My favorite book is actually a trilogy & I think I can get away with naming 3 books as my favorite "book" because each book is a continuation of the one before it.
The Dragonlance Chronicles consists of 3 books - Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, & Dragons of Spring Dawning. I first read the DL Chronicles when I was living in New York - a boy that lived in our apartment complex had let me borrow them. It was right around the time my parents were having marital problems & this was when I was just starting to read fantasy books. I was around 11 years old.
I really immersed myself into the world of Krynn and into the problems that the heroes of the story were facing. I admired Sturm Brightblade & Tanis Half-Elven & I was fascinated by Kitiara & Takhisis but my all time favorite character is Tasslehoff Burrfoot. Tass is the reason why I love halflings so much and why I always want to play one in our D&D campaigns. I really identified with Raistlin Majere because of what I was going through at the time - not so much the evil & hate everyone part but the being picked on for being different part. Moving away from my dad & our home to New York and to my Aunt's house in PA was very traumatic & I was sick the entire time we lived in PA, much like Raistlin (although I didn't cough up blood).
Reading these books has forever shaped the person that I became today & it instilled within me the love of anything fantasy. I was too young to read into the story and simply took it at face value - the story of a courageous band of friends who were looking for something to believe in & who had to overcome many adversities to find what they needed. Sure, there are many stereotypes involved in this story, heavy borrowing from Tolkien and whatnot but I can still read these books today and be completely drawn into them, the same way I was when I was 11 years old.
Yes. They are wonderful & I love them. I didn't read my first one until I was 17 (I borrowed the first volume from my brother) & when I finally did read it it was like an instant connection thing for my brother & I. I think my favourite of all time though is Soulforge. Have you read Soulforge? I can never remember anything anymore.
ReplyDeleteYep, I've read Soulforge, too :)
ReplyDeletedid you know that all of the characters in the books are actually the player characters from the first dragon lance game? Weiss and Hickman were developing a new campaign setting for TSR, then owners of DnD, and this was the test setting.
ReplyDeleteThe entire trilogy is based on that campaign.