PG13- The Icewind Dales Trilogy (v, some b), The Dark Elf Trilogy (v,some b), The Legacy (v,some b), Starless Night (v,some b), Siege of Darkness (v,some b)

I tend to avoid RPG-inspired fiction, because the majority that I have read is pretty banal. (Notable exceptions in TSR's overly-large selection include "The Finder's Stone Trilogy" [Grubb & Novak] and some of the "Dragonlance" books [Weis & Hickman; Knaak].) R.A. Salvatore was recommended to me by several friends (including at least one who wasn't a gamer when she started reading him), and I eventually decided to try his work. His books are fluff, but they're entertaining fluff, and definitely a cut above most game-derived fiction.

Salvatore's first three books, "The Icewind Dales Trilogy", read very much like Dungeons & Dragons sessions rewritten into book form, but are still better than most RPG-based novels. This trilogy introduces Salvatore's most popular creation, Drizzt Do'Urden, a dark elf warrior who has forsaken his race's underground home and their evil ways in order to stay true to his principles. At this point in his life, he has made a handful of lasting friends: the dwarf Bruenor Battlehammer; Bruenor's adopted human daughter, Catti-brie; the halfling Regis; and the human barbarian Wulfgar. Their adventures together include defending their home from an army of monsters (The Crystal Shard), seeking to find and reclaim the ancient home of Bruenor's clan (Streams of Silver) and trying to rescue Regis from his sordid past (The Halfling's Gem).

Salvatore's next three books focus exclusively on Drizzt Do'Urden. "The Dark Elf Trilogy" tells the story of how Drizzt rebelled against his heritage (Homeland), his adventures underground after leaving the dark elves (Exile), and his struggle to find acceptance in the alien surface world (Sojourn). These books show significant improvement in Salvatore's writing ability--he is able to take the setting, creatures and characters and make them distinctively his. Homeland is probably the best of these first six books.

The adventures of Drizzt Do'Urden continue for five more novels (as of 1999), resuming his life story a few years after the Icewind Dales Trilogy. Beginning with The Legacy, these books are largely the story of the battles between Drizzt's two worlds: the evil subterranean powers that he has spent his life fighting, and the noble friends that he has made on the surface. These conflicts continue in Starless Night, Siege of Darkness, Passage to Dawn, and The Silent Blade, of which I have not yet read the last two. It's very tempting to summarize these later Drizzt novels as "Take trilogy #1 in one hand. Take trilogy #2 in the other. Bang together vigorously. Record the results. See who's left. Repeat." To be fair, they are decent brain-candy but are somewhat disappointing after the greater originality of The Dark Elf Trilogy. I'll keep reading them, but I won't work as hard to track them down.

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Last Updated: October 16, 1999

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