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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willowhaunt" data-source="post: 2260391" data-attributes="member: 22961">Thanks for all the help (and please keep it coming!).All the love seems to be concentrated towards Elaine Cunningham, an author who looks pretty promising to me (I've read one short story by her). I dropped by my local bookstore today to grab a copy of Daughter of the Drow, and I can't wait until I get a chance to start reading (at the moment I have two other books I'm trying to finish reading as well as two D&D campaigns to DM for, one tabletop and one Pbp). *LONE DROW SPOILER WARNING*I'm sorry, but after the Lone Drow it's gonna be tough to get me back to Salvatore. I liked the earlier stuff (Icewind Dale and Dark Elf Trilogy, Cleric Quintet) but the new ones make me wonder. Such real world parallels as Bruenor on clerical life support and reading about Wulfgar and Cattie-Brie debating wether to keep said Dwarf king on life support made me cringe. It just feels like so much pulp action and soap opera, I'm starting to feel like the characters are past their fifteen minutes of fame and WotC and Salvatore are just trying to milk them for more material.*END SPOILER WARNING**BEGIN RANT*Also, the new D&D novels are starting to bug me with the product placement. By that, I mean that I think that the authors are forced to keep the Player's Handbook open on their desks as they write. Mages memorize and cast spells straight out of the PH, many characters have magic items straight out of the DMG, and sometimes classes or feats are directly referenced. I like D&D, but I don't feel that it makes for good writing: rules are for games and artistic license is for artists and writers. I don't know if it is the fault of the authors or (more likely) WotC, but all of this direct rules referencing feels forced and cheapens the wonder and magic aspect that I always thought was vital to fantasy. It feels far too formulaic, and that makes me somewhat sad, as I would love to see more good FR books. I feel like it's the one series of D&D supplements that WotC still supports and prints that is free of the hack and slash-power gamer-rules lawyer mentality that seems to pervade the generic books, and I'm hoping that the novels can stay genuine as well. *END RANT*I'm looking forward to reading Cunningham's work. From what little I've read of her, she seems to be among the best Realms authors, and apparently she has many fans on these boards, too. I've got a feeling I'll be one of those fans by the end of Daughter of the Drow.I've also got Spellfire and Insurrection waiting to be read. I'm about halfway through Dissolution, and I'm liking it more than Forsaken House so far, though when I get to Condemnation (number 3 in the War of the Spider Queen series), I'll give Rich Baker one more chance to impress me. Agreed. When I want deep thinking, I've always got some classic literature that I've yet to read, but FR books are a lot of fun (and light thinking) as long as they're not so badly written or formulaic that I feel like they are insulting my intelligence. As I said before, Dissolution has been, so far, readable, and I'm looking forward to sampling Greenwood and Cunningham.-Willowhaunt</blockquote>

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