Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis on Geekerati Tonight

On January 6th of this year, Tor-Forge published the first novel in an exciting new series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. The book, Bones of the Dragon, is the first in a saga inspired in part by Viking Sagas. It is a tale where the acts of men will determine the fate of gods. Weis and Hickman will be visiting the Geekerati BlogTalkRadio show tonight at 7pm Pacific to discuss this new series, the Dragonlance Saga, writing for gaming, writing for hire vs. writing for ownership, and the challenges of co-authoring works.

In 1984, Tracy Hickman was a game designer at TSR and Margaret Weis was a book editor at the same company. Both had been assigned to work on different aspects of a new product line for TSR entitled Dragonlance. Tracy was hard at work trying to, as he put it, "corale resources in the company to produce a little dream called Dragonlance." Margaret was to edit a book related to the product. It would be the first gaming related novel and TSR wanted success. So they set a couple criteria regarding the selection of who would author the book. According to Hickman, "it had to be a recognizable name author with an established audience and, second, he had to work for very little money on a project he could not own."

Though an initial author was selected to write the Dragonlance book, it was Hickman and Weis who eventually took the reins and ran with the project. What a project it became! Not only did the Dragonlance Saga create the genre of gaming related fiction, but it has spawned a library of over 190 novels, a couple of lines of comic books, and an animated film. All of this on top of the vast treasure trove of gaming material created in the Dragonlance Universe. 2009 marks the 25th anniversary of the setting and Cinerati can't help but believe that Wizards of the Coast, TSR's successor company, have some gaming surprise planned for later this year.

Hickman and Weis have written about a score of novels in the Dragonlance setting, but they have also written another score of novels completely unrelated to the Dragonlance Saga. From the Arabian Nights inspired Rose of the Prophet series to the post-apocalyptic Death Gate Cycle fantasy series. In support of their Darksword quadrology, they wrote a paperback sized role playing game entitled Darksword Adventures. The book was released in 1988 and it signaled the end, by publishers, of attempts to create mass market paperback market for role playing games. Prior to Darksword Adventures, Corgi had published the excellent Dragon Warriors paperback role playing game (a wonderful new version of the game is being published by Magnum Opus Press) and a paperback edition of Tunnels and Trolls as well as several of that game's solo adventures, and Puffin had published the Advanced Fighting Fantasy Role Playing Game as a follow up to its own Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks.

D&D Animation: Then and Now.

Back in the 1980s, I used to watch the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. I thought it was great, and so did a lot of my peers. The animation was standard for cartoons of the time, in fact it might have been slightly better than some shows. I recently compared episodes of the GI JOE cartoon from the time period to episodes of the D&D cartoon and the D&D cartoon looks a little better in my opinion.

Here's a little clip for you to look at.

Since the 1980s, television animation has come a long way, or at least some of it has. Viewers can watch the beautifully rendered Avatar series on Nickelodeon, if they want to see what television animators are "capable" of producing. Not everything out today is of the caliber of Avatar, as not every thing in the 60s was Johnny Quest, but Avatar is a reasonable example of how beautiful modern televised animation can look. If I wanted to be mean, I could have used Samurai Champloo as my point of comparison, but I'm not that mean. I just wanted to point out that in the past 20 years, it has become possible to distribute some pretty beautiful animation on the medium of television. Which is why the new "provisional" trailer for the upcoming direct to DVD adaptation of the Dungeons and Dragons (Roleplaying Game) related Dragonlance book series, has me worried about how the film will affect the public's perception of D&D. I think it will give people the perception that D&D fans are satisfied by derivative stories with poor animation. Have a look for yourself:

In the interest of being completely honest, I should note that I am not biggest fan of the Dragonlance series. I find it entertaining, but in that kind of "it's related to my hobby so I like it" kind of way. The first trilogy of books, which the DVD is an adaptation of the first novel thereof, is pretty poorly crafted and very derivative. But I found some of the characters compelling and very much enjoyed the second trilogy, and some of the subsequent series as well -- including the recent "fill in the gaps" trilogy that has been being released this year. The new "fill in the gaps" trilogy eliminates some of the holes in narrative of the first trilogy. The need for such a series speaks volumes about the original series.

That said, Dragonlance has legions of fans, these are NYT Bestsellers we are talking about, and they deserve better than what this preview is showing me. If the CGI integration doesn't improve in the final product, I'll probably recommend that my friends watch Record of Lodoss War instead of the upcoming Dragonlance movie. At least, I'll be buying it first, so my friends will have warning.

Dragonlance License "Extended" and Dragonlance Animated Movie News

Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro have extended the current Dragonlance license with Margaret Weis Productions. The non-renewed license will expire at the end of January 2008, rather than at the end of this year. This extension will enable Margaret Weis Productions to complete any releases they have listed in their catalogue, but it does mark the end of a great partnership.

As one of the authors of the original Dragonlance trilogy, and several sequels, Margaret Weis was (and is) an ideal partner for Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro. But with next year being the 25th anniversary of the release of the Dragonlance, it makes sense for Wizards/Hasbro to attempt to draw profit directly from sales rather than through a license. I only hope that during the large 25th anniversary event Wizards has planned that they will include Margaret Weis in the products.

In other Dragonlance news, I wanted to let any Cinerati readers who weren't paying attention in on the status of the upcoming Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight. The film is slated to be released this September, but I can't tell whether it will be a theatrical or D2DVD release. The high quality cast, and the fact that Paramount is listed as the "theatrical" distributor, hint that the film will be theatrical, but the "novice" director and screenwriter (as well as the connection with Epic Level Entertainment)hint at a D2DVD release. Add to these factors the insanely rapid time between conception and planned release, two years for an animated film, and D2DVD is the most likely.

I am looking forward to the release of the film, even though I am not the world's largest Dragonlance fan. I found the original novels to have huge narrative holes, partly due to the fact that much of what happens in the Dragonlance game modules (those things the players play) were left out of the written narrative. This was even true when the events in the modules were narratively significant. Though, recently Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman have been writing those events in a new series of novels for Wizards of the Coast.