Dragonmage of Mystara [Paperback]

The three books, Dragonlord of Mystara, Dragonking of Mystara and Dragonlord of Mystara make up the 'Dragonlord Chronicles'. I should have been suspicious from the start given the obvious play upon the immensely popular and infinitely better concieved 'Dragonlance Chronicles' from the same publisher.

These books are set within the Dungeons and Dragons world of Mystara and chart the course of the cliched farm boy orphan of unknown parentage on his meteroic rise to his righteous destiny among the stars.

It could be reviewed in one of two ways, as a fantasy novel in its own right, or as a piece of the Mystara universe. Neither would be flattering. For a fan of the Mystara universe this book is an abomination, totally disregarding the world's established fan base and re-writing the history past, present and future of a much loved world. It adds nothing, nor appears to be derived from much resembling the world the fans know and love.

As a fantasy novel it relies greatly on cliche, we have the stoic Dwarf Fighter, the independant Amazon, the Wise Old Mentor and the Impressionable Do-No-Wrong Orphan Hero-Boy. That is about as far as the characterization goes. After ploughing through the entire trilogy I could tell you little else about the main characters. I could mention that they all 'talk' for the author, the unsurprising advancements of plot are simply revealed all too often in unbelieavable dialogue rather than revealed by events and actions. Likewise the character's thoughts and motivations are never revealed through action but always in a very clumsy monologue fashion. They also often talk in obvious D&D game terms, even going so far as to describe each other by class and level.

The dragons of the books are just awful. I cannot stress this enough. At once described as wise, powerful, majestic beings we then learn that regardless of colour or species they are such a territorial race that if two or more are around each other for very long they degenerate into wild beasts and savagely rip each other apart. This is stressed time and again in the first book, but yet the second two books have literally thousands of dragons on each page and unfortunately this never happens. The dragons are also laughably weak. Our uber-powerful hero, in one memorable moment kills six with a single blow from his sword.

The bad moments are too many list but I will try. The hero is simply impervious to all damage by anything, and can kill anything effortlessly - this does not help to add any dramatic tension whatsoever to the story.

His mysterious origins are really very predictable and boring and I found I could really care less.

An army of several thousand dragons surrounds a city, trying to get to our hero - but they fear him too much to attack! Come on, these are dragons! In the meantime, a couple of allied armies 'sneak' into the besieged city under cover of darkness without the supremely wise and knowledgable dragons noticing.

I could go on, but I will spare you. I am, and ever will be a fan of fantasy novels and the Dungeons and Dragons genre lines. I have read the good, the bad and the indifferent. This trilogy falls way below the bad. It is the dire, the terrible, the abysmal and reallyshould not have been written much less read.

Thanks but no thanks, Thorarinn.