Sequestered in the blackness of the dreaded Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas, surrounded by nameless creatures of evil, Raistlin Majere weaves a plan to conquer the darkness - to bring it under his control.
Crysania, a beautiful and devoted cleric of Paladine, tries to use her faith to lead Raistlin from the darkness. She is blind to his shadowed designs, and he draws her slowly into his neatly woven trap.
Made aware of Raistlin’s plan, a distraught Caramon travels back in time to the doomed city of Istar in the days before the Cataclysm. There, together with the ever-present kender Tasslehoff, Caramon will make his stand to save Raistlin’s soul.
Or so he believes.
©1986 TSR, Inc., 2000 Wizards of the Coast LLC (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
Commodities broker, father, husband, and avid scifi/fantasy/self help fan.
"To the Tower of High Sorcery - Begin Your Journey!"
After the initial Dragonlance series, most readers figured the story of Caramon and Raistlin was finished, said and done.
We were all taken by surprise and thrilled to discover these three novels that gave us an even stronger reading on the twins future story. Despite the wearisome Ax Norman narration, you will enjoy these at LEAST as good as the first four novels, and will be carried along on a journey of high magic, time travel, broad epic story lines, vast moral decisions impacting the world, and just simply good fantasy listening.
This first of the three will swallow you up into the Dragonlance realm, and when done, if you don't want more, I will be honestly SHOCKED. This is Weiss and Hickman at their prime.
Don't pass this series up. I liked it so much, I acquired all three in the series.
And don't worry, I don't always write glowing reviews. Look at my past reviews, and you'll see some extremely negative reviews. Don't worry, I have a few negative reviews to share soon.
For now, let's focus on the good stuff. And this, Audible listener, is the good stuff.
"Dragonlance Classic... narrator wasn't"
Mr. Norman should've done his homework before agreeing to reading this classic Dragonlance series, it is obviously apparent that he hasn't read this series prior to narrating it. Character names are mispronounced but he does get better as he goes along. But he is unable to pronounce Paladine's name correctly the entire book. Mr. Norman - it's Paladine not Paladin.
"Story carries flat reading"
The craft of Weis & Hickman.
The fantastic trek through a future of a past most of us have read.
I feel the reading was flat. There wasn't much in the way of 'bringing the story to life..."
The reader says a line with excitement, then reads that the line was mumbled...
No.
"How disappointing."
This is a book series that I have followed or the better part of 20 years. I love both the Legends and Chronicles trilogies. These are exciting stories that tend to sweep up the reader more with each page.
If you have read the Chronicles trilogy (http://www.amazon.com/Dragonlance-Chronicles-Trilogy-Gift-Set/dp/0786926813) and need more, you've come to the right place.
As has been noted in other reviews the author has no background in these stories. It seems he did little to no research and there is no passion, or much of any emotion actually, as he reads.
If you absolutely don't have time to read these books yourself, then I would pick up this version, However, this performance robs the book of much of it's excitement and fun so my first recommendation would be to read them yourself.
"Yes, Audible, Ax the Ax."
Sorry, but I'm afraid I simply must agree with several others on this point. The Dragonlance novels are great books and I think they're being done a very poor disservice, albeit possibly unintentional. Audible, you simply MUST find a new narrator for these books. Ax Norman MUST GO! Sorry Ax, I'm sure he's a great guy, he's absolutely ruining the Audible experience for these books. If you read this review, buy the books on Kindle and read them until you see a different narrator listed for any of the Krynn novels. Anyone but Ax that is; remember ax the Ax!
"my favorite series ruined by an awful narator"
I've been an audible listener for many years I have over 40 books in my audible library. This narator is awful. Most of the time when there are dialog between character you can't tell who is talking because he doesn't change is voice at all, even between a male and a female. But for me the biggest mistake.. between books of the same series that he all narated himself he changes his prononciation of character names and places. For me this shows extreme lazyness in the part of mr. Norman to not even go back to his previous work to keep a semblance of consistency. Its even more important in a fantasy novel because a lot of words are invented. He should have checked with the author if posible. Even if it wasn't he could at least keep the same pronunciation throughout the whole series.
"Terrible Narration, Great Story"
Yes, the book is amazing. Really such a great story (too bad the narration is so poor).
I just cringe listening to Ax Norman. He speeds up when the narration is supposed to be slow. He speaks quietly when it's an exciting moment. It's almost as if he is reading the text for the very first time when he showed up to do this recording. Also, his pronunciation is simply atrocious. If you're not sure how to pronounce something, the authors could very easily help, as could a website, as could have the original (abridged) recordings.
Thankfully his narration improves in the sequels, but is absolutely horrendous in this first book. I know he's done other narrations in the past, my only guess is that he either had a very late night, they paid him bottom basement dollar, or he didn't bother (as I mentioned earlier) to read the text before narrating. And, so too, goes the blame to the editor as well. Who could've honestly been in the recording booth listening to him record, and not have him give it another go (or two, or three).