R.A Salvatore anyone?

[Mandorin Anamor]

Sorry, Don't know if I'm being dense, but i havent seen a mention of the talent of Salvatore anywhere!
To be hoenst, I havent really looked that hard, but thats because I was assuming he'd be pretty prominent admist the forum thingamajiggys.

In the last month and a half I've read the Ice wind dale trilogy, then the dark elf trilogy, and am now on book 2 of the hunters blades trilogy.
The fact that ive read through three trilogys consecutively tells me something about Salvatore's skill at keeping your attention.
Or maybe its my obsession with swordplay.

hmm, any other fans? (i'm assumign yes, but I'm just venting disbeleif lol)

 

[biodroid]

I tried The Crystal Shard? and thought that it was very Tolkien-like even the strong Mithril shirt was mentioned in it. I put it down immediately, maybe his other books are good and less Tolkien "inspired". The covers look cool.

 

[Mandorin Anamor]

haha, i know exactly what you mean tbh.
A tip, Icewind dale is probably the most tedious of the trilogies, though it unfortunately is the one where all the characters are introduced.

Yeah i agree with the tolkien theivery. Mithril, Mithril hall, a rip off of moria or what. and so on so on.

But i recomend the Dark elf trilogy. Its probably the best, it focuses solely on Drizzt Do'Urden, the dark elf sword master, and his struggle with living among his own sadistic people.
It gets very good, dealing with his escape to the surface world from the underdark, strong ties of the extreme racism the other races show to Dark elves, and includes some amazing sword duels.

But yeah, I think the reason for the similarities to tolkien is thta its forgotten realms, and therefore part of the D&D franchise. So its routes are heavily tolkien influenced.

But eyah, try out the first book of the dark elf trilogy. If you don't like that I don't think you'll like the others.

Tim

 

[Lucien21]

I guess he's not mentioned that much because he's a franchise author and writes within a the D&D or Forgotten Realms.

Rightly or Wrongly those authors are not held with the same regard as authors who create their own world like GRR Martin etc.

Personally I read the first couple of Icewind Dale books years ago when I was in my Dragonlance/D&D phase, but havn't read any since.

I do have a friend who is going through a Salvatore phase at the moment and has bought most of the trilogy omnibus editions recently.

 

[Mandorin Anamor]

hmm, yeha i hadnt really thought about that, but i do see that they'd be less repsected for working with other peoples worlds, rather than creating their own.
Must eb the same for the writers who novelise warhammer and 40k.
which is a shame, as one of my favourite authors is Dan Abnett.

nice hobbes picture btw

 

[Lioness]

Ooh, my friend tried to get me to read the Dark Elf trilogy, but I never really tried, because I coulnd't be bothered and I had lots of other stuff to read.

It's somewhere on my to-read list though.

 

[Nikitta]

I've read one of his trilogies and have another on my shelf of books I haven't gotten around to reading yet.

They're good as light reading, which doesn't speak down to the reader and which has lots of well written action. I've recommended him to others.

 

[Mandorin Anamor]

I totally agree, nothign too heavy going.
I made the mistake of buying three trilogies at once, so have made myself read them, luckily i liked them....evidently.

Im actually banned from buying more books by my girlfriend, because i spent £120 on books on amazon...and thats on amazon.

yeah i ahve to read about 15 books before I can buy more

 

[Werthead]

RA Salvatore started off pretty good. I enjoyed The Icewind Dale Trilogy and re-read The Crystal Shard a few years ago. It still stands up as a nice, light fantasy adventure. The Dark Elf Trilogy is darker, more interesting and much better-written.

The Legacy of Drizzt Trilogy is where things started going wrong. The idea, as has been rumoured, was that Drizzt would die at the end of the series (either in Siege of Darkness or Passage to Dawn) and not come back. His friends would fight on without him. However, TSR didn't like that idea and threatened to give Drizzt to other writers unless Salvatore towed the line. Since he didn't want other people writing Drizzt, he agreed, but his heart went out of the books. Passage to Dawn is a very poor novel. I'ved tried to get through Servant of the Shard and The Silent Blade multiple times and there's just nothing to latch onto. Just very poor writing, clearly done for the money. I've heard some of the more recent books are better, but I'm not particularly inclined to find out.

The Cleric Quintet was a bit of a departure for Salvatore and pretty well-done. I've only read the first three books, but they successfully set up a new character who forced Salvatore to write outside his comfort zone (when confronted by an evil menace, Cadderly has to find a way of outhinking it, rather than pulling out two blades and charging at it with his magical panther companion). I may pick up the omnibus and see how he ended the series.

 

[Switchback]

i picked up the first in his demon war saga at a used shop a while ago. haven't gotten to it yet. how does that one stand out in relation to his D&D stuff?

 

[Mandorin Anamor]

tbh, I wouldnt know, someone else might knwo hopefully...
As i said, I'm still reading through the three trilogies I bought off amazon.
I'll look it up though.

 

[Rosemary]

I've read quite a few of his books and enjoyed them all. I particularly liked the Dark Elf Trilogy and The Legacy of Drizzt. The setting for these stories, mainly in a land beneath the ground were certainly different and yet well thought out.

 

[Aleksei]

I guess he's not mentioned that much because he's a franchise author and writes within a the D&D or Forgotten Realms.

Rightly or Wrongly those authors are not held with the same regard as authors who create their own world like GRR Martin etc.

To be fair, he has created a few worlds of his own as well. He explores one of them quite extensively in his demon war series and in his newest series, Saga of the First King. I quite liked this world and the books.

 

[Connavar]

For me my dislike for him isnt cause he writes worlds that isnt his own. I dont care about that.

My first fantasy book was actually his, the first Demon Wars book. It was okay at first,light read but then it got real bad,generic beyond words. You saw every things bad that mainstream people that dont read expect of fantasy.....


He is not for me to say the least.

If my second fantasy writer wasnt the great David Gemmell i would never be reading fantasy today thanks to R.A......

 

[BAYLOR]

The Drizzt series has become a classic.

 

[Peppa]

They're classics, of course. When I was a little girl I was a huge fan of Robert Salvatore and the Dark Elf books. I kind of grew up with those books. But now I'm really starting to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of them.
Like many people here, I could recommend the Dark Elf trilogy and The Legacy of Drizzt to anyone. The following books are much worse and often too repetitive. For example, Conquest of Gauntlgrym is almost entirely a repeat of Conquest of Mithral Hall.