D&D FR novels, the good, the bad, and the ugly

[hamishspence]

Let us first deal with Ed Greenwood.
:My view? He does knockabout comedy rather well, but tends to fall down on plotting. I always found his comic characters more fun to read than his awesomely powerful mages.

:Elminster? Great wise voice, poor main character. Some other authors, especially the pairing of Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak, made him more fun, less arrogant.

:Spellfire? Rather better than his later books. Villains with vulnerability, not just cardboard cut outs. Call me prudish, but I think "publisher's insisted" is not a good reason for so many poor exploitation scenes. Spellfire got the balance right with suggestion, but not explicitness.

Next:R A Salvatore.
:His comedy is rather less funny, he should not overdo it. The Bouldershoulders can get irritating fast.

Drizzt? Best early on, IMO it went downhill from Legacy onward. The start of chapter Drizzt Monologues were OK in the DE trilogy but a touch irritating when added to reprint of Icewind Dale trilogy.

His villains vary, but can be more interesting than his heroes. Servant Of The Shard was rather more fun than some of his others, Jarlaxle and Entreri make a good duo. the sequels to this were less good to me though, maybe cos of poor supporting cast?

Finally: Elaine Cunningham
Had her ups and downs. her Drow trilogy star, Liriel was rather fun to read, and Menzoberranzan seemed more rounded than in Drizzt books.

On the down side, I thought she got a bit carried away with intrigue and corruption in Elf books, making Evermeet just a little too nastily political. I did like her ancient Faerun mythology though, the war between Seldarine and Lolth was done well, to me.

There are other authors to cover, but these will do to begin with.

 

[Arnwyn]

Certainly a reasonable analysis, if a little too generous. (And sadly, these are pretty much the top 3 authors...)

I can't wait to read about Troy "Hack" Denning...

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Stormlight, Ed Greenwood, 1996.

Storm Silverhand is the main character.

Problems:

She chops wood in the nude (outside, there wasn't a lot of traffic but it wasn't in the middle of nowhere either), flashes male characters excessively, and, while immune to fire, neglected to apply this same immunity to her clothing.

Oh, and she sealed an entire castle with silver fire. I something think if the Chosen of Mystra actually followed the game rules in the novels they wouldn't be nearly as bad.

Too many characters, probably just so we couldn't identify the villain too quickly.

You need to be an FR buff to have a chance of figuring out who the villain is.

Good stuff:

Good plotting, lots of interesting characters. Pretty decent combat scenes, too.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

CAn't speak for most of them but I re-read the Icewind Dale stuff last year or so. Lets just say that although it wasn't actually bad, it wasn't as good as I remembered it being when I read back when I was a teenager. It was all just a bit cliched and the characters a bit weak. My exceptions would be the Halfling (forgotten his name) and, god help me, Drizzt who I found to rather engaging/interesting.

I vaguley remember the Moonshaes books from long ago. Even as a teenager I found them a bit twee.

 

[Imruphel]

In general, I am not a fan of FR books although I have read far too many of them.

The Good

- Paul Kemp is an excellent writer. I strongly suspect he'll make a non-FR name for himself very soon.
- Elaine Cunningham writes very well.
- R A Salvatore's initial treatments of drow society are very compelling (but the see "The Ugly").
- Ed Greenwood's "Swords of Eveningstar" is worth reading just to get a look at the early days of the Realms before they were a published world.

The Bad

- Phil Athans is not so good. I recall his book in the Silence of the Spider Queen series (whatever it was called) including combat between high-level characters where the fighter-type specifically struck the opponent four times before he could retailiate... a la a game of D&D where the BAB 16+ fighter has won initiative. I think he should stick to editing.

The Ugly

- R A Salvatore should have a clause in his contract prohibiting him from 1. comic relief and 2. creating his own names. All RAS names should have to be approved by a committee chaired by Ed Greenwood in advance.
Honestly, RAS is falling into the George Lucas trap: except for RAS his ewoks and gungans are stupidly-named dwarves with strange speaking habits. I've found his last few books to simply gross self-indlugences... like some of the SW movies.

 

[S'mon]

When I got rid of my FR books, RAS's first, "The Crystal Shard", was the only one I kept. It's a nice pulp D&D novel with just the right level of nastiness (pre 2e Ethics Code), and a good sense of adventure.

 

[mhensley]

Spellfire? Rather better than his later books.

Wow, that's pretty damning praise. I swore off ever reading another novel by him after reading Spellfire. It was lame beyond lame. I like his game writing, but some people should not try writing novels.

After a very long time of not reading any FR books, I just finished reading Thousand Orcs by Salvatore yesterday. To my surprise, I found that I rather enjoyed reading it and will most likely read the next one in the series. Yes, it has some rather stupidly named characters, but after a while I found myself liking them.

 

[Satori]

For some reason, it's taken me nearly 10 years to enjoy fantasy novels not branded by TSR/WotC. I don't know why, but I always felt more comfortable with DnD versions. I'm just now starting to branch out, but I've read a silly amount of DnD fiction. I'll try to cover some authors that haven't been touched on.

Erik Scott DeBrie (Depths of Madness, part of the Dungeon series)
-The Good
Lots of intrigue
Several comic relief characters
Unique BBEGs
Decent readability (the writing flowed fairly well)

-The Bad
Clumsy combat scenes
Annoying "shticks" for several characters
Lack of detail for certain areas

-The Ugly
The main character is a stereotypical "Angsty Sue". She is oh so iggly wiggly kewl, yet just the right touch of emo angsty teenager. She wins fights she shouldn't, dominates characters she shouldn't, and otherwise monopolizes the entire book. If you don't immediately buy into the character, then the entire book is meaningless.

Lisa Smedman (Viper's Kiss series)
The Good
-Lisa has GREAT characterization. All her characters have quirks and personality nuances.
-Good detail. The city of Hlondeth really comes alive.
-Unique stories. Not another "Ugh, another BBEG wants X and is stopped by Y".

The Bad
-Sometimes the plot feels forced. Her characters are so defined, sometimes you ask yourself "Why are they doing this?"
-Lack of cohesion in the later part of the series. You lose some of the suspension of disbelief as certain factors take place.

The Ugly
-In general, Lisa Smedman writes with a lot of free space. Some of her ideas and the directions she takes existing canon will either intrigue you greatly, or frustrate you endlessly. She tends towards a "Love/Hate" relationship with readers, with little common ground. I tend to like her work, but I can see how several fictional changes would anger a lot of FR fans.

---

I'll add more later.

 

[Satori]

(I apologize for reviewing so many current novels. I'm trying to cover those most recently read)

Richard Lee Byers (Unclean)
The Good
-Good characterization. I genuinely liked the characters, and never once had an "eye rolling" moment. All characters are flawed, all have issues, and yet all are likable.
-Unique plot. In several cases, I was taken completely by surprise.
-Unique villains. Definitely not another "Oh, a zombie...yay"
-Decent description of Thay. I enjoyed the political intrigue.

The Bad
-Needs more detail. I felt like several descriptions of certain settings were lacking.
-Reliance on certain spells. I feel like he was forced to rely on canon way too much...and, in all honesty, a wizard that constantly casts 2 spells gets makes for uninteresting combat.

The Ugly
-OVERLY DETAILED EVIL MONOLOGUES LIKE WOAH! There are at least three instances in this book where entire histories, schemes, etc...are spewed out in huge, run on monologues by the bad guys. It feels EXTREMELY heavy handed, and thoroughly unrealistic for certain ULTRA UNIQUE bad guys to suddenly vomit forth a rant on the origin of their species, or for a BBEG to lay forth his plan like a typical James Bond villain.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

It's nice to get some more in depth reviews of these books.
Not that I'm being tempted to read them, but I might like what I see sooner or later.

thanks for the work!