Dragonlance There's A New Dragonlance Novel Coming

After all the legal drama between WotC, Margaret Weis, and Tracy Hickman recently, this probably won't surprise anybody. However, on Amazon, there is now a placeholder for a Dragonlance paperback novel set for a 29th July release this year.

The 2020 lawsuit referred to a trilogy - Dragons of Deceit, Dragons of Fate, and a third book.

As expected, it's by Weis and Hickman, and being published by Del Rey which is the sci-fi and fantasy imprint of Penguin Random House. It's 304 pages. And that's pretty much all we know!

After the lawsuit was dropped, Margaret Weis tweeted that exciting news was coming; it looks like this is that exciting news.

Dragonlance is a legacy D&D setting and best-selling novel series created in the mid-1980s by TSR, the then-owners of Dungeons & Dragons.

 

[vecna00]

Tomorrow's announcement has already been leaked and posted in the other thread. Mind you, there still could be the novel announcement, but doubtful at this point. It probably won't be officially announced until around May.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's also possible -- and hear me out here, folks -- that it'll be something completely surprising until Amazon pulls an Amazon.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Nostalgia absolutely is a huge part of the feelings for Dragonlance, I'd say. My first AD&D character was a Dark Elf because I thought Dalamar was cool. I did enjoy Flint the King, for its dwarven-centric content, though I imagine the Gully Dwarf stuff hasn't aged well. In general, the farther you get from that original trilogy, the less exciting it gets for me.

We'll see what happens with this next book. I'll probably pick it up out of curiosity's sake, if the reviews are decent. It looks like it's been just over a decade since the last Dragonlance-branded novel was released.

Not that any of you care, but "Innerdude's Official Dragonlance Canon" is exactly 8 novels:

• Autumn Twilight / Winter Night / Spring Dawning
• Time / War / Test of the Twins
• Legend of Huma + Kaz the Minotaur

Even that is a product more of nostalgia remembering what it was like reading them for the first time at age 14 than on the actual merits of the writing.

 

[Sunsword]

But anyway, it does interest me how the Chronicles and Legends seemed so formative and high quality and after the later works by Weis and Hickman still seemed good to me, but lacked that spark or energy. I wonder if this observation is more a function of the zeitgeist of the time, me changing as a reader, a slackening of the creative energy or a mélange of the above.

The problem is that fans always say they want something original yet new works are often lower sellers than the original product. It's a tough situation for creators and fans.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The problem is that fans always say they want something original yet new works are often lower sellers than the original product. It's a tough situation for creators and fans.

I wonder how much of Krynn was plotted out in advance. Reading the original novels, it very much feels like the entire setting was built around one point in time -- the War of the Lance -- and that everything else has been vamping.

Compare to Middle Earth or Westeros, both of which have deep, broad histories and lots of places we could zoom in and out of and tell interesting stories. (Westeros more than Middle Earth, for my money, but it's true of both.)

Now, lots of writers get themselves in trouble with this -- no one really gives a crap about your massive series bible if you can't manage the basics of telling an interesting story with compelling characters -- but once you're staring down the barrel of (oh my god) 181 books, world design matters.

 

[Ath-kethin]

That's fair. But I also want to point out that the two Draconian books by Weis & Perrin were excellent! (and were referenced in the War of the Souls trilogy.)

Oh, I've read tons of DL novels - both the terrible obviously-repurposed-quickly-from-another-setting ones (remember the one with the half-orc in it? Seriously.) and the excellent ones, and the in between ones.

It's not that I feel only the Weis & Hickman ones are good, it's just that if I have to pick something to read a chapter or so per night or two, I'm gonna stick with the main (meta)plot.

Plus, I already own them all .

 

[EthanSental]

I read the novels back in the 80s and have been listening to them on my commute on audible app. Overall I still enjoy them and the story and Paul Boemer does a great job with the voices. One thing that still stings/odd is the Tanis Half elven naming used through out the book trilogy. I’ll pick them up...audible more than likely.

 

[Don Durito]

I have conflicted feelings about this. Thus far, I have been very impressed with the quality and standards of the 5th edition WoTC materials, thus, publishing separately makes me wonder about the rigor and frankly likability of this new work. We shall see!

Hate to be a pessimist, but does this signal as well a lower degree of likelihood that WoTC will publish an official DL campaign setting this year?

Isn't R.A. Salvatore also basically publishing seperately these days?

 

[jerryrice4949]

I wonder how much of Krynn was plotted out in advance. Reading the original novels, it very much feels like the entire setting was built around one point in time -- the War of the Lance -- and that everything else has been vamping.

Compare to Middle Earth or Westeros, both of which have deep, broad histories and lots of places we could zoom in and out of and tell interesting stories. (Westeros more than Middle Earth, for my money, but it's true of both.)

Now, lots of writers get themselves in trouble with this -- no one really gives a crap about your massive series bible if you can't manage the basics of telling an interesting story with compelling characters -- but once you're staring down the barrel of (oh my god) 181 books, world design matters.

Hmmmm I don’t think that is accurate. There was the Legend of Huma, the history of the elven nations, the creation story of the gnomes, King Priest of Ishtar and The cataclysm. That is just to name a few.

 

[Scribe]

Not that any of you care, but "Innerdude's Official Dragonlance Canon" is exactly 8 novels:

• Autumn Twilight / Winter Night / Spring Dawning
• Time / War / Test of the Twins
• Legend of Huma + Kaz the Minotaur

These are the exact ones I saved.