R.A. Salvatore, Nowhere to be Seen?

[Spears&Buckler]

He and Matt have had some "discussions", but they are actually friends. I went to Matt's Revenge of the Sith signing in Boston last year (or was it the year before?) and Mr. Salvatore was in attendance. It was cool to see 2 of the 3 writers of the prequel novels together.

I wish I brought a camera!

[FuzzBunneh]

I reread The Crystal Shard a year or two ago and still found it very enjoyable. However, I ran out of enthusiasm for rereading the later books.

Same thing happened to me.. I was planning on a Drizzt marathon, starting with The Dark Elf Trilogy and ending with Legacy of the Drow (that I've not even read once), but I lost steam after the first series and didn't read 50 pages of Icewind Dale. Whilst Salvator's books will never become the cornerstone of any writing establishment, they are highly enjoyable but unfortunately succumb to the much-dreaded problem of repetition.

In my mind I can't dissociate Drizzt from the Baldur's Gate series of computer games, which is where I was first introducted to the Forgotten Realms setting; despite there being virtually no link between the two, to me Salvatore's books are a continuation of the enjoyment I experienced all those years ago.

[saintjon]

He and Matt have had some "discussions", but they are actually friends. I went to Matt's Revenge of the Sith signing in Boston last year (or was it the year before?) and Mr. Salvatore was in attendance. It was cool to see 2 of the 3 writers of the prequel novels together.

I wish I brought a camera!

Oh yeah absolutely they came across as friends having a disagreement, sorry if I made it out that they dont' really like each other.

As per the two of them as Star Wars writers, I thought Vector Prime was a great expression of Star Wars excitement and atmosphere (despite the jarring new aliens on the scene) and Revenge of the Sith was the ultimate novel for Jedi Philosophy, which was strong all around.

[LeStat]

I think "homeland" and servant of the shard are two of his best books. I wouldn't call them fun but dumb. Acctually very good books.

[Master Janos]

Just finished "Road of the Patriarch." REALLY enjoyed it!

Can't wait for more works in the Forgotten Realms by Mr. Salvatore!!

[Papazak]

Just a little bump for a great thread!

[wardog25]

A few months ago I broke down and tried my first Salvatore book, and I must say....I was a bit surprised.

The Crystal Shard was boring enough that I quit reading. 6 pages of extraneous detail for every 1 page of action was just too much. Not enough happened for me to care about the characters.

I hear Salvatore gets better in later books, so I was thinking of trying Homeland before I mark him off as an author I'll never read.

[...]

A few months ago I broke down and tried my first Salvatore book, and I must say....I was a bit surprised.

The Crystal Shard was boring enough that I quit reading. 6 pages of extraneous detail for every 1 page of action was just too much. Not enough happened for me to care about the characters.

I hear Salvatore gets better in later books, so I was thinking of trying Homeland before I mark him off as an author I'll never read.

Salvatore isn't going to wow you with plot twists, or intense character development, but he makes up for that with his action sequences. Salvatore's sword fights are some of the best that I've read. In my opinion the Homeland trilogy is Salvatore's best older work(I haven't read his newer books). It actually makes more sense to read Homeland first since chronologically it's the first series.

[KatG]

I disagree. Not about the action aspect. Salvatore writes long, incredibly detailed action scenes. They are his calling card. But about complex character development, he does very well with it. His The Demon Awakens book/series, for instance, has three main characters who go through tremendous transformations, enduring trauma, crises of faith, crippling fears, and radically changing lives and world views. His monk character in that first story is particularly striking, the way Salvatore takes you through each step of someone sheltered who has all illusions stripped away, one by one, and then changed, broken, has to find a new path.

Salvatore isn't what we call a language stylist. He tends more toward straight description than metaphor and complicated sentence structures, though his style has certainly gotten more complex over decades of writing. But his characters go through a great deal of emotional pain and moral dilemma. His writing about a dark elf who had to break from his past was ground-breaking, and still is really.

The Crystal Shard, his first novel written long ago, shows many of the problems of first novels, especially in those early days of the category market when getting out interesting stories was seen as more critical than offering them in smooth prose. It's sloppy and could have used a better plot structure, and, as a tie-in book, tries to cover too much ground to help delineate the world that TSR was using for their games. The story takes awhile to get going because of that perhaps, though once you get into, it has sharply drawn relationships, hard choices, lots of kick-butt action and a very amusing, practical demonic villain. It's a story about heroism, which may not be of interest to some and isn't as much of a theme in Salvatore's later work, but it's also a story about the complications of heroism -- and how it sometimes comes from unexpected sources.

It's easy with an author who is deft at action, like Salvatore, Gemmell and others, to miss the emotional undercurrents of all that conflict. But in Salvatore's case, they are quite definitely there, in my opinion. I'd suggest, for those who've tried some of the early works and didn't like them, that they give The Demon Awakens a go. If you can't get into that, then Salvatore might not be an author for you.

[Papazak]

First of All, Ditto to everything KatG said!! I commented on another thread about Salvatore and that is almost exactly what I wanted to say!! But I was a wimp

And I would also like to vote for KatG to win the "moderator of the year"
award!!!

[KatG]

No, that would go to Mark and Rob, who keep this place running, do lots of reviews and author interviews for the site and put up with me.

[...]

I disagree. Not about the action aspect. Salvatore writes long, incredibly detailed action scenes. They are his calling card. But about complex character development, he does very well with it. His The Demon Awakens book/series, for instance, has three main characters who go through tremendous transformations, enduring trauma, crises of faith, crippling fears, and radically changing lives and world views. His monk character in that first story is particularly striking, the way Salvatore takes you through each step of someone sheltered who has all illusions stripped away, one by one, and then changed, broken, has to find a new path.

Salvatore isn't what we call a language stylist. He tends more toward straight description than metaphor and complicated sentence structures, though his style has certainly gotten more complex over decades of writing. But his characters go through a great deal of emotional pain and moral dilemma. His writing about a dark elf who had to break from his past was ground-breaking, and still is really.

The Crystal Shard, his first novel written long ago, shows many of the problems of first novels, especially in those early days of the category market when getting out interesting stories was seen as more critical than offering them in smooth prose. It's sloppy and could have used a better plot structure, and, as a tie-in book, tries to cover too much ground to help delineate the world that TSR was using for their games. The story takes awhile to get going because of that perhaps, though once you get into, it has sharply drawn relationships, hard choices, lots of kick-butt action and a very amusing, practical demonic villain. It's a story about heroism, which may not be of interest to some and isn't as much of a theme in Salvatore's later work, but it's also a story about the complications of heroism -- and how it sometimes comes from unexpected sources.

It's easy with an author who is deft at action, like Salvatore, Gemmell and others, to miss the emotional undercurrents of all that conflict. But in Salvatore's case, they are quite definitely there, in my opinion. I'd suggest, for those who've tried some of the early works and didn't like them, that they give The Demon Awakens a go. If you can't get into that, then Salvatore might not be an author for you.

I haven't read his Demon series, maybe I'll give it try. I used to read his Drizzt books when I was younger and I mostly read them for the action sequences so I probably didn't appreciate the how Drizzt developed as a character. I bet if I gave them a reread I would appreciate them a little more.

I have to say though Salvatore was one the authors that got me into reading fantasy along with Feist and the Zahn's early Star Wars books.