Book Review: The Gunslinger (Dark Tower #1)

 

The Gunslinger, originally published in 1982, is the first in the series of 8 novels in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. It was revised and updated in 2003 to add material that fleshed out and strengthened the novel's storyline. It is hard to describe the exact genre of the story as it mixes dark fantasy, sci-fi, horror, western, and dystopian themes. King took inspiration for the story from The Lord of the Rings, the Arthurian legends, and westerns starring Clint Eastwood. In it, the main character is a member of a knightly order known as gunslingers named Roland Deschain. He lives in a world in a parallel universe, similar to the Old West, yet incorporating magical and supernatural elements. In the novel, Roland is chasing a mysterious figure known as "the man in black" while searching for a structure known as The Dark Tower.

The paperback version of the expanded edition is just under 240 pages. Even though it has a relatively low page count, it is a bit slow to read and can be hard to follow at times. The reader is just dropped into a story without much initial setup. Roland is traveling through a desert, meeting various characters along the way. There are hints of multiple universes, but the book does not really explore that aspect. Ultimately, this very much feels like it is setting up a larger story. If this were the only book in the series, it would not be a must-read. Just an okay fantasy novel. However, as the story very much expands and evolves, if you are a fan of fantasy, horror, westerns, and dystopian novels, it is worth reading. 

Book Review: Dragonlance Lost Histories Vol II: The Irda

 

The Irda, published in 1995, is the second volume in the Dragonlance Lost Histories series. The series tells the origins of the various races on Krynn, the mythical world established in the Chronicles novels back in the mid-1980s. This one tells the story of the Irda, a race of Ogres who were not corrupted by evil into the creatures described in the Chronicles and Legends novels. The Irda are a group of Ogres who left the clan system the species had lived in, which had become corrupted by greed and lust for power. 

The book was only published as a mass-market paperback. The book is 312 pages long. The first 301 pages comprise the Irda story, and the rest contain the first chapter of the novel Dragons of the Summer Flame, which continued the storylines from the Chronicles and Legends trilogies. The book has a good mix of action and dramatic elements. There are also some romantic elements, but those are not really at the forefront of the story. I would describe the story as okay, but if it had included more of what was spelled out on the back cover, specifically the corruption of the Ogres by Takhisis, it would have been better. Ultimately, the story is okay, but it is not one of the novels in the Dragonlance universe that I would categorize as a must-read.  

4k-UHD/Movie Review: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

 

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a 2023 film directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, starring Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, Daisy Head, Sophia Lillis, Chloe Coleman, and Justice Smith. The supporting cast includes Bradley Cooper and Rege-Jean Page. Goldstein and Daley also co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Gillo. It is, of course, based on the role-playing game and is set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. 

In it, Pine plays a bard named Edgin "Ed" Davis, who was in an order of peacekeepers until his wife was killed by disciples of a wizard that he arrested. He then becomes a thief, teaming up with a barbarian named Helga (played by Rodriguez), a sorcerer named Simon (played by Smith), and a con artist named Fitzwilliam (played by Grant). Ed and Helga are caught during a robbery and are imprisoned for 2 years. After escaping, Ed tries to track down Fitzwilliam and his daughter, Kira, whom Fitzwilliam has been caring for. Daisy Head plays Sofina, a red wizard, working for Fitzwilliam. 

The 4K release is a single-disc release. The UHD disc contains the movie and all the bonus content. The A/V quality is outstanding, and the movie looks and sounds wonderful in UHD, especially on a large screen with a good sound system.  The bonus material includes about an hour of content, including a making-of featurette, featurettes on the heroes and villains, a gag reel, and about ten minutes of deleted scenes. 

I would classify the movie as good (and better than the other live-action D&D movies that have come before), but not great. It has a decent mix of action and humor, and the effects are outstanding. The humor can be a bit much, a bit corny, and a bit cheesy at times, but the writers do stay pretty faithful to the setting. Ultimately, if you are a fan of fantasy films, you will probably find this one enjoyable and worth watching. If, however, you are holding out for something like the Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends series, this is definitely not it. 

Book Review: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

 

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a 2015 novel by George R.R. Martin set in the Game of Thrones universe. The events occur approximately 100 years before those depicted in the Song of Ice and Fire novels and the Game of Thrones TV series. The story involves a low-born "hedge knight" named Duncan (nicknamed Dunk), who goes by Ser Duncan the Tall, who was knighted by the knight for whom he squired. He looks to make a living competing in various tournaments. While traveling to a tournament, a small boy who calls himself Egg, whom Dunk mistakes for a stable boy at a local inn, asks to be his squire. Dunk ends up begrudgingly taking on Egg, who is definitely not a lowly stableboy, as his squire, and traveling through Westeros and getting into all manner of trouble.

The hardcover version of the book is just over 350 pages. I found that it reads much quicker than the Song of Ice and Fire novels, as there are far fewer characters and the book does not jump between storylines. The book actually has three different stories, with time jumps between each of them. While it does not have as much action or sex as the GoT novels, it is still entertaining. Martin does a great job of focusing the story on the relationship between Dunk and Egg, who have an older-brother-younger-brother dynamic. Of course, everyone wants Martin to actually finish the GoT series, and he received a lot of criticism for going off on side tangents with stories like this. However, if you are a fan of the series (regardless of what you think of Martin's writing pace), you will probably like this one. 

Book Review: The Dragons: Dragonlance Lost Histories Volume VI

 

The Dragons, written by Douglas Niles and published in 1996, is a novel in the prolific Dragonlance series of fantasy novels, which began with a story in a Dungeons & Dragons role-playing campaign in the early 1980s and later expanded into the trilogy known as the Chronicles series. That series spawned hundreds of other novels, including this one. This book is part of a series of novels that fill in gaps in events mentioned but not fully explored in the Chronicles and Legends trilogies. This book details the lives of a number of good and evil dragons, some of whom are first introduced in the Chronicles series, but most are new to this book. The events begin about 8500 years before the Cataclysm (the big event in the Dragonlance setting that divides time periods), making it the first novel if you read them in chronological order, and end with the conclusion to the War of the Lance (which occurred 350 years after the Cataclysm and was the story in the Chronicles trilogy). In it, we learn about the dragons' role in the original war in which Takhisis attempted to take over, their subsequent exile from Krynn, and the good dragons' decision to return to fight in the War of the Lance. 

For years, the book was only available in mass-market paperback, and is now available in electronic form. The first edition of the paperback book is 315 pages long. It does spoil some of what happens in the Chronicles series. So, if you are just getting into the Dragonlance series and have not read the Chronicles trilogy (or have not finished them) and care about spoilers, then it is best to read this after those novels. Most of the book (about 3/4) is set in the centuries before the War of the Lance. If you have read the Chronicles series, the last 1/4 of the story will be more familiar and will probably read more quickly. While I would not say that it is as good as any of the novels in the Chronicles and Legends trilogies (basically, the original six books in the Dragonlance universe) and can be slow in parts, it is worth reading if that part of the story interests you. It is not, however, integral to the storyline in the "primary" novels, so you will not miss anything vital if you do not read this one.