Customer Reviews

The Dawning of a New Age: Dragons of a New Age, Volume One

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(34)

 

 

This book reminds me a lot of the first of the Dragonlance Chronicles. I didn't like it much until I got into the second book. I'm now almost done with the second book in this series and I like it a lot. 350 pages isn't enough to do it justice. I'm always a big fan of making BIG books to completely tell a story. I think with a few hundred more pages this book could have been spectacular. As it stands, I'm pleased with this book,
I liked the idea of the Dragon overlords, I liked the links that are being made to other Dragonlance stories, but felt the characters were not very fleshed out. And the action scenes were rushed.

Jean Rabe constantly takes abuse from Dragonlance fans around the globe for a plethora of reasons. Some I've found to be just, others, I believe are unfounded. It was because of this harsh critism that I remained hesitant for a good while to read this book. After finishing every other book I owned and reading some for a second time, I grudgingly began this read.

At my own admission, this book began very slowly. The first 100 pages seemed plaqued by choppy writing, and seemingly overly fantastic ideas. Given this is a fantasy book, I still found some of the happenings in the book a bit hard to swallow.
My biggest critism of the book,however, has to do with the how willingly the author let years go by without description(literaly decades). It seemed to me that the amount of time that passed in te early portion of this book really didn't mean much to Mrs. Rabe. I have to say I was seriously starting to doubt whether or not I would finish this one.

All the critism aside, after the first 100 pages or so the plot settled down and the writting began to become enjoyable. I was finally able to get involved with the characters and wanted to see what would happen to them next. By the end of the book I was left wanting more. When all is said and done, that to me is the most important part of a book in a series.

I really admire the guts that it took for Jean to step out on a limb and write this series. I've found that many DL fans can be very critical, and unmoving in thier willingness to branch out and discover new things. Jean did something that was very difficult, in filling the gap that is the beginning of the Fifth Age. Kodus to her!

All in all, I think this book is a enjoyable read that will leave most readers wanting more. For those diehard DL fans it is a must read. Looking back, my gripe about the passage of time allows, hopefully, other authors to fill the gap with other tells of heroism and valor.

Don't go into this book expecting the kind of greatness that is the Chronicles series or maybe The Legand of Huma(my personal favorite), because you won't find it. There isn't a ton of depth and you probably won't develop a strong attachment to the characters. DoNA starts slowly, but levels off into a nice story. I believe if you press on and overlook the choppy writing at the begining you will leave this book pleasantly surprised. I did.

I'm certainly not an experienced Dragonlance fan, but I must say that this book is just not right. It just doesn't seem like a credible Dragonlance story at all.

First, the gods abandon the entire world, leaving dragons to do as they wish. There's not magic left, except in magic items. Even though Dragons have enough power to clone themselves and transform landscapes, one of the main dragon characters goes on a quest to steal magic items so he can gather enough power to open a portal. Go figure.

The relationship between this dragon and his dead companion was not believeable either. "Oh, I have to resurrect my friend," but then he goes off on some tangent with a red dragon who wants to turn all humanity and the like into cattle.

In addition, the dragons are overly immense, and one of them destroys the great tower of palanthas! Preposterous!

The author, unsuccessfully, tries to gather a group of rag-tag heroes to start a new revolution. The book just gets stupider and stupider.

It's possible that this could have been good, but the whole premise obviously went south. A 2-star rating is probably fair.

This book was an excelant addition to the Dragon Lance seris that should not be missed. Any one who thinks other wise does not recognize good literature. It is not as good as the conclusion to the Dawning of a new age saga , The Eve Of the Malestrom, however it is still definatley worth reading.

I thought that this book was excelent. i usually do not read books and i piced this one up. the story from the begining kept me reading. the cliffhanger ending got me to search for the second book. this is really an excellent book and is worth reading. thats all that needs to be said.

I think some people are having a knee jerk reaction to this book's sub-par quality. After having been treated to the near brilliance of Weis and Hickman for so many years, many readers are upset that this direct continuation of the storyline had such a drop in quality. The story is still enjoyable, but it is not presented in as eloquent a fashion as was the case in previous books.

Now, I don't know if Ms. Rabe has written any books before this, but it seems like a first book. A lot of the dialogue is awkward and there are places where the prose is very stilted. These kinds of shortcomings, however, do not call for one star or even two. I've read books that were much worse. Books with no plot, impenetrable prose, and even dialogue that sounded like the two people were having different conversations with each other at the same time. Essentially what I am saying is that, while the presentation of the story was lacking, it is still enjoyable, especially for Dragonlance fans.

This book continues the story where it left off at the end of Dragons of Summer Flame. We see old friends and meet new characters. The beginning of the book then skims over the next twenty years as the land changes with the withdrawal of the gods. I hope that there are other books in the series that flesh this period of time out, but it's not really necessary for the story that Ms. Rabe is telling here. And as far as the reviewers who complained about kenders and dwarves not behaving as they should, don't they think that different members of those races will have completely different personalities? I know humans do.

Anyway, if you're a fan of the Dragonlance saga, this is a must read for the continuing story. From what I have heard, if you jump straight to Weis & Hickman's War of Souls trilogy, you'll be missing out on a lot. Just don't go into this book expecting the same level of writing as those two and you should be okay.

I found the new mix of Dragonlance characters delightful and intriguing. I wanted the little kender to last through the whole book though, and was disappointed with his death. I guess that is a good thing, caring about a character.

I think my favorite character was the blue dragon. He seemed evil and alien, yet I enjoyed the sections he was in.

I have been following the Dragonlance series since the chronicles, and this book is just horrible. The Characters make me want to destroy them myself, not wait for the Dragons to do it, who are also annoying.

There are also errors in this book, where they say magic is still on krynn, in magical items. We know that the Staff of magieus lost its power at the end of the Chaos war, and it was one of the most powerful magical items ever, so where is it now?! Did Palin loose it? We know he would never loose it, it was his pride and joy. What is even more ironic is he is the one in the book who discovers magical items still hold their power, so where is the staff?!... it just makes no sense.

More about the characters.... there is a kender who has no kender traits, except for asking stupid questions. Their is a goofy half-orge who lost his hearing, so we have to listen to his stupid gibberish, and a dwarf who claims to be related to Flint, so he just tries to copie Flint's cheracter, and he is not successful. All the cheracters lack depth, and there is little if no reason to care about their fate. Also Palin and Usha do not seem the same, since written by this author who abuses the Dragonlance name by writing this book.

The worst part is I must continue the series to finish it, since it is a cliffhanger story.

Whats even more pathetic is the new cover art, what, are they actually trying to suck more money from this horrible book that way? Do yourself a favor and dont buy this book, and if you get it as a present you should throw it in the trash, or better yet, burn it.

I hated this book. The writing was terrible, the story was disappointing, and the characters were all boring.

I am a big fan of Dragonlance and I have a great respect for books and literature, but this book was so bad that I had to throw it in the garbage. I have never thrown a book away in my life. I normally cannot bring myself to do so because I feel someone else may be able to benefit from the reading. But in this case I couldn't help it.

I would read this book each morning on my train ride to work. Each day I would get more and more fed up with the [junk] the author had written. Finally, one day I got off the train and threw the book into a garbage can on the street. I couldn't believe I had done that, but in the end I felt better because I had wasted so much time on this horrible book.

Like some of the other reviewers, I read the first two parts of the Dhamon Saga before I read this book,and though they were great. I am also a long time DL and Forgotten realms fan. When I saw this book I was eager to read it and very disappointed.
One dimensional characters ( including the dragons),improbable fight scenes, some pointless deaths and a sudden ending. Not a cliffhanger - it was as though she just stopped writing ( and there is a certain blessing in that)The artwork - well some things are better left unsaid. There is nothing wrong in looking at traditional settings and characters from a "new" angle but some of the character differences were so extreme that she might have been better off creating a whole new world. Frankly it is hard to believe that this book was written by the same author as those Dhamon novels ( and I do look forward to Redemption )