Paul B. Thompson (1) (1958–)

There are parts of this book I quite like. The personalities of the gnomes are fascinating, and there are good character scenes between our main two protagonists. Unfortunately, there's a lot here that needs work. The book meanders and seems to have no real focus. There are way too many unnecessary little adventures before the trip to the moon and after the trip that make the book seem more like a collection of vignettes than anything else, which would be fine if the trip to the moon was of show more the same length, and not so much longer than any other vignette. There are also times when the characters seem to act out of character simply to move the plot along. Its not a bad book, but it feels like an early draft that needed more polishing. show less

One of the spin-off series from the original Dragonlance trilogy. This one concerns itself with what happened to the characters before the major story, delves into how their personalities were shaped. Volume one follows Kitiara Uth Matar and Sturm Brightblade on a trip north to seek mercenary work and solve the mystery of a family’s history respectively. They encounter many strange things, chief of which is a group of gnomes in an airship. This leads them to fly to one of the world’s show more three moons among other things. As is the case in other spin-offs, the material suffers from the interpretation of secondary authors. Here, character traits and cliches abound, as the writers ape material from the originals. Not that they are bad writers; it was just that even the new settings, materials and characters were written in such a way that it felt like the authors were trying too hard to claim a legitimate piece of history in the Dragonlance series. show less

I picked this book up on a whim - in a dollar store. Talk about getting my money's worth! You have the classic archetype characters from an RPG (archer, rogue, etc.) and a surprisingly good fantasy adventure story. If you can find a copy, it's well worth reading.

My wife wanted to read a "D&D Novel", she has played before, but never read a novel based in a D&D world. We got to about page 100 before I pulled the plug. The elves weren't majestic or mysterious, really no different from humans. The story overall seemed kind of "young adult" and we've been reading a lot of gritty, adult fantasy lately so it just seemed really slow and juvenile.