The Gates of Thorbardin

Dragonlance: Heroes, Book 5

De: Dan Parkinson

Narrado por: Richard Topol

Magic and peril under the Earth...

Deep beneath the mountain fortress of Skullcap, legend has it, are the remains of the dark wizard Fistandantilus and the path to the gates of the dwarven kingdom of Thorbardin. Buried somewhere along that perilous path is the magical helm of Grallen, son of King Duncan, tragic hero of the Dwarfgate War. The finder of Grallen's helm, it is prophesized, will be rewarded and honored by a united Thorbardin - but he will also open the gates of the realm to fresh horror and chaos.

In The Gates of Thorbardin, Dan Parkinson, author of Starsong, continues the history of the dwarves of Krynn in the tradition of Nancy Varian Berberick's best-selling Dragonlance novel, Stormblade.

©1990 TSR, Inc. c.2004 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Excellent DL novel

Great story and narrator. The narrator, Topol, is among my favorites in the DL series. Has excellent range, tone and pronunciation. He is also consistent across all his readings. There were a couple oddities...like Kalonda...wtf? A powerful female commander, who sounds like a sniveling Veruca Salt-esque voice . But he has certainly earned a mulligan! As for the story...amazing work by the author. Although the story thoroughly conflicts with other novels that cover this place and time (Dragons of the Dwarven Depths), this story along Storm Blade blow DDD away with characters, story and relevance. my one beef is the last two chapters...they fell completely flat. It's almost as if the deadline was approaching and the author had to wrap it up fast. Disappointing, but the overall story was well worth it. I am a fan of all Mr Parkinson's books.

Finally. An enjoyable DL tale read well.

So many books and so few that even approach the charm and depth of the Chronicals and Legends series. Enjoyably written. Read adeptly, with appeal. Several parts made me smile.

The narrator does _not_ sound patronizing (like being read to a toddler). I found the kender and the gnome characters delivered with charm. Others were perhaps stale, but compared to narrators of most Dragonlance novels, this reader soars high.

Not since the abridged audiobooks read by Peter MacNicol have I truly enjoyed listening as much as this one.

I have much criticism for the narration of other Dragonlance books, even the original series (which I fell in love with reading, but the current narration is painful).

Not so with this Thorbardin tale. The author weaves many a good sentence, and the narrator clearly has an appealing delivery.

An enjoyable tale

I enjoyed the story told in The Gates of Thorbardin. I wanted to leave this review mainly in response to another review.

The story here in "The Gates of Thorbardin" clashes with the book "Dragons of the Dwarven Depths." While that's true, and rather annoying, I wanted to point out that "The Gates of Thorbardin" was written in 1990, whereas "Dragons of the Dwarven Depths" was written in 2006. This book was the original tale, and DotDD took elements from this book. While I like both books, if I had to choose which one I perfer it would be "The Gates of Thorbardin". It was a more fun tale, whereas DotDD was a more serious tale.

How was this allowed to be published?

None of this happened. It completely ignored the events in the core novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Like they never happened. How could Rastlin, Sturm and the gang found the helm if it'd been found like in this book? And the mountain dwarves trading, or traveling outside? The gates location being more or less common knowledge? This book is an affront to the whole of Dragonlance