D&D 5E Best FR novels of all time?

Alzrius

The EN World kitten
Troy Denning's Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad is a superb book. While it's a direct sequel to James Lowder's Prince of Lies (which is itself a sequel to the Avatar Trilogy), you don't need to have read that to enjoy it. The entire story is written in the first person by the most devoted worshipper of Cyric, and it's a great deal of fun to read about him trying to work towards his goals...especially since he's unable to lie!

Also, Richard Lee Byers' Haunted Lands trilogy (Unclean, Undead, and Unholy) are superlative, covering what happens in Thay between 3E and 4E.
 

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Pants

First Post
I read several FR books back during my 'I'll read anything if it has swords on the cover' phase which was, oh 10 to 15 years ago I think. Most were Drizzt novels but I did read a few others.

The first few Drizzt novels (Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver, The Halfling's Gem) are... okay. Even back then I only finished reading them because my friends kept telling me they'd get better and because, well, they were there so I read them. The Crystal Shard is honestly not a bad book. I don't think it's particularly great, but it's not bad. It's a fun, pulpy book. I did not like Streams of Silver at all. I powered through it and ended up hating it. The Halfling's Gem is better but, again, I didn't think it was particularly great. So if you're utterly convinced that you need to read these books and you end up not liking the first three, well, they do get better.

The Homeland and Legacy novels are probably my favorite of the Drizzt novels. Funny enough that they both feature drow rather prominently. I'm pretty sure you could blame these two series of novels for drow popularity hitting critical mass in the 90's, but they are fairly enjoyable books. At least, I liked them quite a bit back in the day. No idea how they'd stack up now though. Homeland is a prequel but it was written after the first three books, but it slots in right nicely before The Legacy.

The next 'set' of books kinda start to get repetitive but there are two gems in the series. The Silent Blade is alright, but it feels like it's just setting up the other three books and so ultimately seems just pointless. Spine of the World is a great curveball and one of the standouts in those early Drizzt books. Same for Servant of the Shard which is a lot of fun. I'm not sure how well it would read without the background of the prior books, but it's probably my favorite of Salvatore's books (that I've read). Sea of Swords is repetitive and samey, but it's good closing off point if you're exhausted from reading about Drizzt.

I also read The Thousand Orcs, which was good, I probably enjoyed it more than Sea of Swords, but I never finished the series. Not because I didn't like it, but it just came out at a time where I was reading so much different stuff, that the sequels just fell by the wayside and when I finally had time to read them, I just couldn't be bothered.

I read the first of The Cleric Quintet books but I just couldn't get into them so I never continued on past that one.

I enjoyed the War of the Spider Queen books mostly because it was rather refreshing having a group of villains be the protagonists. I won't call them anti-heroes as I don't think they quite fit the definition, but (ir)regardless, the characters constant attempts at backstabbing or betraying each other is a lot of fun. I enjoyed the first one the most I think.

I also read some book about Evermeet that I found fairly dull.
 

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