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Read Dragons Of Summer Flame (1995)

Dragons of Summer Flame (1995)

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Rating
3.82 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0786901896 (ISBN13: 9780786901890)
Language
English
Publisher
tsr

Dragons Of Summer Flame (1995) - Plot & Excerpts

Entertaining story overall, and one I missed somehow. I grew up reading the Dragonlance books but never got to this one until this past week (even though I bought the paperback like five years ago), which made the leap to the War of Souls trilogy a little confusing for me. Now the timeline makes more sense. I really should re-read all the core novels in the proper order some day...I did find some things frustrating with certain characters who should have had more important things to do in the story. Just my opinion though; they didn't need to do more for the plot, but I wanted to see it anyway. I guess I just prefer seeing confident, powerful characters, not the sniveling insecure ones who are ill prepared for the conflict they are facing. The final battle was a bit of a let down, as the whole book builds up to it but it's over in a few pages. A big precursor battle is done entirely from the point of view of someone who is hiding. We only get to see the aftermath. Combine this with a certain main character's death scene (which does absolutely nothing to honor who he was or what he did), and the latter half of the book feels like someone was standing behind the authors saying, "Meh, just end the story already." In fact, that character's death is dealt with so abruptly that I get the impression it was grafted onto the plot in the final stages of editing, like the authors were ordered to kill him off and did so reluctantly.I suppose you could make a case that the real final battle was conducted inside the heart and soul of the character Steel--who is by far the most interesting character in this book--but I still would have liked to see a more epic physical and magical battle. Also, the character Palin is built up a lot, but he doesn't really do much. He gets to the final battle and casts one spell, but even then he's just reading it from a book. I never get the sense that he possesses even a sliver of the talent that everyone expects him to have. In fact, I can't recall a single book or story where Palin Majere does anything noteworthy. Honestly, it's like watching Luke Skywalker in A New Hope, and stopping there so he never gets to the point of being a Jedi. Palin just sort of whines, wanders around, fumbles a spell, then fades away. I know he's in other books, like the War of Souls trilogy, but I can't recall anything that he did there. And seeing as much of him in this book as I did, I don't care to track down the other stories he was in.

This will be my same review for all 7 books in the original double-trilogy (plus the 7th add on years later).There are few D&D novelizations out there that are really worth reading. Only two series have I loved, and the original 6 (became 7) "Dragonlance" novels are one of those great series. (Gord the Rogue is the other).At first when I read this, I was a bit put off because the "Krynn" world did not "agree" with D&D. The gods had different names (Bahamut = Paladine, Tiamut = Takhesis) and the race of Halflings were known as "Kender". But getting past these small issues, the story eventually became *exactly* what a good D&D story should be -- a *PARTY* of mixed races and classes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, on an adventure where each party member has a time to shine. This is gaming-turned-novel at its best.All in all, the world was large and diverse and engaging. There was adventure, love stories, human frailty, power struggles, etc. I eventually played a Necromancer in D&D and patterned a number of his character traits (physical frailty, lust for power) after Raistlin. That was my way of showing how much I loved these novels.I gave some of the other "Dragonlance" novels a shot, but quickly lost interest. They just didn't have the draw that the original series did.Read them and enjoy.

What do You think about Dragons Of Summer Flame (1995)?

I had just re-read the Chronicles, books 1-3, again for the first time since High School. I forgot how good those books really are. So when I saw this in the store I had to jump right in. The first chapter is a little slow to get going. I forced myself to keep going. And to be sure, there are some paragraphs here and there that are too much background information that I just covered reading the other three books. So I skimmed them. But this book, with some of its pages being slow to trudge through, do not pale the entire book. This book is my favorite in the entire series. My favorite character is Raistlin and I was happy to see him mature a great deal. Yes, Raistlin. This book got me choked up a few times. I won't spoil it by saying who dies... but it did get me. And while some people did not like the feeling that the first three books were written from a series of DnD adventures, this book does not have that sense to it at all. So enjoy.But what is also great about this book is the ethical repositioning of things. The last chapter is the climax of not only the action, but also the reforging of the moral and ethical landscape that was familiar. Can you root for someone you thought was evil? The book, in a whole, is a great fantasy story that can be summed up by the pictures of the planet Earth found in some coffee shops that bear the question "there are nor borders". If you truly get what that poster is saying, you will understand this book's metaphors.
—Eddie Black

This was my first read from the Dragonlance series and I have to say, I was surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did. My partner is an avid reader of series and fantasy genre and I challenged myself to read one of his favorite novels; this one was it. His copy is held together by Scotch tape and the pages are yellowed, evidence of his obvious love for this book. I may just add some more tape to those pages. Without giving away too much information, this war of the Gods as written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, mimics what our real world seek - world peace. Rather than fighting for what each race believes in, they band together to fight for the wealth and being of the whole. It really is a powerful message when you think about how this theme threads through the books 580-something pages. Not to mention, I never planned on crying at the end of this book, but one particular character I grew so attached to. I won't give away who or what happens, but I cried a good several minutes and then laughed and reminded myself the world of Krynn is pure fantasy.Still I enjoyed living in their world for the hours I did when I delve into this book.
—J.R. Ortega

The "New Generation" tag is a little confusing, since the title page of the edition I have lists this as Chronicles Volume 4. But this doesn't carry straight on from the first three volumes in the series, instead taking place many years later, and focusing on some of the children of the original Heroes of the Lance, although some of the original Heroes also make an appearance.It's a shame, really, that I found this quite slow going. The story was pretty good, though a little heavy handed on the moralism in places, and it was a great what happened next premise, but I did feel the treatment of some of the characters was very much on the harsh side. Dalamar, who I'd loved as a character in the earlier books, was nowhere near as appealing this time (though admittedly his role was somewhat incidental). Much of the focus being on the children of the Heroes also meant that there was less of a sense of familiarity with the central characters, and these new characters were a bit on the wooden side a lot of the time. I'm not entirely sure that 586 pages for this was really necessary, and the book did seem to drag in places. But it was worth reading to round off the series a bit more, and to learn more about Krynn.
—Sam

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