Dragons of Autumn Twilight

Dragonlance: Chronicles, Book 1

By: Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 20 hrs

Publisher's summary

Lifelong friends, they went their separate ways. Now they are together again, though each holds secrets from the others in his heart. They speak of a world shadowed with rumors of war. They speak of tales of strange monsters, creatures of myth, creatures of legend. They do not speak of their secrets. Not then. Not until a chance encounter with a beautiful, sorrowful woman, who bears a magical crystal staff, draws the companions deeper into the shadows, forever changing their lives and shaping the fate of the world.

No one expected them to be heroes.

Least of all, them.

©1984 TSR, Inc., Cover Copyright 2000 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Good story, eyeroll inducing narration

Love the Dragonlance Chronicles. Although they aren’t without faults, they are pretty well written for something based on the usually pulpy fiction of D&D.

My one major complaint is the narration. I still cringe at the narrator’s voice inflection for female characters....especially during “tender” moments. This would have been much better as a non-dramatic narration.

Classic Tale - Choppy Narrator

Every so often I go back and relisten to my favorite books, and DragonLance is near the top of that list. BUT the narrator takes some getting used to! His reading style is quite odd - I can't understand why he hasn't gotten better by now. He does a creditable job reading conversations, however his story reading resembles a computer read story from a 2nd rate d&d game - in other words his inflection is decent word by word, yet does not string those words together with a consistent emotion. nearly every word sounds the way a computer talks - well enunciated, but not part of a sentence. perhaps he can only read well when using one of his character voices.... if so then the man needs to consider creating a "reader character" for the parts of a book that aren't character conversations. either that or learn to obey punctuation.
I've yet to hear a narrator for these books who pronounces character names correctly... there is a difference between Paladin and Paladine, for instance. then there are the accent marks that seem to be ignored or moved.
I don't know which is worse - Paul's overly dramatic yet halting reading or the next narrator who begins "Time of the Twins" with a precise clinical detached voice and can't even remember how he pronounces Raistlin, changing pronunciation 3 times in a single paragraph.

trip down memory lane

the dragonlance stories created the dnd party archetypes for a generation. such a trip into my memories. the reader isn't horrible and the sound of his voice is pleasant. but some of his pronunciations are very odd..and his delivery slips into William Shatner like out of place pause and emphasis fairly often.

Great story, like Tolkien on steroids.

Sorry for the hyperbole with the Tolkien comparison but I always thought the Dragonlance series was the fantasy of Tolkien Fantasy. Great story and characters, that have great background stories themselves. They narration took some getting used to with Tass' silky girlie voice and such but I found myself ignoring those and melting back into the great story from my childhood.

Great Story and Narrative

I read this series over 24 years ago. It was great then and it is the same now.

Great series

The audible version of this favorite book is really well done. I already knew the story, and the performance is great.

For classic fantasy and RPG fans

This is a long and slow read taking place in a well thought out world. It's the first in a popular series so while it plays into cliche and tropes of the genre it may not have been a big deal when it was written. This makes the plot predictable and not very thrilling.
Characters are stereotypical but distinct from each other, however as often the case with many main characters only a few are really fleshed out and even then briefly.
If you like dungeon crawlers, campaign based stories (RPG) or classic fantasy it is worth a read.

Even better thirty years later

I first read this as a young teen. 30 years later it was even better. Marvelous. Excellent plot. No game of thrones kill everyone off. Not offensive. Not obscene. Absolutely a masterpiece. I recommend to everyone of all ages.

A Blast From the Past, and Well Worth It

I have not read the Dragonlance novels since they were first published, and this format was a real treat.

I commute 3 hours per day, and this book filled up about two weeks of driving very well.

I have already purchased the second novel in the series.

The narration is very good, but the narrator does have a few pronunciation oddities.

great book

Loved the dragonlance series a long time ago and getting back to it. Great book, decent narration... could have much better distinction between character voices though. several sound the same with this narrator which can make it difficult to follow who is speaking in some areas.