RA Salvatore - Promise of the Witch King -- 5 stars!

[Ziroc]

Finished this amazing book. Let me tell ya, I have become disapointed with his earlier novels (the latest Drizzt books), but WOW, this book covers Artimis and his drow friend Jaraxle.

VERY good read, although the main plot kinda reminded me of something he did before, but its still one of my favorites now, and if you like Forgotten Realms, or just evil characters, GET this book NOW! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Its nice to see some Half-Orcs as main characters as well. Never see that before. Also, this is set in the Moonsea region--Vassa. Nice area!

[Gimli]

Saw it last night too in the store and thought "I'll wait for it to go to paperback" - guess not now!

Entreri is my favorite Salvatore character too (also am a Ryld fan), so it'll be back to the book store tomorrow [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Brayf]

Hmm. The only Salvatore books I've read are the Drizzt ones, up to the one in which Wulfgar and Entreri both die. Is this new book set before the one I speak of, or did Entreri actually survive?!

[Zarr]

Originally posted by Brayf: Hmm. The only Salvatore books I've read are the Drizzt ones, up to the one in which Wulfgar and Entreri both die. Is this new book set before the one I speak of, or did Entreri actually survive?!

I don't want to give to much away in case you do read them, but lets just say if you read later books in the Drizzt series, you may be seeing both Wulfgar and Artemis again.

[Brayf]

OH MY GOD!!!

[Duagloth Duskryn]

hm, im reading the crystal shard at the moment, and im very pleased with the writing style Salvatore has. I guess, after i finished the drizzt books i`ll try this one. thanks for your review [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Memnoch]

I also got a bit over the Drizzt books at the end - he milked the character a wee bit too much I reckon. Should've quit while he was ahead.

This sounds interesting though I'm not sure how I'll find time to read it, what with the 130 pages of case studies I have to read each night.

[Zarr]

Originally posted by Brayf: OH MY GOD!!!

Couldn't have put it better myself

[Aerich]

Well, now that you give an endorsement to the new one, I may just read it. I started reading Salvatore at 12 (around the time he finished the Icewind Dale trilogy) and was hooked for a while. However, I've grown a lot as a person since then, as I hope everybody would in a nearly 15-year span, but he hasn't progressed nearly that far as a writer.

I give Salvatore an A (considering the genre) up to the end of Siege of Darkness. I liked his little sidebars of the Crimson Shadow, the Cleric Quintet, Ynis Aielle, and the first three books of the Demon Wars set. I'd have to rank Homeland as probably my favourite Forgotten Realms book.

I appreciate that he has been trying to go in a bit of a different direction since, but he's moved away from his strengths without replacing them with writing that is truly more "literary". I though the Entreri/Jarlaxle combo was promising and their relationship was a throwback to the "small group against the world" structure of his earlier books, but Drizzt has been spinning his wheels for a few books now (swish, lvl 16 drow ranger takes out a few dozen orcs, whoosh, gets into trouble that you know he'll get out of since he's a 16th lvl drow ranger, swish, he fights his way out of trouble again as expected).

For a 45+ year old writer, it's a bit disappointing that much of his stuff doesn't seem very nuanced or developed. His success in the earlier books is largely due to memorable (and uber) characters and interesting set piece skirmishes and battles; unfortunately, his recent attempts to get into the hearts of his characters tend to fall flat, and time spent doing that means he gives scant attention to old favourites, who end up as cardboard caricatures of their former selves using recycled dialogue. He's much better off leaving only hints of larger emotions between his characters, because the "introspection" and dialogue of his characters as they try to deal with the emotional baggage he saddles them with is predominantly forced, shallow, and maudlin; it reads like something written by an adolescent who's read a few censored harlequin tragic romances and watched too many soaps.

I suppose I've been down on him recently because he had so much promise. He has to be considered one of the stronger writers out there who have contributed to the AD&D universe, at least in terms of sales and ideas; I believe the society and culture of the drow and the Underdark in general were mostly the products of his fertile imagination when he was going good, for which he deserves credit. I'm decently satisfied with the War of the Spider Queen series, although like many recent Salvatore efforts it doesn't seem to quite fulfill its potential. However, despite some modest recent successes, it's hard for the genre (or subgenre) to get much respect when one of its most successful writers is as flawed and shallow as Salvatore has occasionally shown himself to be.

Perhaps he hasn't put his best efforts into it because of his dispute with Wizards of the Coast. I heard he had a series deal about Drizzt & Co that he didn't want to honour (probably because they were making an obscene profit off of him without passing much along). His writing doesn't seem effortless anymore. So many of his earlier books were full of visual imagery that could stick with you for days, and I haven't seen much of that from him recently.

I do ramble on, don't I?

[Gimli]

This was definitely worth the price of admission, just finished it up last night. Reminded me a little of the War of the Spider Queen books with all the dicey alignments coming together. Very entertaining stuff!

[ 11-26-2005, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: Gimli ]