Don PerrinRezensionen
Autor von Der Zorn des Drachen
Rezensionen
Brothers in Arms
Ahora ha llegado un nuevo verano abrasador que marcará el destino de Krynn. En el mundo ocurren cosas terribles y extrañas pero los habitantes del valle no les prestan ninguna atención porque los enanos han encontrado el mapa de un inmenso tesoro, oculto en el reino subterráneo de Thorbardin y los draconianos han descubierto que para ellos ese tesoro vale más que todas las riquezas de Krynn. ¿Qué raza conseguirá quedarse con el tesoro y vivirá lo suficiente para disfrutarlo?
Los mercenarios del barón de Arbolongar acuden para unirse a ese ejército, contratados por el rey Wilhelm. El barón no sabe que va a participar en una batalla sin sentido, algo que va en contra de sus principios. Caramon y Raistlin forman parte de la tropa mercenaria.
El Dragón Rojo se propone destruir los huevos de los dragones enemigos, desobedeciendo a Takhisis. Los hermanos, Kitiara, Raistlin y Caramon, serán quienes tendrán que impedírselo, impulsado cada cual por sus propios motivos.
Draconians (Kang and his gang) and dwarves live on the same plain, bugging each other a few times a year: dwarves stealing tools and stuff, the draconians stealing dwarf spirits. Since there's no war, the draconians have to do something to keep themselves busy.
And so a story unfolds in which there's rumour of a treasure, even a very old treasure consisting of dragon eggs with female draconians. These never hatched. By sheer luck, Kang and co. find out about it and go out to seek them by shadowing/following the dwarves, who have the same interest (only with regards to return on investment aka selling them for gold and what not).
Meanwhile, there's a war going on in the heavens. And Takhisis' armies occupy a great deal of Ansalon, yet install peace. They aren't on a killing spree at all. Kang didn't want his troops/engineers to be (ab)used in the new army, so he left, and then the treasure hunt fell into their laps. But that hunt didn't go as planned, as several obstacles were not taken into account.
All in all, it was an entertaining story, quick to read, and somehow you would begin to sympathize with Kang and his gang. But they're still draconians, still loyal to the Dark Queen. It will be interesting to read how both draconians and dwarfs get out of the cave/mountain and if they'll continue to live peacefully together.
One negative remark, though: some editing would have been useful, as there are a few typos, some words forgotten in dialogues. But it doesn't disturb the story itself, it's trivial stuff that could have easily been prevented by Don Perrin and Margaret Weis themselves.
Still, as the fort is in a pretty bad shape and Maranta's bastion a far better built place, yet more difficult to get into, this begs for an explanation.
While thinking of ways to regain freedom, even including a talk with a regiment of Dark Knights, stationed in the vicinity of the fort, it becomes clear - although especially much later in the story - that there's more going on than just the battle with the goblins, supposedly because of the female draconians. So Kang and co. are caught between two fires. And he's determined to get out of the mess, no matter what.
All in all, this was a very entertaining read. Don and Margaret also added some well-thought of elements, that spiced up the story. But it's Fantasy, so some things may appear as "wtf?". And it's Dragonlance, so...
Anyway, the Kang's Regiment series - although far from canon - is a very nice read in between.
Some things I don't get:
Like all Dragonlance novels, Doom Brigade moves at a fast pace and boasts tons of action and different locations. Its a quick, light read that captures the flavor of D&D in general and Krynn specifically.
Like all Dragonlance novels, there aren't many twists and the foreshadowing is so heavy-handed its made of lead. While the characters are fun, they are largely interchangeable, with really only one draconian and one dwarf having much personality on the page (and that personality is very much standard thief and knight tropes).
Still, its hard not to be happy at the end when everything comes together.
Mag Force 7 is a mercenary outfit headed by Xris Cyborg, a cyborg (original, eh?), and manned by a truly interesting cast of characters ranging from hackers to poisoners to telepaths to explosives experts to medical experts to muscle and pilots and everything in between. Ex-military and everything else. This is the second book in a trilogy and I didn't read the first, but I don't think you have to have read the first in order to get into this one. In this book, Xris is approached by a mysterious museum curator about finding and stealing a seriously old working antique robot for a large sum of money and thinking it'll be an easy job, he agrees. Again, thinking it'll be easy, he sends all but one of the team off on vacation, and takes a colleague to the planet where the robot is to get it and bring it to the professor. Sounds simple, right? But, oh no, it's a damned mess! First, the robot is much more important and complex than let on. And of those who know about it, it's considered critically important and completely invaluable. Second, thugs from the first book, the Hung, are out to assassinate a colleague who ratted them out and underwent a sex change operation in order to obtain a new identity and escape them. It hasn't worked. Then, there's the matter of the military finding out about Xris and his buddy's secret integration into the military, unofficially, and how that is handled, and then there is a triple agent, which makes things awfully complicated. Moreover, there are flesh eating aliens, attempting to get the robot, in order to attack humanity and wipe it out.
This book could have been decent. Not great, perhaps not even good, but decent. BUT, two things. First, the overly complicated plot, made so by the triple agent, is incredibly confusing and therefore annoying. You ultimately don't know what to believe until perhaps the final chapter and even then, perhaps not then too. More importantly, and this is what knocked the book down from a maximum of four stars to two stars, there's a mercenary character named Raoul who is one of the most over the top, unbelievably annoying characters of any book I've ever read and I wanted to kill him. I wanted him to die early. I almost stopped reading this book on at least three occasions because of him, but somehow continued to the end. Raoul is an Adonian, a race genetically groomed to be vapid and beautiful. No one works on their planet, except for servants they import. Everyone is wealthy. The only things anyone cares about is fashion, makeup, hair styles, wild orgies, parties, cocktails, pleasure of all types, avoiding ugliness in any form, and so on. And Raoul is a bisexual, transsexual, transvestite who is an expert poisoner (thus, the mercenary) and who cares only about his dresses, shoes, handbags, hair styles, food, drinks, scarves, lipstick, eyeliner, and so on. And he goes on and on and on about this shit while people are getting shot at and while friends are trying to avoid being killed. It's unbelievably stupid. I assume it's, what, comic relief? He's there to provide humor to the plot, but after the first 75 instances of this, you want him to swallow his own poison, or have someone blow his damn head off for talking too damn much about his frigging lipstick, like anyone gives a shit!!! And he's got this alien companion -- The Little One. He doesn't even have a frigging name! He's a midget who wears a trench coat and fedora because he's so hideously ugly that people would get sick and throw up if they even saw his face, which incidentally looks like a head that's been hit by a train -- pure ground meat and brains. And he's a telepath and while Raoul is not, they communicate without talking because The Little One can't talk, can only gesture and constantly is throwing temper tantrums because no one except Raoul can understand him. Frankly, I wanted to kill him too. What a pair they made. A poisonous bi transvestite and an alien midget telepath. Great. And just for laughs. Not funny. They didn't even help out in the action, when there was action! They were pretty much just in the way. Raoul prepared suicide cocktails when things looked grim. Gee, thanks. Glad we pay you the big bucks, huh? Even Xris, the main protagonist and assumed book stud was kind of a stupid dumbshit, constantly getting things wrong, constantly underestimating his opponents, constantly wrong about just about everything he got involved with. I mean with a mercenary team like that, well, I'd hate to think of entrusting someone's life to them. For one thing, they got the robot and then let it escape. Got it back, got captured, let it get away again, took a fatal casualty in a gunfight. Just how good are they? My estimation is not very good. So why write a book, let alone a series, about them? If you're the author, why not write a better book about a more successful group? I just don't understand. This book could and should have been much better. Some of the characters were pretty interesting. The plot had potential. I guess the authors weren't good enough to pull it off. Pity. Not recommended.
Fair warning, if you intend on reading a lot in this series, this manual contains quite a few spoilers, so you may want to wait to take a look at this until you've at least read the main cannon of the DragonLance time-line.
Also the book has wonderful characters, a good flow, and a loveable mix of action and humor.
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