Maybe 4 stars....
I would certainly not call this "the most envisioning fantasy book of the decade", but it is a good book. The things I pin-pointed were:
1. The editing is very poor, to the point of being distracting at times. Although this does not affect my rating of the story, it does affect the reading experience. So buyers, beware! And Wizards of Coast (or TSR or whoever) do a better job next time. Hell, I'll edit it for free if you want!
2. There is something about Thompson and Cook's writing style that just does not grab me....at times I felt like they gave me too much information on things I didn't care about, then glossed over some very important things. I'm not sure how well-planned this book was.
3. At times I felt like the characters were contrived and not very well thought out. I like good visual description: not just telling me what someone looks like, but giving me the feel of their presence. That's my personal sounding alarm for a good author(or authors). Kith-Kanan's speech and reactions were a little out-of-character sometimes for a ranger who is running away from his imperial heritage. Sithas was pretty well done and well-rounded, though most of the time the narration seemed to favor Kith-Kanan's point of view over Sithas'. I think it would have been more interesting to make the scenarios between the two more ambigious, rather than Sithas just being represented as a stone-cold rascist against all non-Silvanesti.
4. The story's pace quickened in the latter half of the book, the political intrigue very fun to read. I think the last thirty pages crammed too much though, trying to wrap up the few loose plot-points. However, the last thirty pages did excite me enough to read the rest of the series.
I liked the book overall and the concept is good. Plus, I loved Chronicles and Legends and have been curious about the rest of Krynn. Like I said, I plan on reading the next book and am looking forward to it.
Cliched, but still good
The first book in the trilogy begins to lay out the story of two elven twins, and the clashing of interests that occur once the slightly older of the brothers becomes Speaker of the Stars (basically, the king of the elves). While a lot of the story is basically a generic fantasy plot--with one brother marrying the love of the other, then the other finding another, truer love (with the former still having feelings for him, of course)--it's good to get a little of the backstory for the elven nations if you're already a Dragonlance fan. As long as you don't mind fantasy cliches, it's a good read.
Not errors . . .
The review by Ms. Weir is wrong is several respects. When the Elven Nations books were written (circa 1990-91) Dragonlance lore was different than it is now. Some elves did live a millenium, in certain favored circumstances, and the dates of Huma were changed by TSR *after* these books were written. (See the timeline in the 1987 edition of "Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home.") When Carter, Niles, and I wrote these books, Huma was a historical character. A major restructuring of Dragonlance chronology was made in the mid-90s, but it's hardly fair to call these "errors" when they weren't wrong when written.
Paul B. Thompson
Editors?
Ok, so as far as content was concerned, this was a very decent trilogy. Still, I had to give it 3. I had several problems with these books:
1.I know this should be a review of the authors, but seriously, what happened to the editorial staff? Were they all out sick? Were they drunk? Did they hire a kindergarten class to edit for them? I thought Tales of Uncle Trapspringer was poorly edited, what with the fragments, runons, confusing of its and it's, and insistence on spelling Palanthas as "Palanthus," but the elven nations trilogy makes that book look like the masterpiece of a grammar instructor. There were sooooooo many clauses that should have been preceded and succeeded by dashes, commas- for the love of God, even parentheses- but the lack thereof really rendered the reading difficult (and this in addition to numerous spelling errors, the lack of apostrophes and commas, fragments and runons).
2. Why is Sithel over 1000 years old? He's not a dragon. Elves live up to 500 years.
3. The third book, The Qualinesti, seems like an afterthought with a rather boring plot. It also contains a reference to Huma Dragonbane, who, according to any DL campaign setting or player's guide, will not be born for another 4 centuries (major chronology error).
That said, I did like the presence of a cleric of Hiddukel in the final book. The maker of deals, collector of souls, is a very interesting god and would make for a great story, but poor old Hiddukel is usually unfairly ignored (he's not even present in Amber and Ashes, which focuses on the power struggle between the gods of evil!). So overall, this was a good trilogy, but please edit next time.
A Classic Finally Brought Back
If you love DL you really need to read this trilogy. It's a wonderful tale of love, prejudice, war, and brotherhood. This first novel is really a fish out of water story where the elvish prince long use to court life, Kith-Kanan, is spurned in love and runs away. Out in the forest Kith-Kanan realizes what it really is to be an elf, he learns his roots you could say, remembering how his ancestors lived their lives. If you are looking for knowledge on elves in DL, you've got to read this. If you like humor, action, and a good plot, you've got to read this.
Its required DL for the DL addict and I'm very glad and I'm thankful Wizards of the Coast reprinted it, which is what makes this next comment really ungrateful, but oh well. DID ANYONE EDIT THIS BOOK? Sorry for the caps. I know I'm picky...but it really looks like this had zero attention. You see horrible mistakes: misspelled names, paragraphs ending in a comma or no period at all, and two other things that amazed me. I saw an "Oh" spelled with a zero...example: 0h. Even worst I saw an "I" that was a one! Example: 1 went to school. That's just mind boggling bad.
Final Thought: Other than the editing mistakes, which do throw you out of the story, this is classic DL. If you like dragonlance at all you are going to like this. Go get it.
After Thought: Hopefully Wizards of the Coast get their acts together, the editing mistakes by a major publishing company must be embarrassing.
(19 reviews)
