R. A. Salvatore

[KaiTenSatsuma]

if youre into reading fantasy, the books in the Forgotten Realms collections are definatly good for you, highly descriptive, enjoyable, and sometimes confusing (though not often) they a have a perfect blend between action, suspense, comedy and thought.

So far i have only read The Crystal Shard and Streams of Silver, part of the Icewind Trilogy, though they are fun to read and enjoyable to most, especially to those with a perchant for fiction.

though it should be mentioned, there is violence in the books so uh.. watch who reads it.

hah. "Prayne de crabug ahm rinedere be-yogt iglo kes gron"

[mtweldon]

Salvatore is an amazing author, I have read at least 10 of his books. I highly reccomend the Drizzt series, (Dark Elf Trillogy I think), but he has so many to read and they are all very detailed and great.

[One-Winged Angel]

I just started this whole Drizzt thing. I'm almost done with the first Legend of Drizzt book, Homeland. It's good, and keeping me interested, but I'm not sure if I will continue with the series.

[KaiTenSatsuma]

I just started this whole Drizzt thing. I'm almost done with the first Legend of Drizzt book, Homeland. It's good, and keeping me interested, but I'm not sure if I will continue with the series.

try reading some of the other trillogies they have out.. i forgot if Tanis half elf was Dragon Lance, Dungeons And Dragons or Forgotten Realms, anyone know? kinda wanna find the dragon chronicals book again.

[Woody]

Tanis is from the DragonLance series writtein by Margeret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

[KaiTenSatsuma]

Tanis is from the DragonLance series writtein by Margeret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

cool, too bad that no library in Connecticut, or at least none that i know of, stock these books. would be so much easier to find.

time to Ebay it =D

did they stop DragonLance/Forgotten Realms/ Dungeons and Dragons books? i havnt heard anything new in a while, but then again i forgot all about them untill i went into a Barnes and Nobles on a feild trip.

[Breandan]

Salvatore has written some damned good books, and he has written some... well, less than stellar ones *coughSpearwieldercough*, so it just depends on what you are reading. When it comes to the Drizzt books, I read the Halfling's Gem trilogy, and the Dark Elf trilogy, and deleted the rest out of my brain. The rest of the Drizzt books hold no interest to me as they pretty much completely bugger up the first (and best) trilogies, and seem like they were written more to feed the demand of the rabid emo-Dark-Elf-loving fans for more Drizzt than because Salvatore wanted to write the further adventures of the party. But, that's just my opinion. As I said, the first two trilogies were stellar.

[Rapter]

My favorite book of Salvatore's will always be The Highwayman.

[Rookie]

I enjoyed The Demon Awakens by Salvatore, it was a good story and i liked the fact that it was more based around the people than anything else. It was very memorable, almost like Fable, the ruined village and the surviving child returns and gets some vengeance. I kept picturing the elves as Tolkein like but the mentioning of wings and such kept throwing me off. But i got my head around it, his writing style is very easy to get into. His description of the combat is very in depth and the plot keeps you turning pages. Very good author, i'll have to look into more of his books.

[KaiTenSatsuma]

I enjoyed The Demon Awakens by Salvatore, it was a good story and i liked the fact that it was more based around the people than anything else. It was very memorable, almost like Fable, the ruined village and the surviving child returns and gets some vengeance. I kept picturing the elves as Tolkein like but the mentioning of wings and such kept throwing me off. But i got my head around it, his writing style is very easy to get into. His description of the combat is very in depth and the plot keeps you turning pages. Very good author, i'll have to look into more of his books.

the imagery is probably the most difficult to wrap one's head around for the first few books, after all, we all have our own images of the characters even if there is a picture on the book. Thats probably the most fun in any book, trying to think up an image for the main character, usually this can be fun if the book is written well. Locations definatly have differing imagry, whenever Icewind Vale is mentioned, i try to imagine an Alaska type place.

on a seperate note,who would be interested in seeing a Forgotten Realms location based MMORPG?

[junior]

did they stop DragonLance/Forgotten Realms/ Dungeons and Dragons books? i havnt heard anything new in a while, but then again i forgot all about them untill i went into a Barnes and Nobles on a feild trip.

The books are too much of a cash cow. WOTC will never stop having books written for the settings. There are even Eberron books now. The only thing that stops new books from coming out in a setting is if that setting is discontinued (such as Dark Sun).

The only setting I'm not sure about is Greyhawk. I know the occasional book was written for it back in the day (and I mean WAAAAAAY back), but I don't know if any books written within the last decade use it.

As for Salvatore...

If I wrote what I thought about him, I'd probably get banned. Or at least a rather strong warning. So I won't say anything except that I really don't like him.

[Kaylen]

You may recall the plot of the Icewind Dale trilogy from another set of books: The Lord of the Rings. It's so blatant, that at some point he had to decide to take parts of that story and add them to his. This troubles me a bit.

However, I love his writing style and the way he develops characters. His Drizzt-centric stories can have some cheesy lines about friendship (see the unlockable dialogue from the first level of Demon Stone - the final line is comedy gold), but I loved the Highwayman, set in a world of his own creation. His writing style is always optomistic, however; even in the direst of situations you can feel it. The upbeat tone makes it hard for me to enjoy some of his books/some scenarios in them.

His Star Wars books are great, and the nerd rage exhibited over the fact that he killed off a character - one whose goal in life was to die - can become quite out of control.

[Ihaterednecks]

I perfer Warhammer, though I remember reading the Dark Elf trilogy in 6th Grade and finishing it in like a week. I liked it, though I can't find a book that starts with the Beginning of his New Life in Icewind-Dale. With, . . Wulfgar? Is that is name? Sorry, I've been out of touch with Drizzt for like 3 Years, so be easy on me.

I finished reading the "War of the Spider Queen" Series about a month ago. Loved it, to bad a few of my favorite characters had to die though.

[Gramorn Soulaxe39]

I've always been a big fan of R.A. Salvatore as is most of my family. my favorite book of his is Siege of Darkness. But mostly because of the huge friggin' battle. Sea of Swords is also good.
I recently read the Promise of the Witch-King, and Athrogate is one of my favorite characters. Anyone who has read the book will know who I'm talking about. But he still can't compare to the amount that I like King Bruenor Battlehammer.

[KaiTenSatsuma]

I've always been a big fan of R.A. Salvatore as is most of my family. my favorite book of his is Siege of Darkness. But mostly because of the huge friggin' battle. Sea of Swords is also good.
I recently read the Promise of the Witch-King, and Athrogate is one of my favorite characters. Anyone who has read the book will know who I'm talking about. But he still can't compare to the amount that I like King Bruenor Battlehammer.

the characters are really the strong point arent they?

oh, and at least say why you dont like R.A Salvatore? dont go into details if you dont want to, just a generalization if you want to.

[junior]

Since it was asked, my list of reasons why I don't like Salvatore (the polite version). My apologies if people are offended.

1.) He can't write to save his life. His plots are cliched and his writing is rather dull.
2.) His characters are unimaginative. There's nothing particularly original about them, imo.
3.) He ruined a perfectly good evil mastermind race known as the dark elves. You can't take two steps without tripping over a 'redeemed drow' these days.
4.) His attitude toward knocking off a certain Star Wars character basically amounted to bragging that he'd done it, and was rather blatantly done just because he could in one of the most pointless deaths of a major character that I've ever read.

The first two are problems that many authors have and merely reasons to generally dislike him. The latter two are the ones that push him into a realm especially deserving of scorn, imo.

[KaiTenSatsuma]

well i have to at least agree with number three... at least to the extent of people using the name online for characters. people who copy book characters for names need to grow some originality.

[Breandan]

can't throw a rock in any AD&D or other fantasy game, tabletop or MMO, without binking it off of the head of some Drizzt fan nut, but I blame that more on the nutters than Salvatore.

[KaiTenSatsuma]

can't throw a rock in any AD&D or other fantasy game, tabletop or MMO, without binking it off of the head of some Drizzt fan nut, but I blame that more on the nutters than Salvatore.

cant throw a rock without hitting ten of em.

personally i wish a good Dev team got a license to make a good D&D game... maybe somthing online... maybe somthing Neverwinter Nights or such, no more PS2 overhead RPGs, those are getting old =/

[One-Winged Angel]

I don't really think he ruined the race...of course, I've only read one book so far. Surely every evil race would have a free thinker once in awhile. Granted, they would most likely be killed off quickly, but sometimes they get away. If I start seeing a lot more in the later books, I'll be a bit disappointed. From the way I see the drow, a free thinker's chances of surviving any length of time are slim to none, and Drizzt got lucky.

[Kaylen]

Eilistraee was around before Salvator decided to publish any books (and for some odd reason has never been mentioned in the six I've read). There are a decent amount of good (or at least, non-evil) drow, mostly followers of Eilistraee. I sincerely doubt the race was ruined by one who didn't follow Lolth, Eilistraee, or any of the other drow patrons.

However, what I believe junior is getting at is that everyone else took the idea and ran with it. In online roleplaying games there are usually more good dark elves than there are evil ones.

[Zarithar]

I think the quality of his work has gone downhill somewhat, but I really enjoyed the first three trilogies! I think he may be running out of new ideas for the characters.

Honestly my favorite book in the whole series was Spine of the World, which was a radical departure in tone and story structure from the rest of the books which emphasized lots of battles and action. Spine of the World was far more thoughtful in my opinion... but many fans hated it for that very reason.

I can honestly say that with the exception of the Cleric Quintet, I haven't really enjoyed any of his other series.

[KaiTenSatsuma]

I don't really think he ruined the race...of course, I've only read one book so far. Surely every evil race would have a free thinker once in awhile. Granted, they would most likely be killed off quickly, but sometimes they get away. If I start seeing a lot more in the later books, I'll be a bit disappointed. From the way I see the drow, a free thinker's chances of surviving any length of time are slim to none, and Drizzt got lucky.

yeah, but Drizzt wasnt openly a free thinker, and having a slightly respected family kept him from suspicion, after all, he ran after killing that guy with the onyx cat statue.

maybe they would have sent a group of assassins after him, but then again they dont like sun... and probably dont expect him freezing his ass off in Icewind Dale.

[One-Winged Angel]

yeah, but Drizzt wasnt openly a free thinker, and having a slightly respected family kept him from suspicion, after all, he ran after killing that guy with the onyx cat statue.

maybe they would have sent a group of assassins after him, but then again they dont like sun... and probably dont expect him freezing his ass off in Icewind Dale.

Hm...true. Thing is though, Drizzt was very confused for a long time, thus his lack of openness. Zaknafein was slightly more open with his thoughts, but he was several hundred years old and a respected member of the city, not to mention being one of Malice's companions.

[Mondayn]

The main thing you have to look at, when complaining about how players tend to play good aligned drow in their campaigns, and I will always point to people wanting to play them. Drow, as a race, breed at an incredible rate, and it is forbiden (the most extreme taboo) to kill a pregnante female for any reason as soon as she delivers however she is fair game.

So, in pointing out all the evil NPC drows that vastly outnumber these PC good drows, you get your balance of drow being a dominately evil race in most original campaign settings.

And, the campaign I am currently putting together now, will behave like a traditional spider queen city, fully immersed in drow cultures will the PCs be interacting in the city and doing as they choose, wither to move up the ranks of houses or to just run away / wage war, where-ever they want to go with it ill go along.

On Salvatore though, I love his works he is one helluva writer and you can not say he is cliche since the fact is he made the cliche. Im not a particularly huge EU star wars person but I hear he wanted or did kill off chewbacca in one of his books, to me i could care less since all i consider of star wars will be the movies and perhaps some games i.e. kotor.

To end my post i'de like to direct people to some great source books for drow.

Look up, The Tome of Drow Lore and Sheloeth: City of the Drow, plot and poison: a book over drow as well.

All these are fantastic, 3rd party D&D supplements to give great advice and guidance over just how Drow works. What can I say, but I really love anything drow / tier`dal / dark elf related.

[LordPazuzu]

Personally, I can recommend the War of the Spider Queen series, in which each book was written by a different author and the whole project was overseen by Salvatore. It deals with a party of drow heroes(using the term loosely) in search of the reason Lolth has fallen silent. The drow adventurers are all very high level and trek all across the multiverse. While they are embarked on their quest, Menzoberanzan and other drow cities come under attack by their enemies, who can detect the drow's weakness.

Also, by Salvatore I can suggest the Sellsword books, which focus on Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle Baenre. Servant of the Shard was damn good as is Road of the Patriarch. The middle one, Promise of the Witch-King, I thought was merely ok.

His attitude toward knocking off a certain Star Wars character basically amounted to bragging that he'd done it, and was rather blatantly done just because he could in one of the most pointless deaths of a major character that I've ever read.

No, he didn't do it just because he could. Lucas would never allow something like that to publish unapproved. He did it because he was told to do it and based on an interview I read, they didn't bother to tell him he'd have to do it until he'd already signed on for the project. He said he wasn't very happy about doing it.

[Woody]

Having sat down to dinner with Salvatore, I can confirm what Pazuzu said above in regards to "a certain Star Wars character".

[X_Spearmint]

I just started reading RA Salvatore(so please don't ruin it for me). So besides the one person who obviously despises him, what do you guys think? Is it worth it to read his stuff?

Also on the uber number of good alligned drow, it is ridiculous. Yes, I play D&D and one of my characters is a non-evil Fey'ri(make the drow look downright saintly), but I don't play him as a good character. He's a very confused, and afraid for his life, chaotic neutral. I have in the past, however, played lawful evil drow and neutral evil tieflings(I like playing evil characters).

[LordPazuzu]

For the most part his books are great. A few duds intermigled throughout but mostly solid work.

[junior]

No, he didn't do it just because he could. Lucas would never allow something like that to publish unapproved. He did it because he was told to do it and based on an interview I read, they didn't bother to tell him he'd have to do it until he'd already signed on for the project. He said he wasn't very happy about doing it.

Serves me right for trusting second-hand information, I suppose.

[Zarithar]

Is he losing his touch? Maybe I need to go back and re-read the original Icewind Dale trilogy just for perspective... or maybe I am just getting old. I just finished "Promise of the Lich King" and it pretty much confirmed what I said in my previous post. Pages and pages of action sequences with very little character development.

It's taking me longer and longer to finish his books (I used to read them in a day or two lol)

Oh yes... and Junior I do remember some books set in Greyhawk. The "Gord the Rogue" series by none other than Gary Gygax himself. There were some amazing similarities between those and Salvatore's books. For example the main character was human rogue who had a magical panther figurine... When Gygax left TSR the series fizzled out. I remember them as being good books (when I was 13 or so), but again with alot of action. If I went back and re-read them now I wonder what I would think?