The Irda

Dragonlance: Lost Histories #2

by Linda P. Baker

The second installment in the Lost Histories series sheds light on the legendary origins of the mysterious race of the Irda
 
Given life by gods, the Ogres were the most intelligent and beautiful of the early races on Krynn, and they reigned supreme in their perfect kingdom. But the fabled race was weakened by clan rivalries and evil ambition, their downfall orchestrated by the hand of the Dark Queen, Takhisis.

The once resplendent Ogres were cursed by their own mistakes and transformed into one of Krynn's most ugly, despised, and villainous species. All succumbed to this miserable fate, but the Irda—a small group who learned to accept goodness and to fight for their freedom. Escaping from their previous home, the Irda set out to build a utopian civilization of their own on a paradise island in the Dragon Isles.

Genres: Dragonlance, Fantasy, Fiction, Dungeons and Dragons, Dragons, Science Fiction Fantasy, High Fantasy

301 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 1995

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly a disappointment after a promising beginning. Many of the character choices are abrupt and bizarre, and the world-building leaves out the most interesting part, the transformation of the beautiful, haughty Ogres into the bestial brutes we know from latter-day Dragonlance!


What gives?

[Jim C · Rating 2 out of 5]

My rating is 1.5 stars.

This takes place in the world of Dragonlance. This tells the story of how some members of the Ogre race become Irda and live on a remote island.

Let me first say I liked the concept of this novel. The idea of ogres being favored by the gods and them falling out of favor intrigued me. The problem with this novel was its execution. I felt like I was dropped in the middle of a book where I should know what is going on (I have read many, many Dragonlance books and I still felt this way). I did not like the exposition in this book at all as it gave no background information and it seemed like it was thrown together hastily. Also, there were passages of time that were never explained. A character could be in one place and in the following paragraph he/she could be in a total different setting. This gets back to the exposition. The ending really irked me too. It was a big disappointment and did not resolve some storylines as it was rushed.

My advice would be to skip this book. It failed mightily on an interesting concept and it is a shame too because this could have been an interesting read.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was okay. I agree with the other reviews in that the romance aspect of the book just overburden a potentially good story. Additionally, all the fighting among between the characters felt forced and unnecessary, almost as if the author felt it necessary just to expand the story by throwing in those fight scenes as a result of immediate betrayal by characters who previously had long standing relationships. Finally, I'm not sure why the historical synopsis of the world was thrown at the end of the book after the epilogue rather than at the beginning which seemed to possibly make more sense when setting the scene for the story.

[Philana Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful powerful creatures forged in chaos who see themselves as better than all the other beings on Krynn and enslave them for their own gain- well, this your cup of tea then. The Irda are magical beasts with god-like beauty.

[João Batista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow but nice reading.
The Irda (Ogres) are the Firstborn of the gods; children of Takhisis, Sargonnas and Hiddukel; they sing for everything... but there's also treachery among them!
On a trip to visit a friend, some Disr creatures attack them; political intrigues and envy occur; can humans, as slaves to Ogres, have free will? The real "ugliness" of Ogres is now showing outside...
Some Ogres are now exiled by their own kin... and they fight and slay one another! Weeks later, te exiled attacked by humans; but other humans have different intentions with certain Ogres... The gods do not like all that: coldfire from the sky!
Some Ogres returning to Takar... now with a new leader; others, trying to find a new home outside Ansalon, but a Xocli creature attacks; back at Takar, humans uprose... and the remainder of Ogres choose (and can finally find the island) to live in Anaiatha.

[Lionel Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of how ogres went from being one of the most advance races in Krynn to the degraded race that we think of when we hear the word ogre. Turns out the Ogres were once a prosperous people who based their society on the labor of enslaved humans as is so often the case with slave societies the internal contradictions became too great and the society eventually collapsed. This is the story of that collapse. While this is an entertaining story I have to agree with the other reviewers in that there seems to be too much going on in this novel. The author seems like they are trying to get everyone's story into the book and the result is an uneven narrative that seems to jump around form character to character and scene to scene. This make it hard to follow and keep up with the different names. While it is an entertaining story, it could be a little more focused.

[Mikaël · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was pretty good, but then the end went on a tangent, introducing new last minute and overly dramatic subplots that completely took over the main plot

[Sarah Ehinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just OK. This felt like a much shorter story with a bunch of random encounters thrown in. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great.

[Альберто Лорэдо · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mediocre to say the least, unworthy of wearing the "Dragonlance" tag.

[Richard Pulfer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read. As a newbie D&D fan, I'm still learning my way through the lore of the fantasy game through all its iterations. That said, I think this was generally a fun and well-told story even if it dragged a bit in the very end. Still, it's a good read for D&D fans.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, I never found myself investing or connecting with any of the characters. I did like the peek at the lives of High Ogres, so for that aspect, I enjoyed this one. I hadn’t read much about the Irda besides Raistlin’s Daughter and Summer Flame, so it was interesting to get the backstory of how they come to be. Because I’ve read Knaak’s Ogre Titan series, I liked the similarities between what the Talon were trying to change into and the original High Ogre culture. I guess i wanted the Ogres to be a little more despicable and the heroes to be more heroic. Maybe my own internal comparisons are to blame—I just wanted someone as dynamic as Golgren to show up!

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though far from my favourite of the Lost Histories, 'The Irda' is interesting in that it does something quite different with its focus race (who are technically ogres before they were corrupted into monsters) and charts their concurrent demise and elevation. The story has a lot in common with grand mythology, particularly Greek, and for that reason alone is well worth checking out if you like fantasy that's more concerned with world building and myth making than unique and interesting personal stories.

[Pierre · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't know why I didn't enjoy this book. I got a 5 chapters in, and was bored to pieces. I think it was because of the author's romance writing style and voice. Very little action...nothing drew me into the plot. She failed to draw me the big picture of what was going on with the Irda and how they became Ogres or ended up on their island or whatever. The writer really seemed out of her comfort zone writing the novel. A big "Meh" all around.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second Lost History book - I liked this so much better than the first as it was one complete story. The ogres really aren't a very nice people! I would have liked to find out how they became the ugly, vicious creatures that are in the other novels, as here it was a rather vague, philosophical kind off excuse - they acted like animals and so became one. I'm sure there is more to it than that - I'll just have to read all the other DragonLance books to find out!

[Lana · Rating 5 out of 5]

was not enjoying this book so much at the start and it took me a while to get into it, was not even sure whether I was liking the ogre race at all but then when the ogre who was against slavery entered the picture, the story took a turn for the better and although there where some real gruesome bits concerning the brutality used on the human slaves the book does end well and the irda rose out of the ogre race and they where different right from the start!! a beautiful people

[Kal Locksley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantasy lovers can never go wrong with #DragonLance! And The Lost Histories Trilogy is no different! Pure adventure and magic! What made this trilogy different was that each is written by a different author.

The Irda was a little confusing at times because of the omnipresent POV, but its one of those books that have you counting the last 10 pages, wondering how the author is going to wrap up lose ends!

[Kevin Wyatt · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Missed Opportunity

There was a lot of possibility in this story however, it never came to fruition. Shallow characterizations with no clear motivations for their actions. Abrupt changes in points of view along with no clearly defined stretches in time and pointless passages. Add to this some contradictions. Was this novel edited? Very much a missed opportunity to provide a good backstory for this race.

[Evan Leach · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read a lot of the Dragonlance books as a youngster, and they varied widely in quality. This was on the low end of the spectrum. Not a terrible book, but not very good. If you're not a Dragonlance fan there's no reason to read this; if you are...you can still skip this one. 1.5 stars.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow, confusing, a chaotic. Characters are just names to me. Aside from two characters the rest were interchangeable. Two major characters practically share the same written name which got confusing and required re-reading pages to understand who was doing what. I'm glad I read it. It was interesting, but the story itself was bland.

[Lady Kitten · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book starts out good but fails to keep a reader interested. The story is easy to get lost in and doesn't make much sense. It's a shame because I really wanted to learn the history of the Orges. Unless you are a hard liner Dugeons & Dragons lover I would avoid it

[Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, which is something you should read, challenges the notion of what we think of as an ogre. Find out how the ogres of Dragonlance came to resemble the ogres that we are familiar with.

[Paolo Mangiarotti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Libro davvero carino che stravolge la crudeltà congenita degli Orchi di Dragonlance spiegando l'origine di un popolo di "orchi buoni"...

[Stella BeMo]

Lo tengo en formato PDF, aún no lo leo. Me encantaría poder conseguirlo impreso. La pena es que no esté traducido al español!! :(

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

i am a dragonlance fan, but im sorry if within five chapters i'm still bored and wondering why i'm still reading this im not gonna go much farther.

[Desmond · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it

[Kyle K · Rating 4 out of 5]

The origin of Irda and the downfall of the Ogre is precipitated by heretical philosophies of a prominent governor and a forbidden love between races.

[Todd R · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good read here. Some good history given, well worth the time for Krynn fans.

[Viki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy to read. Entertaining although not that catchy. I expected more given the curiosity that gave the Irdas in the other books, but at least make some light over the past of the Irdas....

[Roy Amsel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history

I was very much interested in the high ogres early history, and in that respect the book is quite good. The characters' development was a little confusing.

[Nabil Hussain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting yet Intriguing

An entertaining read which expounds on the details of the Irda people.
This book was fascinating and enchanting to read