Reception
Dragonlance is one of the most popular shared worlds, worlds in which writers other than those that created them place adventures. The first Dragonlance trilogy, Chronicles, launched the Dungeons & Dragons line of novels, with many of its characters spun off into other novels. Along with Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance is TSR's most popular series of novels. According to The 1990s by Marc Oxoby, what is most notable about the series is that "what may at one time been considered disposable, escapist literature" found "unprecedented popularity" in the 1990s. All of the Dragonlance novels remained in print during the decade, turning Weis and Hickman into literary stars and boosting sales of their non-Dragonlance novels. Although the series was initially published in paperback, its success led to hardcover printings. The hardcover version of Dragons of Summer Flame had an "impressive" first printing of 200,000 books. Every Dragonlance novel by Weis and Hickman since 1995 has been released in hardcover, and some previous novels have been re-released in hardcover collector's editions. Dragonlance made TSR one of the most successful publishers of science fiction and fantasy in the 1990s.
By 2008, there were more than 190 novels in the Dragonlance franchise. Weis and Hickman's Dragonlance novels have made over twenty bestseller lists, with sales in excess of 22 million. The pair's novels have been translated into German, Japanese, Danish, Finnish, Spanish, French, Italian, Hebrew, and Portuguese, and have sold well in the United States, Britain, and Australia.
Not all critics have praised Dragonlance and its creators. According to author Stephen Hunt, Wendy Bradley of Interzone magazine does not think highly of their work. Hunt feels that it is unusual for authors to receive such loathing among "fantasy's literary mafia", saying, "Behind every critic's scorn laden insult, there lays that unsaid thought at the end: 'But I could have written that!'" Visions of Wonder, edited by David G. Hartwell and Milton T. Wolf, and published by the Science Fiction Research Association, argues that Dragonlance is published under the "omnivore theory" of publishing. In this theory, the readership is made up of teenagers, and completely replaces itself every three to five years. This allows publishers to release subpar novels and still reach a small yet profitable audience.
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