I Read What?!

So last time, poor Cadderly has gone from a fairly happy-go-lucky young man to someone with a pretty severe case of PTSD and imposter syndrome. Poor kid.

( are there no therapists in Faerun...? )

So I've now finished my first non-Drizzt R.A. Salvatore Forgotten Realms novel.

And you know, it was pretty good.

I think Salvatore has definitely got the hang of writing a D&D book that doesn't feel like the retelling of a campaign. And I think that's a good thing. The elements that make up a fun D&D tabletop experience are not the same as the elements that make up a good novel. And a good novel will be plenty of advertisement for the game system without needing to entirely replicate it.

So yeah, I really liked this. For all that this is the first part of a quintet, the story's pretty well-contained. It involves one main location, one main threat, and some hints of a bigger picture.

As I mentioned, the one weakness is that I don't think the book does enough of a good job in establishing Aballister or Castle Trinity as a real threat. I know they'll be important going forward, but here, they were basically just ineffectual background noise to Barjin's show. And we're not going to see him again.

It's a bit of a shame, because I feel like the seeds were there. Aballister, at the start of the book, was a surprisingly compelling villain protagonist. In fact, I was far more interested in his power struggle against Barjin than I was in Cadderly playing a fantasy version of Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell at the Library.

But once Barjin deployed the curse, Aballister was basically a non-entity.

The curse was fun and nicely horrific.

I enjoyed all the characters a lot. We had a nice set up where no one felt particularly useless or redundant. Even Danica, once she was able to snap out of the curse, made a pretty good showing for herself. And the romantic relationship here, while low-key, is much better than anything we've seen in the Drizzt books so far.

I especially like Cadderly as a lead. He was reasonably entertaining as a sitcom protagonist at the start of the novel, but made a very good coming of age hero once the action starts. I liked that he was allowed to show weakness and uncertainty, and not necessarily be the most competent person in the room in every scene.

My issue with Drizzt was never his concept. It was his obnoxious personality (which, well, there's not much that can be done about THAT without making him a new character entirely) and the way the narrative never really let him be anything other than the wisest, most experienced, cleverest voice in the room. Cadderly doesn't have to be as impressive, which makes him immediately more compelling and likable to me.

So yeah, I enjoyed it. I don't really have any real complaints even. I'm looking forward to continuing with the series...after a break.

Whoa, we've made it to the penultimate chapter! After this, there's one chapter and an epilogue left. I'll need to figure out what the next book will be!

But that's for later. We've got a battle to finish!

( And maybe a Druid to bury? Aw. )

So last time, thanks to a combination of magic and fantasy-CPR, Pikel lives! Hopefully Dwarves are resistant to oxygen deprivation!

But still, yay!

( Let's hope Ivan lives to reunite with him. )

Hello everyone! I hope you had a nice holiday, if you celebrate! I was incredibly lazy. But we're back to see a bunch of monks and priests fight an evil curse!

I'm still sad about that poor dwarf druid though

( He was just in the wrong edition of the game, that's all )

Belated Happy Halloween!

Speaking of scary things, Canticle's been going pretty strong with the horror movie stuff. Now the hot tough lady's in the basement too! I hope she gets to punch Barjin in the dick!

( lots of people should! )

Hah, back! I very much enjoyed my week off, and I hope you enjoyed Scales's reviews in the meantime.

Now back to poor Cadderly and his Library's very very bad day!

( Colds suck, but evil curses suck more! )

So last time, we got one hell of a cliffhanger as the curse's effect went from mostly comedic and inconvenient (Danica's likely brain damage aside) to pretty fucking horrific.

So, of course, we start with the villains.

( Are they up to mischief? Probably! )

So last time, we started to see the curse have an effect. So far, it's fairly lowkey, but it seems likely to escalate soon enough, and there's a nice building dread to the whole thing.

( Can Zack Morris save the day? )