RA Salvatore books

Cafe Society
1

I don’t read these books, but my husband loves them. In fact, these are the only books he really reads. haha

Anyway, I’d like to start a collection of them for him but I always have trouble figuring out which books go with which other books, and what order they all go in. I know that a lot of them are linked together. Hopefully you all know what I mean.

Also, does anyone have any recommendations for other books that would be the same type of genre that my husband would enjoy? I’d like to get him something he’ll enjoy for our anniversary. :slight_smile: Thank you ahead of time!

2

I believe they reprinted the Dark Elf Trilogy as a single hardback, so that may be pretty good. Same goes for the Cleric’s Quintet (that was, RAS, right?) so you may consider that as well.

The Icewind Dale trilogy is also part of his Drizzt Do’Urden canon, so I guess you could consider those as well. (Because, hey, if it’s not Drizzt, why bother with RAS, right?) FTR, the Drizzt books go Dark Elf Trilogy, Icewind Dale, then the “stand alone” novels.

He’s also written a whole bunch of other stuff (including a bunch of Dark Elf novels of…varying quality) that I can’t recommend either for having not read them, or because I can’t do it in good conscience.

As far as other good (fantasy) genre stuff, I’d highly recommend George R.R. Martin’s Songs of Fire and Ice series (first book, A Game of Thrones). Not as much swordplay as the Drizzt stuff (but then again, what is?), but several orders of magnitude better.

In a similar level of testosterone as RAS’ stuff is Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series (first book, Wizard’s First Rule). Word of warning - after the first two or three books it degenerates into a nearly irredeemable pile.

3

He’s written quite a few series. What you may want to pick up are “collector’s editions”. They’ve been releasing quite a few of Salvatore’s series in huge quality paperback/hardbacks that contain all the books in that series. I have the Icewind Dale trilogy, the Dark Elf trilogy, and Cleric Quintet, all in one handy book.

Also, try Amazon. A lot of times it’ll have which series and what book it is next to the title, for example “A Fantasy Book (Random Series, Book One)”.

If he likes Salvatore’s Forgotten Realms stuff, pick up The Annotated Chronicles (Dragonlance) by Weis and Hickman. Good stuff, there.

4

I think I already bought him the Icewind one for Christmas.

Some guy was picking out a book for himself, and he looked like he knew what he was doing. haha He told me that was the first series.

:slight_smile:

Oh well. Husband liked it, so I won’t complain.

So I just looked at the RAS website, and he is doing an e-signing on a Demon Wars book. Is this a good one? I think that my husband does like the books with Drizzt in them, so I’m thinking you might have an opinion.

Sorry if I’m asking dumb questions, like I said, I don’t read them! haha

5

okay…dunno what your hubby has read, but here’s what’s what.

the dark elf trilogy is the ‘prequel’ series- the origin of drizzt, and his background n the city of the drow. good stuff. ‘homeland’, ‘exile,’ and ‘sojourn.’

the icewind dale trilogy covers drizzt above ground. ‘the crystal shard’, ‘streams of silver’, ‘the halfling’s gem’.

after that, there are several novels covering drizzt and his friends-‘legacy’, ‘starless night’, ‘siege of darkness’, and ‘passage to dawn’.

all very good. lots of battles. ties the first and second series together (drow are the enemies).

have not kept up with his new stuff- he started to focus on other characters for a few books, and it kind of stunk- though i know that he is handing his drow stuff on to a group of younger writers.

Salavatore’s newest series starts with ‘the thousand orcs’…read it, not bad at all.

If your husband also reads any star wars books, Salavatore was chosen by lucas to kick off the ‘new jedi order’ series- a 20-book story arc taking place about 25 years after the end of ‘return of the jedi.’

haven’t heard of this ‘demon wars’ book…though it could be the second in his new series, or part of his collaboration with the younger authors.

salvatore’s not a bad writer…better than Eddings, certainly. easy reading, and Drizzt is a very likeable character.

6

I’ve never read Eddings, but if Salvatore is a better writer than Eddings, I’ll have to make sure never to read Eddings. Salvatore has no skill at dialogue, and his characters’ names are silly.

7

Salvatore’s the master of the quick-fix fantasy novel – you can chew your way through one of his novels in a couple of hours, all without having to engage your brain. When I say that, I’m not necessarily knocking him – he’s readable and light, good when you’re killing a couple of hours but don’t want to hack your way through heavy plot or exposition.

Other fantasy recommendations would be almost anything by Simon Green (especially the Hawk and Fisher novels, which are collected in two paperback editions), Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy, and Raymond Feist’s Riftwar series. All great stuff. I’ll also echo the recommendation for George R. R. Martin – very readable, very engrossing and probably one of the best fantasy series I’ve ever read.

8

[slight hijack]
Actually, speaking from a roleplayer’s perspective, I found the first Dark Elf trilogy to be of enormous help in fleshing out campaigns and characters. I thought he did a better job in portraying the society than in characterization, but his world-creation skills are good. I really didn’t enjoy the rest of his books, just because the world creation wasn’t there.

Further, I actually rather like the contrast of the Drow names and the language in comparison to other ‘elvish’ languages [i.e. Quenya]. If you ever try to read them aloud, the other elvish languages sound rather vowel-ly and liquid; Drowish sounds harsh and guttural. Rather appropriate, considering the society it’s used for. And as for the Drowish names – if you look up what some of them mean, you’ll see they’re a pretty good contrast to typical elven names as well. While the typical elf name you see is something like Larktrill or the like, the typical drowish name might be something like Zebeyana. Harsher, definitely not ‘pretty’, and generally meaning something sinister, if at all manageable. I guess the Drow names sound no more stupid to me than say, Dwarvish names [Ironfist Rockcrusher, for example. Gah.]

[/hijack]

If he’s enjoying the Drow cultural aspect, he might want to look at the Starlight and Shadows trilogy. If he’s just liking the Forgotten Realms setting, might want to try the books listed on the WoTC website for Forgotten Realms http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/forgottenrealms. And I’ll second the vote for Weis and Hickman’s Dragonlance books – not my favorite series of what that team has done, honestly, but one that many people like.

Good luck. :slight_smile:

9

I stayed away from the more hardcore suggestions like Hobb and Martin, just cause Salvatore’s more “light” fantasy than they are.

10

If he likes Salvatore, he’ll probably like some of the other Forgotten Realms stuff. Spellfire and what I’ve read of the Harpers novels (Elfshadow) and the rest of that series were all pretty enjoyable. Just swashbuckling quick-read fantasy.

11

My husband liked Salvatore’s books, as well, and recently has started reading books by Robert Jordan. He says the quality of writing is much higher.

I’m going to tell him about this thread, and maybe he’ll post more suugestions under my username.

12

Wow, and I thought I made fun of Salvatore’s writing. :wink:

13

It’s only higher for a while. The last few Jordan books have been long, boring descriptions of clothes and brooding characters. I couldn’t bring myself to read past page 50 of his last one.

14

Funny you should say that. He just groused this evening that the new one he’d just finished was a let-down.

15

Well, he spent the first 50 pages ruminating on how cold it was. Along the lines of…

So and so sat on his horse. The saddle was really cold, because it was winter. See, the last book was “Winter’s Heart”, so it’s cold. So and so wore an elaborate jacket that I’ll describe in advanced detail, because it was cold.

And I actually wasn’t disappointed, my expectations were pretty low.

16

Didn’t Salvatore also do the five-piece about the nerdy cleric?

And he’s put out a bunch of non-FR series after I stopped being interested in that stuff.

17

Yup. The Cleric Quintet (which is now collected in a trade paperback) about Cadderly the cleric of Deneir. Good fun stuff. Not great literature by any measure, but fun. Plus, the Bouldershoulder brothers just kill me.

Oo oi!

18

Here’s the list of Drizzt books:

(Dark Elf Trilogy)
Homeland
Exile
Sojourn

(Icewind Dale Trilogy)
The Crystal Shard
Streams of Silver
The Halfling’s Gem

(Legacy of the Drow)
The Legacy
Starless Night
Siege of Darkness
Passage to Dawn

(Paths of Darkness)
The Silent Blade
Spine of the World
Servant of the Shard
Sea of Swords

(The Hunter’s Blades Trilogy)
The Thousand Orcs
The Lone Drow (October 2003)
The Two Swords (October 2004)

I just started reading fantasy about a year and a half ago, but one series I really liked was Memory, Sorrow and Thorn by Tad Williams. The 4 books in the series are:

The Dragonbone Chair
Stone of Farewell
To Green Angel Tower Part I
To Green Angel Tower Part II

I read the Wheel of Time books up to the fourth book - I just couldn’t continue. I was not getting into them at all, although I did enjoy the first three.

19

You may want to try picking up RA Salvatore’s “DemonWars” from Code 6 Comics. Haven’t read his work, but it’d be recent stuff. Whether it’s an adaptation or not, I do not know.

20

Hubby also recommends the Dragonlance series by Weiss & Hickman. It’s less centrated on combat, and he says he’s enjoyed the writing as well. The first book in the series is * Dragons of Autumn Twillight. * The first trilogy is called “Dragonlance Chronicles.”

He also recomnends Elaine Cunningham’s * Daughter of the Drow * series, which is heavy in Drow culture. (The next book is *Tangled Webs. *)

Salvatore also has the * War of the Spider Queen * series. (Written by ghost authors.) He says they’re not “half bad.”

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Hubby wants to know who wrote these.