Lord of the Rose: Rise of Solamnia, Volume One [Mass Market Paperback]

I just finished this book last night and I would have to say that it was only average. The storyline for the book was alright, if deviating a little from what I would expect for the Knights to do and allow in that area. However, there just seems to be little things that keep this from becoming a much better book than it is.

First of all, there are a lot of times when I am reading the book, that I go wait, what just happened. Something will be going on and then all of a sudden something will happened and it is not really built up to or explained, it just kinda happens. A

The biggest problem however is with the inconsistencies in the book (in my opinion). For one thing he has gnomes in the book for a large part of it, however, with exception of when they introduce themselves and try to spit out their volume long names, they do nothing really gnomish (well there is one thing but i dont want to ruin it for anyone). If anyone has read any of the other Dragonlance books, this is just not how gnomes are, especially if you pick up Conundrum which is all about gnomes. Really I think some further development would be good here.

Other than that there are small things, such as I know for a fact that he references Aurak Draconians as being the only draconians that can fly. Completely wrong auraks are quite rare, and have NO wings at all (Sivaks are the ones that can fly). This is something that all he would have had to have done was glance through the DL Campaign Setting. There are other inconsistencies along these lines too.

Bottom Line: I hope that the next books in this series improve much, I think there is a decent storyline and development of many of the main characters going on. Now it just needs to go to the next level.

"What happened?" I continued to say this phrase to myself throughout my reading of this often frustrating novel, although usually with more colorful words sprinkled in, ranging in depth and skill use...

My biggest problem is probably one I created for myself: high expectations. I was really looking forward to this novel for four reasons. One, Douglas Niles wrote it and he often does a good job (granted his last outing with Wizard's Conclave was horrid). Two, cool cover art (I'm a simple creature dazzled by pretty pictures...I admit it). Three, it is set place after the War of Souls so you don't get that "happening during" junk that has filled dragonlance for the last few years, that eventually leaves you feeling like you've read this story over and over again. Four, it is almost four hundred pages long, which for a dragonlance novel is a big deal, because so often the authors are stuck to the three hundred number on punishment of torture or something if they go over it... and the novels usually suffer for it.

Length has nothing to do with the suffering in "Lord of the Rose". It's a novel that has an awesome premise and a very good plot to it, but the prophecy of its greatness just wasn't fulfilled. Basically we join the action when Solamnia is rebuilding, having taken over most of the major cities for the Dark Knights, and are now continuing that work while the three factions (crown, sword, rose) each surrounding one of the large cities, are feuding over the small city of Garnet and the gem mines near it. If matters weren't bad enough, a powerful lord was recently murdered, his flaming sword of prophecy stolen, and the Assassin still roams the land. Not to mention there are about a bajillion goblins forming into an army ready to smack the knights around.

However, despite the great set up, Niles bogs this novel down with a horrible writing style that just has you shaking your head, groaning in pain each time he uses phrases like "and he looked", "in fact", "now this", "for it was said", etc. He so often tells you what is happening instead of painting a picture that it makes you want to cry. Because of this the descriptions are "blah", like reading a bad history novel, and the fight scenes are often so "blah" that I would just skip over them, thinking "if you read one you read them all". Added to this, some of the dialogue is corny, over the top, and unrealistic.

The style began to really bug me until I finally went back to one of my bookshelves and started to rummage through it, searching until I found all my Douglas Niles books. At first I thought that maybe his writing was always like this and I was just in a bad mood or maybe I remembered him being better because I was younger when I read his books. But neither of those were the case. The writing in his other novels I skimmed through were sometimes a little off, but it was descriptive, had good flow, very rarely did he use the phases mentioned above, and there wasn't an amateur feel to it like "Lord of the Rose".

Final Thought: So what happened? How did a novel by an author that has written thirty novels, many of which were very good, with such a great plot, end up so amateur? Maybe he rushed it. Maybe the editors didn't push him enough, maybe...maybe...maybe. We'll probably never know. I probably expected too much and I'm probably being too hard on this novel, but it feels too uninspired and has so much wasted potential. I really hope the second novel in the trilogy is better, but I'm not going to look forward to it like I did the first. A 2.5 out of 5, rounded down.

Added Thought: Get ready for gunpower and guns dragonlance fans, because they are well on the way to Ansalon.

After reading the four reviews, I expected an inferior book. However, such was not the case. Perhaps there are some (minor) mistakes, but do these mistakes really matter considering that the plot is great? Do we really care about how Draconians look when Jaymes is finding out who the assasin is? I did find one weak spot which is that Jaymes is looking for the explosive material while we know nothing about why he needs it. However the rest of the book is perfect! I especially liked Coryn's involvement in the plot and the mystery of who is the murderer. I was disappointed when I found out that the bad guys have Hiddukel's help while the knights (and Jaymes) don't have Kiri Jolith's help. Also I enjoyed the way in which the author made Princess Selinda an important character, which was not as I expect from a princess of Palanthas. I truly recommend this book!

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 13 reviews  2.7 out of 5 stars