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Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 3349010" data-attributes="member: 5948">I'm pretty sure that the target audience for TSR novels when Salvatore wrote the 'core' Drizzt canon (Icewind Dale, Homeland/ExileSojourn, Legacy etc) was about 14-15.  They're young adult books, and as a young adult I really liked them, and I'd still recommend them to a kid just getting into fantasy.  They were the original reason I got involved in D&D, after all!  And I think that TSR's demands were a big contributor to some of the sillier aspects of the books (none of the good guys - except Zaknafien - ever dies for good, despite no hint of Raise Dead or similar magic ever being used).  And I'd argue that the whole 'outcast hero hated by all' thing was undercut nicely in Exile and Starless Night when Drizzt gets all angsty and tries to go it alone in typical Mary-Sue fashion only to get his butt kicked and need rescuing by his friends.  You're 16th level, Do'Urden.  Haven't you ever learnt never to split the party?!The reason I don't really enjoy reading the books any more is that Salvatore's writing style really seems to be stuck in a rut.  I can live with his plotting and characterisation, but when it comes to the actual mechanics of putting words together he seems to be going nowhere fast.  I never, ever again want to read about Cattie-Brie's 'silver-streaking' arrows.  Or about how Wulfgar's 'fury redoubled'.  Or about Drizzt's 'whirring' scimitars.  Whirring?  Does he have them attached to an electric egg-beater or something?  Seriously, the bloke really should invest in a thesaurus.Oh, and the whole 'dark mirror' theme and motif is completely and utterly used up, exhausted and done with at this stage.  Move on, please.</blockquote>

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