Dragons of Deceit - Here There Be But A Single Dragon Despite What The Title Says
Genre: Fantasy
Date Ended: March 4th, 2023
Final Rating: 4/10
Imagine my delight when I discovered that Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman had returned to their beloved Dragonlance series to write a new trilogy featuring old faces and new. They even hired a Dragonlance expert to help out since it had been like 30-some years since they had even touched the setting.
I bought this as soon as I heard about it and holy shit, couldn't wait! I was 12 again! Reading about the adventures of Tanis and crew (and imagining myself accompanying them) got me through some rough years and the series will always have a special place in my heart. The Dragonlance Chronicles were like a gateway drug to other, more 'grown up' novels; looking back, I feel they're almost as much a romance story as they are heroic fantasy. Maybe the characters aren't super deep and the story isn't super original, but it was a ton of fun and meant a lot to adolescent dorks like myself.
Dragons of Deceit is not a good book.
Our hero is Destina Rosethorn, named so because her mother is a seer of some sort and believes she is destined for great things. Destina has a pretty sweet life being the daughter of a wealthy Solamnic knight who has his own castle, a decent amount of gp, and an impressive library. She's betrothed to the scion of a wealthy family. Life is good, at least up until the War of the Lance.
Destina's dad goes off to war and is killed in action which is a huge bummer. Because Solamnia's laws of inheritance are super chauvinistic, the land goes to her cousin which is bad, mostly because he's a colossal dickhead. Soon her mother moves back with her people and Destina finds herself out on the streets. Her fiancée, having nothing to gain by marrying her now, drops her like a sack of dirt. He sucks, too.
The whole book revolves around Destina's quest to find the Device of Time Journeying so she can go back in time and save her dad so none of this bad stuff ever happens. The most interesting thing about the novel is that Destina, the daughter of a knight and generally a good and honorable person, accomplishes her goals via subterfuge, a decidedly un-knightly trait. I kinda liked how her desperation to go back to her old life leads her to actions her father, whom she adores, would strongly disapprove of. She doesn't care that saving him from death would make him a coward in his eyes; the only thing that matters is getting back to the life she knew.
This book is a major slog. Like horrifically slow. The action doesn't really pick up until the last 50 pages or so, which is a major problem in a 400 page book.
Yeah, you'll see some old familiar faces and some less familiar ones as well. Caramon is just as dumb as you remember (probably dumber, actually) and Tas is even more brick-brained (was he stupid in the original novels? I don't remember him being that dumb.) I really can't recommend this book to anyone but the superfan, and I think a lot of superfans might come away a bit disappointed.
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