I have read 3 drizzt books and i am not impressed. may spoil

[Rikard T'Aranaxz]

I actually liked Homeland, it is a nice book about someone who doesnt fit in his own society and learns more and more about the ways of the rest of the world BUT it goes downhill after Exile, i got stuck in Sojourn coz the writing started to annoy me. The biggest problem with Drizzt is that he's to obviously a DnD character and its to obvious that he is suppost to become a hero, in essence all that i dislike about DnD (allignments, shallow- and weakness of commoners) is put together in sojourn :/

IMHO Feist is the Best Fantasy writer around atm. I like his books more then i like the LotR series, but where Tolkien stopped with the LotR series before the characters become to powerfull, Feist goes on, and thats not always a good thing

[Sythe]

Homeland was OK Exile was awesome and Sojourn well. I don't know where I found the willpoer to finish it. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Mr_Krift]

Harry potter aint got nothing on anything you guys throw out jk, Personaly i enjoy the Artemis Enterie..dangit its been a while since ive read them.

[DrowArchmage]

i do not care what you very strange people think,Drizzt Do'Urden is an intruiging character and R.A. Salvatore is a good writer, The war of the Spider Queen has been brilliant so far.

[Morgeruat]

ummm, he hasn't actually written those books AFAIK, just a foreword and acted as a drow society consultant...

[Arnabas]

I don't think his books are the best ever written, but they are not too bad. I look at the Salvatore-bashing the same way I look at music, in that a lot of people will look at him and say "oh, he's popular now, so even though I used to like him, I have to hate him now to be cool". Same thing happens with bands (especially alternative bands)-- once they are popular, their former "fans" turn their backs on them. Is he the best author of all time? Heck, no. Does he entertain? I think so, and so do many other people. He has flaws, not the least of which is his inability to kill a character-- but who really wants to kill a character that they have spent years developing? If you play D+D and raise a character from level 1 to level 14 and then he dies, will you say "oh, well, too bad", or will you try to have him resurrected? If you play Balder's Gate and your character dies, do you restart the game with a new one? D+D allows for characters to die and come back. His books are set within the D+D rules (somewhat), so that allows for such things to occur.
And, as I have said many times in other threads, I hate how people bitch about uber-characters. We all like to make our characters tough. You'll complain about Drizzt being level 17 (officially, if I recall correctly) and having his magic items. Then you go play Balder's Gate with your level 40 character with 6 weapons +5, god-like armour, rings, wands, belt of giant strength, boots of speed, potions and anything else you can find while complaining that you need a cheat to remove the level cap (since level 40 is soooo limiting...)
In reading the books, I have found Drizzt to be weaker than most would have you think. Everyone calls him this god-like character, when his main ability is his intelligence. I have seen many examples of him facing off against two characters and being sorely pressed to defeat them. That is not a god. That's a gifted fighter. He wins many battles by out-thinking opponents, or being more prepared.
In the end, Salvatore is just a normal guy who likes these characters he has made and wants to keep them around and have them do heroic things. Isn't that why we all play RPGs?
Give him a break.

[Aerich]

Well said, Arnabas. As far as I'm concerned, D&D is mostly about munchkinism; that goes for the CRPGs and the books that use the system, as well as for the majority of pen-and-paper games (Really - when was the last time you played a character over the long term that has two or more less-than-average ability scores?).

Salvatore is a decent writer for the *D&D genre*. Quite frankly, I feel his quality has gone down, or that my expectations of him have risen. He can't seem to write about a nuanced or complex boy-girl relationship, and his Drizzt soliloquys (sp?) that worked so well in Homeland and Exile have turned tedious.

For D&D writing, the Icewind Dale trilogy is solid, and I'd prefer it to at least 90% of the other FR or Dragonlance novels out there. I think that Homeland and Exile are his best books to date. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them, and still re-read them occasionally. He was also relatively solid up until Passage to Dawn. After that, Drizzt and friends started to really push the boundaries of my credulity. Bringing in the characters from the Cleric Quintet was largely a mistake. I could stand the "old home week" for one book, but extending it indefinitely has turned me off.

On a side note, I find that Artemis Entreri is the only character in the last few books that has developed at all (aside from the Wulfgar debacle). An interesting character, and one that holds my attention.

But the whole point of this is to adjust your expectations to something realistic. You have to read D&D books for entertainment, not for realism, tight plots, or amazing literature. It's kind of like brain candy; not very good for you, but tasty. Also bears much resemblance to television shows. Anybody want to argue that Seinfeld or Friends is the epitome of the film-maker's art?

[DrowArchmage]

well said indeed Arnabas. And your right Morgeruat but he inspired them, it was his idea to write them so some credit should go to him,but more should go to the authors who wrote them because they are keeping the drow culture alive and in peoples harts.If and whenits made into a movie it will be an interesting one to watch.

[Morgeruat]

I still prefer back in the days of 1E AD&D when the drow were still an alien and unknowably evil race, so completely foreign to the surface world, now everyone knows what life is like in drow society (not that it makes survival there any easier, but the mystery is gone)

[DrowArchmage]

there is still mystery because noone really know all the creatures that live in the underdark