Book 7 was the one when the squid-emperor goes Kong and starts throwing bits of his own palace around- this after having his bath tub scoured of all badness by Arty E.I wasn't sure if it was in this one or the last one where the god-squid-man of Doegan gets the water in his tank purified, and he goes nuts because pure water is poison to him. Like a guy who stays in the bathtub way too long, he's happier in his own filth. That he then does a King Kong impression is crazy. "People of Doegan, behold your god!" I'm sure there's a Mr. Burns joke in there somewhere.
Beyond that, I can't recall much of the books, except for the rather lackluster way they resolve things with Artemis and that the kidnapped bride wasn't really the bride all along. We're not at book nine yet, but I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the series ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
I mentioned this before, but it says something (i.e. nothing good) that I can't remember anything about the last book in the series. The one exception is the scene where a an unconscious Artemis is visited by Khelben, who tells the people who have him to patch him up (skeleton arm and all) and let him go. Apparently "that was the bargain: no death or permanent injury." Now, I won't say that's out of character for Waterdeep's Special K, but it still came across as a transparent "we can't let anything notable happen to one of our special guest stars" bit. We know this isn't Salvatore writing the character, so everything here has to be "no lasting effect" for when he keeps writing him.
I recall that in one of the later Drizzt novels Entreri mentions having lost the mask of disguise magic item, saying so gruffly and without explanation. My teenage self was convinced that this was a sly reference to what happened in the Double Diamond Triangle series, not actually having read these books yet. When I did, years later, it became clear that they had nothing to do with it. The reality was that the cohesiveness I'd imagined between different authors using the same character was nowhere near as tight and complementary as I'd wanted to believe.
Yes, there's the general lack of cohesiveness you mentioned quite apparant with many multi author characters.I mentioned this before, but it says something (i.e. nothing good) that I can't remember anything about the last book in the series. The one exception is the scene where a an unconscious Artemis is visited by Khelben, who tells the people who have him to patch him up (skeleton arm and all) and let him go. Apparently "that was the bargain: no death or permanent injury." Now, I won't say that's out of character for Waterdeep's Special K, but it still came across as a transparent "we can't let anything notable happen to one of our special guest stars" bit. We know this isn't Salvatore writing the character, so everything here has to be "no lasting effect" for when he keeps writing him.
I recall that in one of the later Drizzt novels Entreri mentions having lost the mask of disguise magic item, saying so gruffly and without explanation. My teenage self was convinced that this was a sly reference to what happened in the Double Diamond Triangle series, not actually having read these books yet. When I did, years later, it became clear that they had nothing to do with it. The reality was that the cohesiveness I'd imagined between different authors using the same character was nowhere near as tight and complementary as I'd wanted to believe.
Where can I find that? It sounds fascinating.If you've haven't read what Lynn Abbey wrote about the process of writing her Dark Sun novels, I strongly suggest you do. It's pretty jawdropping how disorganised and uninterested TSR were about coordinating and maintaining consistency across their various products and authors.