Dragonlance Dragonlance Author Tracy Hickman Has His DRAGONS OF DECEIT Advanced Copies!

With the launch of the new Dragonlance novel trilogy approaching in August of this year, co-author Tracy Hickman shared a photo of his advance copy!

Dragons of Deceit is the first book in the new trilogy, with an August 9th release date. Previous information indicates that the second book in the trilogy will be called Dragons of Fate.

D&D General - New Summary and Release Date for 'Dragons of Deceit'

There's a new Amazon Kindle page for Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's new Dragonlance novel, Dragons of Deceit with a release date of August 9, 2022. There has been an older Amazon page for the book for a while, with a now-expired release date of July 2021. The existence of the new trilogy...

www.enworld.org

The description (including typos) reads as follows:

The first new Dragonlance novel from Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman in over a decade, and featuring fan-favorite characters from the iconic first two trilogies, Dragonlance Chronicles and Dragonlance Legends--books that brought a generation of readers into the fantasy fold.

Destina Rosethorn--as her name implies--believes herself to be very much a favored child of destiny. But when her father dis in the War of the Lance, her carefully-constructed world comes crashing down. Not only does she lost her beloved father, but the legacy he has left her: a wealthy fiance, and rule over the family lands and castle. With nothing left in the world to support her but wits and determination, she hatches a bold plan: to secure the Device of Time Journeying she read about in one of her father's books and prevent her father's death.

The last known holder of the Device was one of the Heroes of the Lance: the free-spirited kender, Tasselhoff Burrfoot. BUt when Destina arrives in Solace--home not only to Tas, but to fellow heroes Caramon and Tika Majere--she sets into motion a chain of events more deadly than she had ever anticipated: one that could change not only her personal history, but the fate of the entire world, allowing a previously-defeated evil to once again gain ascendancy.

 

[Morrus]

The return of Mr Fireforge and Mr Brightblade may be fun.

That’s Sir Brightblade to you.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Is this essentially a reboot of Dragonlance? Is this going to negate Legends and maybe even some of Chronicles, or at least everything from Raistlin's death onward (e.g. Chaos War, War of Souls)? I think of how the X-Men films essentially erased what I thought was the best one, X2, as never really happening. Or maybe it will generate an alternate universe, ala Star Trek? Maybe Flint isn't dead, and Caramon convinced Raistlin to give up magic and instead open up a bunny farm?

It seems that just about every long-lived property faces the same problem: law of diminishing returns. I mean, is there any such property that doesn't have its best stuff early on in the cycle? But then common solution comes in, which make it worse: the reboot through time travel or an alternate universe.

Meaning, the time travel/alt universe solutions to reboot tend to lead to a, well, diminished variant that loses some of the soul of the original creation (e.g. Star Trek). IMO, of course.

I know people like to revisit their long-beloved favorites, but there's something to just letting things be as they were, and instead focus on new worlds, stories, ideas.

For the sake of disclosure, I didn't read the Chaos War/War of Souls stuff, stopping after Legends and one or two of the Tales. In other words, I haven't read a new Dragonlance novel in almost 30 years (I think my last reading was an attempt at The Second Generation, but didn't finish it). At the time, my feeling was both that I had moved on to better (again, imo) non-D&D fantasy and also that the story felt complete, and to expand it further would diminish the poignancy of the original two trilogies.

I mean, it reminds me of the Marvel effect. I was deeply touched by the Phoenix/Jean Grey arc back in the late 80s when I first read it, and even embraced the X-Factor reboot--even if now I see it as aesthetically diminishing of the original story. But I think there is some justification for how they did it, and lots of fun stories followed. I stopped reading Marvel comics in the early 90s but it sounds like they just went crazy with endless variations of the never-ending "Jean Grey Saga."

For me there is a sense of ruining the end of Legends, and the "happily ever after" fate of Tanis and Laurana - in a similar way that I greatly disliked what the new Star Wars films did to Luke, Leia, and Han. Seeing them again was fun, but not nearly worth the price of what they did to them (particularly Luke)...but that's another topic. I'm just using it as an example of how re-viving/booting an old property rarely ends up well.

Of course I could be completely wrong, and maybe this is a distinct storyline that won't change Chronicles/Legends, but considering they already kind of did that with the later books, I wouldn't be surprised.

“For me there is a sense of ruining the end of Legends, and the "happily ever after" fate of Tanis and Laurana”

Im guessing you didn’t read the book that has Tanis’ death. What I consider one of the absolute dumbest things I’ve ever read.

Tanis fate SPOILERS




To be clear: He’s randomly stabbed in the back by a nameless basic enemy soldier on a battlefield.

At a GenCon I asked Hickman why he killed Tanis the way he did and the response was “It was my homage to the soldiers in Vietnam. Who could be there one second then shot dead the next.”

 

[AnotherGuy]

Remember how Tas had seen an alternate future with Tanis dying at Lord Soth's hands and the kender was able to change the outcome so that the two did not fight... well this time-travelling can potentially "course-correct" the fates.

 

[Hutchimus Prime]

This is all preordered and I’m looking forward to it, but part of me is disappointed that they didn’t get Larry Elmore to do the covers.

 

[Hutchimus Prime]

Remember how Tas has seen an alternate future with Tanis dying at Lord Soth's hands and the kender was able to change the outcome so that the two did not fight... well this time-travelling can potentially "course-correct" the fates.

A reset to the timeline that Tas talks about coming from in “Dragons of a Fallen Sun” would be a-ok with me.

 

[Mercurius]

“For me there is a sense of ruining the end of Legends, and the "happily ever after" fate of Tanis and Laurana”

Im guessing you didn’t read the book that has Tanis’ death. What I consider one of the absolute dumbest things I’ve ever read.

Tanis fate SPOILERS




To be clear: He’s randomly stabbed in the back by a nameless basic enemy soldier on a battlefield.

At a GenCon I asked Hickman why he killed Tanis the way he did and the response was “It was my homage to the soldiers in Vietnam. Who could be there one second then shot dead the next.”

Yeah, I didn't read it but knew the gist of it, which is why I wish they had stuck with Chronicles/Legends. But yeah, an unfortunate fate for good old Tanis.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Oh, I missed that! Do you have a link to it?

I think I posted it in the Dragonlance UA thread. When I get a chance to dig it up, I will link it here.

edit:

Dragonlance - DRAGONLANCE LIVES! Unearthed Arcana Explores Heroes of Krynn!

The latest Unearthed Arcana has arrived and the 6-page document contains rules for kender, lunar magic, Knights of Solamnia, and Mages of High Sorcery. In today’s Unearthed Arcana, we explore character options from the Dragonlance setting. This playtest document presents the kender race, the...

www.enworld.org

 

[Dire Bare]

This is all preordered and I’m looking forward to it, but part of me is disappointed that they didn’t get Larry Elmore to do the covers.

The classic covers and pieces by Elmore and Easley remain some of the best fantasy art ever done! But Elmore doesn't paint at the level he used to . . . and the best Dragonlance covers were painted later by Todd Lockwood. IMO, of course!

The cover to Dragons of Deceit, by Philipp Urlich . . . . he seems a talented artist, but the character work (and dragon work) here I'm just really not loving. The background, however, is gorgeous.

 

[EthanSental]

Bringing back classic heroes or forwarding them through time was done by Salvatore by recently bringing the companions of the hall back 100 years later in the 5e timeline in his recent books. 5 minutes after reading this was done,I was fine with it since I enjoy those characters and further adventures are fun to read. I imagine that if certain classic DL heroes come back,I’ll enjoy the adventures as well.

 

[LizardWizard]

The blurb is basically "how to say that WotC is retconning all of Drangolance to better fit Current Year ideals without actually saying that".