This was the first Dragonlance book I ever hated. So very disappointing. I had been reading Dragonlance books since the first three books had come out, had followed the Chronicles and the Legends, the Tales and the Heroes. Had even followed the second Tales and the second Heroes. And then I picked this one up. Cool amethyst cover. A story from the days before the Chronicles began. Sounded good to me.It was terrible. Sorry, Paul, but really. Not only did it completely lack the Krynn / Dragonlance feel, but the subject matter was ludicrous and annoying. At one point, if I remember correctly, Tasslehoff travels on a gnome spaceship and lands on the red moon Lunitari and has some adventures there. Seriously. The fricking moon.The first in a LONG, much too long series of Dragonlance disappointments. I stopped even trying almost ten books later. I was aghast to hear recently that the series has grown to more than 200 books -- I shudder to imagine how bad it's gotten. I keep hearing talk about the Companions' kids, Knights of Solamnia becoming allies with some dark Knights of Takhisis, some cheesy One True God that throws the whole cosmology of Krynn retroactively on its head, and something called Taladas... glad I stopped when I did.
I liked Sturm and Kitiara very much in the Chronicles so I thought a book featuring both of them would be a very good read. Unfortunately I was wrong. It was turned out that the Sturm and Kitiara in this book were more stereotypical and have less depth than the ones written by Weis and Hickman. I didn't an epic-level story, but I didn't exactly expect comedy either. The authors didn't know what to expect either as it appears to be part epic and part comic. The first half of the book deals with their involvement with a bunch of gnomes (very annoying ones) and accidentally landing on Lunitari. The latter half of the book is the part where it actually gets to where Sturm is trying to find his father's legacy. The humor was not really very funny - just not serious. The serious part of the book should have been worked on and expanded, not doing it in this half-half manner. Disappointing really. In short, this book tries to do a bit too much but ended not doing enough.
What do You think about Darkness And Light (2003)?
I had a hard time getting into this one. Not because of the writing, it was a fantastic dragonlance story, and the setting was great (I've always wondered about the red moon Lunitari), however I think it is because the two main characters are ones that I did't really care for much from the original trilogy. Sturm Brightblade always seemed so stuffy, and was even more so in this book. I did enjoy reading how he found his father's armor and legacy. Kitiara I had trouble believing. Most likely because I'm so used to her after she becomes a leader of the dragon queen's army and on the side of evil. Here she was not the girl who left Solace to look for her father and his people, but well on her way to turning down the path of evil. The book was enjoyable, though not the best Dragonlance tale I've read... Now to dig up the next book in the Preludes trilogy!
—nimrodiel
This was the first book I ever read. I don't care if, by comparison, it is derivative or obvious. It will always remain special to me. I wasn't a reader. My father took me to the bookstore one summer day and said that I could pick out any book to read so I picked up this one (but the old cover with the pink borders). I wasn't sure I would even read it. But once I started I couldn't stop. That summer I must have read more than 20 Dragonlance books (thank God for used book stores!) And since then my book obsession hasn't ceased.
—Scott Asher
There's not much good to say about this book, unfortunately. The writing style is very juvenile and it has no continuity whatsoever. The events do not relate to each other in any way at all. Yes, it reveals story, but you could have made a bullet point list for the same effect without wasting time to read the flat text between. This book would have done much better if it had been presented as a series of short stories. Then each chapter could have been self-contained and still revealed all the same story without trying to stretch extremely weak links between them.It does reveal story about the characters and their origins, but just read the sparknotes. They're probably more interesting anyway.
—Selena
