These were the first “adult” fantasy books I ever got into (today they definitely would have been sold as YA) and I constantly reread them and the Legends, and Weis & Hickman’s next three series.

Also, it's the showcase for Laurana, probably my favourite character in the trilogy. 

Grubb’s first major project for TSR was the 1st edition Manual of the Planes, probably my favourite 1e supplement and definitely one of the most imaginative—a lot of concepts within endure in D&D to this day. And then he went and created Al-Qadim and Spelljammer for 2nd edition. A great out-of-the-box creator. 

I’ve always felt the Dragonlance setting was more fun to read about than play, while the Forgotten Realms was the opposite. 

One of the best continuity goofs I remember in the timeline in the original Dragonlance setting supplement is that Huma existed centuries before the Knights of Solamnia were even founded. ;-) Which makes me wonder if the Knights are one of those organizations that claims a legendary founder who had nothing to do with…

I remember as a kid that there were basically three things the original Weis & Hickman novels mentioned about Huma: 1) he used the first dragonlances to defeat Takhisis the first time she tried to take over Krynn, 2) he romanced a silver dragon, and 3) a white stag leads him to the dragonlances. And then being bummed…

When I look back at the fantasy art from this period, I’m struck by how classic and timeless it is, which is then completely undone by how 1980s the hairstyles are.

Was his first non-DL book that one with the humanoid griffin as the main character? I remember reading that one and finally realizing the Weis & Hickman disciples just didn't have the same appeal. 

If they had just changed Jannah’s lines to Finn from “we rebelled against the First Order too!” to “we were inspired to rebel against the First Order because of your example”, that would have been something. 

It’s even worse than that. Monaghan hasn’t really been relevant in fandom in almost a decade. He got the job for being buddies with JJ. 

Between this trilogy and the Dragonlance Chronicles, the 80s were not kind to older dwarf mentors in D&D novels. 

Krynn (or at least Absalom, I know nothing about Taladas) has some interesting elements, e.g. no human nation is a monarchy—they’re all oligarchies of a sort—and even though the dwarves and elves are technically monarchies, their rulers aren’t called King or Queen. But it’s not really a fun place to roleplay in.

Me too, but I did try to read FR—my friend loaned me the Icewind Dale and Dark Elf trilogies but I bounced so hard off of them. (I’ve never liked drow—even as a preteen I saw them as a society of Villain Sues before I even had a term for that.) 

This period is way too early for German-led coups. The dates on the translation suggest it was written during the Crisis of the 3rd Century, when the title of Emperor kept jumping between mostly provincial generals and elites (a fair number of North Africans and Syrians among them), but before a strong line of…

Sometimes. Sometimes it’s a more general “no interference in internal politics” directive. Historically, it never applied to found colonies of Earth-descended humans no matter how primitive their technological understanding (“The Neutral Zone”, “Up the Long Ladder”), until that 2nd-season episode of Discovery (“New…

Why can’t an octogenarian with dozens of accomplishments and accolades to his name, who saved the Federation on multiple occasions, not just be allowed to retire and run his late brother’s business in peace? Why must there be some goddamned mystery-box behind it?

Larry Hama wrote the same plot in a GI Joe comic a decade before Clancy wrote that novel! 

The Abrams films also notably forgot the rank insignia—but on the women’s uniforms only.

But science fiction has a better overall track record than fantasy. You can probably count the number of hugely successful epic or sword and sorcery adaptions on one hand, and most of the successful fantasy properties are of the urban/paranormal/fairy tale variety.

Personally, I’d prefer they try and adapt the work of promising up-and-comers than the hoary old touchstones modern readers don’t even care about anymore.