I’ve meant to read the Dragon Lance books since I was a teenager playing D&D upon which these books are based but that was decades ago before the Internet and before it was easy to find out which book came first. It wasn’t until recently discovering Threads and bookstgram that these came back on my radar and someone told me to start with Dragons of Autumn Twilight.

Honestly, its strange though that I never read them as back in the day I read so many. Other books by Weis and Hickman, including the Dark Sword Series, The Rose of the Prohpet and the Deathgate Cycle. Weiss also soloed into “science fiction” with the Star of the Guardians series.

Anyway, after being reminded about Dragon Lance and Dragons of Autumn Twilight I decided to take the book out of the library and give it a read.

I’m not going to lie this book felt completely derivative of Tolkien in so many ways. We have Kenders instead of hobbits, but humans, elves and dwarves abound. Our male leader, similar to Aragorn is half elf. Yes I know Aragorn is many generations removed from his Elven blood but the sentiment is still there. Elves are threatened and leaving the land… I could go on. Here’s the thing though, you have to let all that go. You have to suspend any negativity with regard to that in order to appreciate this work. Because remember, the series is based on a game of D&D and D&D shares much of the mythology presented in Tolkien.

And that’s the crazy thing, is the first half of the novel actually feels as if someone took notes during a game and transcribed them into this story. I almost heard the dice rolling in my head as our heroes careened from one adventure (perhaps misadventure) to another. In my mind, I tried to peg the characters alignment. Who was neutral good? Lawful good? Maybe even neutral evil? None of this was bad. It felt more like taking a cozy trip down memory lane.

Was it the best fantasy novel i ever read? No. Am I glad I spent the time reading it. Absolutely. Worth it enough now that it won’t fall off my radar. I’m also adding the next book, Dragons of Winter Night to my TBR (to be read list).

Overall, I’d give it 3 stars.