emotional thoughts and feelings. The story also had a great sense of time so that you wouldn't have to spend days trying to figure out what time you were in, this kept a nice,organized plot. There were so many conflicts that were physical and emotional that you actually got the feeling of being there with the characters, joining them in their many struggles to say alive while living a decent life of constant joys and sorrows. Even though many people are not fans of fantasy they may still enjoy this book just because much of what is thought and said has to do with what you may experience in your every-day life. So I encourage everyone to at least read the first couple of chapters just to feel for themselves what I felt when I read this wonderful piece of modern american literature.
Rating: 
Summary: Readable, If Fluffy...
Review: Before reading "Dragons of Autumn Twilight", I had been told it had a reputation as one of the finest novels based on Dungeons and Dragons ever written, and that it was good enough to stand on it's own as fantasy outside the world of gaming fiction. Having now read it, I found it was more like revisiting a somewhat well-run D&D game rather than a landmark fantasy epic.Plotwise, the book cruises through a few pivotal weeks in the lives of nine main (and another four or five secondary) characters as they catalyze the greatest war that the planet Krynn has ever seen. In the nine, you find your typical D&D adventuring gang, some fighters (including a barbarian and a paladin), a rogue, a cleric and a mage. All we really needed to make this the stereotypical gaming group would be a bard - we've even got the standard backgrounds, romantic entanglements and character conflicts. It's basically fluff, but it's certainly readable. Having been a former gamer, I found it nice to go back and escape into a D&D world briefly without having to write up a character concept or worry about whether or not I stocked up on trail rations in the last town. As a fantasy fan, I found it nice to have a good, old-fashioned meat-and-potatoes story of good vs. evil. However, the Tolkien and George R.R. Martin fan in me wanted a lot more from the characters. None of them really hit three-dimensionality and only one or two even made it past being total stereotypes. Even the story was rather straightforward - betrayals and love triangles happened rather than being formed and, in most cases, came completely out of left field. Ultimately, I recommend this book to the fantasy fan looking for something very light to read on the beach during summer vacation or the lonely D&D fan missing his or her group. If you're looking for something more substantive, though, stick with Tolkien, George R. R. Martin, Robert Jordan or even Terry Pratchett.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm out of step, I don't get this book
Review: Frankly I don't understand the incredibly high rating this book has received. In 20+ years of reading fantasy I've never seen something with so many problems be so well received. The protagonists I found very lacking and unlikeable. The kender should have been fed to the nearest red dragon right off and the series would have improved. Tanis has the personality and depth of mashed potatoes and the only character of any substance, the admired Raistlin is merely a whiny adolescent boy. Sturm should have been called Stern, his obvious alliterative inspiration as he never gets beyond being the Stern knight. The dwarf is a caricature.
Strangely enough, the text of the book seems to be designed merely to flesh out happenings between game modules that may or may not be available to play. The second book of the series has the heroes just leaving what sounded like an interesting dungeon adventure. Unfortunately to experience that I guess you have to buy the module and play it. I find it very poor taste to have an epic fantasy series designed to drive the sale of game modules. The work should stand on it's own, and this one does not. The actual story is nothing new in any respect and with unlikeable characters reading it is a chore. We are given no reason to care about the fate of Krynn, or any of the characters. The world is presented with a veneer of depth, however there is nothing beneath the veneer. Interesting and varied names for many different factions may at first glance appear to give the illusion of complexity, but you quickly realize there is nothing really there beyond the illusion. In fact I ended up rooting against the buffoons portrayed as heroes. To rub salt into the wounds, the end of the trilogy is basically a deus ex machina of the poorest sort. I've read it twice, because it is so popular, trying to see if I am missing something. I came to the conclusion I'm not, or reading it originally at 25 I was too old for it and the literature I had read before had ruined this for me. I know my reviewer rating will get slammed for this, but it is my honest opinion that this series is complete and utterly mediocre. Without a TSR/WOTC gameworld it would have been unpublishable. There is actually some readable franchise fiction, so I'm not slamming it due to the source. I like Elaine Cunningham and Rob Salvatore, both workhorses in the TSR/WOTC stable. This trilogy is just rent paying hackwork though.
Rating: 
Summary: Best fantasy series ever..
Review: Dragons of Autumn Twilight kicks off an adventure that you'll never want to see the end of. This is hands down one of the best books I've read, and it introduces a world which will amaze and thrill you until it is all over. The character development is amazing and the adventure plots are uncanny. The characters are very realistic and some characters such as Raistlin, is so complex it will take you six books to truly understand him. To put it simply, the writing is genious.
I truly wasn't a fantasy book reader until I read this book. This book hooked me unto the genre, however I have yet to find a book which can compare to Dragons of Autumn Twilight and the rest of the chronicles.
Rating:
Summary: Why I read for pleasure
Review: I credit the DragonLance Saga for really drawing me into the world of reading. Any teacher would recommend any book that keeps his or her students reading for pleasure outside of school, and this book did it for me. Dragons of Autumn Twilight and the rest of Chronicles are the only books I've ever read twice for fun. The characters are dynamic, even if it does not seem apparent in the first book, and you'll soon identify with each one for different reasons. The pacing is intuitive and even the "slow" parts are engrossing. This is one book I will always recommend and will always find a space on my bookshelf.
Rating:
Summary: A solid, enjoyable fantasy
Review: So at this point there are 167 other reviews of this book on Amazon, why should you read this one? Simple, I'll give you the straight dope on it. To start, the three Dragonlance Chronicles (I'm reviewing them together) are a strongly recommended read. I've read many of the other reviews here and there is commonly reference to how this book is clichéd, how it "stole" from Tolkien, and most popularly, how the characters are either amazing or flat. Permit me to address these concerns... This is a standard fantasy epic. A group of heroes, diverse in skill and personality, meet and decide to face the growing evil in the world. They eventually find out they are among the chosen and meet the most powerful beings in the land, and inevitably face the evil and defeat it. To say this is cliché is in itself cliché. If you are a fantasy reader you are obviously not averse to authors adopting conventions, any more than fans of other "formula" genres are (Crime, Law, Romance, etc). It's like giving a poor review to a car because the engineers had the lack of creativity to give it four wheels and to put the steering wheel on the same side as all the other cars. As far as stealing from Tolkien, I have this for you: whatever. Tolkien defined a genre and others have followed in his footsteps (hence the reason it is a genre). Keep in mind that Tolkien didn't exactly invent elves and goblins either, but adapted and shaped them to his own purposes. While this trilogy isn't as much of a milieu piece as Lord of the Rings, it has other strengths. As far as exploring the environment itself, you can see the visible hooks throughout the series for the other (future) books to latch onto. There are now over 100 if you really want to explore the world of Krynn. And finally we come to the characters. I strive to be objective of others opinions, but to say these characters are flat is ludicrous. The depth these authors have achieved is that of long books with one or two characters, not the 6+ this one utilizes. Are the characters themselves cliché? Yes. Keep in mind this world is defined by and for a role-playing game, where you are given finite choices of roles to play. To step outside those roles would cause dissention among both readers and players. However, instead of begrudging these boundaries, the authors revel within them. We find the conflict of the characters themselves with these roles, something rarely seen in this genre. Sturm, the knight, is bound by a code and not only do we see the conflict of a rigid code with a changing world as we would expect, but we see the struggle of the character himself with his beliefs. I won't go through each character but suffice it to say that several are explored in depth, especially Weis' "signature" (or for those more cynical, "franchise") character Raistlin. For most, we find their strengths, weaknesses, fears, loves and hatreds. To ask more is a little much I would say. The above points are valid discussions, but most people seem to miss the real strength of this series, perhaps because they were too concerned about evaluating its "quality". To put it plainly, its fun! I read these books soon after they came out in the mid-80's, and have just re-read them, finding myself surprised to find they were as enjoyable now as they were then. On top of the character development, we have lots of action in various environments; we have an appropriate amount of comic relief that is well spaced and spread among a few characters. We follow the characters through times of happiness and times of horror. I'll make no claims at this point of how good or bad Weis and Hickman are as writers, but I can say they know how to tell a story. So the short and sweet of it is: read the books and enjoy them. If you aren't so overly concerned with ranking them and evaluating them (as you should never be on a first reading), just follow the tale as the authors spin it for you. I can say that you will definitely have fun if you let yourself. I would give it 4.5 stars, but that isn't an option, so I'll round it up to 5.
Rating:
Summary: This is the best book
Review: I will make this short and simple. If you like gripping fantasy books this is for you. You wont be able to stop reading!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I first read this book 10yrs ago and have re-read it since along with the restof the dragonlance books. But the first 3 books of the series is my favorite. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman are the best fantasy writers today. The Story is of the Companions and them trying to stop the Queen of Darkness from ruleing all Krynn. Each of the characters is interesting to read about. My Favorite is Raistlin, then Tas, Then Tanis. All in all the dragonlance books is a great series of books to read.
Rating:
Summary: Action packed but lacked buildup and character variety
Review: Back in my days of playing the pencil&paper version of AD&D you always had two kinds of players:
1) The players that just ran into everything killing and asking questions later (lots of action)
2)The other extreme of those that wanted to think everything through leading to an hour discussion just to make one single decision. This book was like the first group of players. Lots of action but it lacked the balance of thinking things through or a true build up of suspsense. Every character (and it felt like "every" one of them)had a level of pride to the point of everyone was wanting to fight whenever they felt slightly insulted. Each scene seemed a repeat of the previous one, where one would get offended the it would require a comrade having to hold them back...this got tiring after a while. If the authors were really trying to portray such prideful characters realistically then the story would not logically have progressed because of so many egos at work and no decisions being made. Good thing for us the authors take some obvious sterotypes and just keep them moving whether we believe they would or not.
There was some good comic relief and the story had all the other facets of a D&D adventure:
1) several races and the prejudices built up between races
2) lots of different locals to visit
3) high adventure, magic and dragons So if you want something that doesn't stop to take a breath and let you ask yourself "Is this plausible" then this book is for you.
Don't get me wrong I'm more action oriented myself so I enjoyed the book enough that I'm going to read the next one. I just feel that if you want a truely sweeping saga of a story then try the Riftwar saga by Raymond E. Fiest which starts off in the first book, "Magician: Apprentice"; or Barbara Hambly's Darwarth series starting off in, "The Time of the Dark".
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: This is the first book in the chronicles series. If you havent read these books you are missing out on a lot. What starts out to be a innocent meeting between friends, turns into a fight for the very life of everyone on Krynn. These friends must face dragons, and various other creatures on their way to save their very lives. But this book is definately a must read. Buy this booK! you will not be disapointed!
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