Forgotten Realms Novels

civian1991

I only JUST found out there are books published about the Forgotten Realms. ohhh emm gee!!!

Has anybody read them? If so, which ones do you rate as a "must read" and the ones to stay away from and why?

Leronis

Anything by RA Salvatore, but especially Drizzt line. Ed Greenwood is Mr. FR himself.

Troy Denning's Archwizards series - book1 is The Summoning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgotten_Realms

alannahsmith

I just finished the first book in the Drizzt series. AMAZING!

Tanthalas

Leronis said:

Ed Greenwood is Mr. FR himself.

He is but I don't particularly like his writing style, lol. Though his more recent books are better than his earlier works.

Other authors with some great books are Richard Lee Byers (The Year of Rogue Dragons trilogy, The Haunted Lands trilogy and the Brotherhood of the Griffon books) and Paul S Kemp (The Erevis Cale trilogy and The Twilight War trilogy).

Other books that I really enjoyed by relatively new authors were Downshadow by Erik Scott de Bie (I wish his more recent books Shadowbane and Eye of Justice were available as physical books too, only Eye of Justice was made available over here recently but I don't want to read it out of order) and City of the Dead by Rosemary Jones.

Djimmy

I have read The Dark Elf Trilogy and Icewind Dale Trilogy and I can say they are both good. One should read them if only to learn a little bit more about Drizzt Do'Urden and his friends. The author of the books is R.A. Salvatore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._A._Salvatore

Leronis

Ed greenwood invented FR, wrote the FRCS Campaign Settings bibles, and coached/mentored/supervised most of the other FR writers. But yeah @Tanthalas, i would prefer other novelists too.

I bookmarked your post, but I'm rereadin Tolkein ATM, cuz of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDnYMbYB-nU&hd=1

ajwz

I've just been reading the dark elf trilogy (1/2 way through book 3), and I have to say I wasn't that impressed. Drizzt's "good" nature is tackled in a rather unrealistic/idealistic portayal of the concepts of good and evil, but nevertheless seems to be the dominating theme for all 3 books.

Silver_Moon

I started 2 weeks ago to read Game Of Thrones by J. Martin . In Russia they have been published only this year - 2012. It is not Forgothen Realms, but when i read it, by atmosphere it is very close to Eye Of The Beholder asnd Baldurs Gate))) Game Series.

LadyRhian

I liked the "Heirs of Stormweather" series as well. It's written by a bunch of different authors including this nobody, Dave Gross guy. @Dave (wink). Many books in the Harpers series were really good. I also liked Elaine Cunningham's Arilyn Moonblade books. The Scions of Arabel wasn't bad. I actually rather enjoyed it.

Arkynomicon

I know there are three Baldur's Gate books where the protagonist is a particularly unlikable fellow that is not above murder for petty reasons.

BaldursCat

Arkynomicon said:

I know there are three Baldur's Gate books where the protagonist is a particularly unlikable fellow that is not above murder for petty reasons.

I'm reading them right now, and not hating them quite as much as I expected to, mostly because Philip Athans' writing style is pretty readable.

Abdel does start off reveling in the kill but he progresses from that in the first book. I didn't really hate him once I got past his obnoxious introduction, but then I didn't really care for him either.

What I've found with the BG novels (and the FR novels in general) is that the scale of (a lot of) the stories just can't be covered adequately in the hugely limited word counts the authors work to. Which in this case has lead to some very one dimensional characters, not helped by NPC characterisations at odds with those portrayed in game - for example, I've just come across Minsc & Boo in the SoA book and even his description doesn't match, and don't get me started on Jaheira. I wonder if they were written from a concept rather than after the games were completed?

They're an overview of something which is an immersive experience, as such they don't reflect and therefore don't ring true.

ModernLife

I have been working through the Drizzt novels for a while now, halfway through the spine of the world, just ordered hunters blade trilogy should be able to finish all the books before the newest comes out in march.... they are all amazing by the way, haven't been let down by any of them yet. But where to read from there once i get caught up?

sandmanCCL

ajwz said:

I've just been reading the dark elf trilogy (1/2 way through book 3), and I have to say I wasn't that impressed. Drizzt's "good" nature is tackled in a rather unrealistic/idealistic portayal of the concepts of good and evil, but nevertheless seems to be the dominating theme for all 3 books.

Salvatore's strengths were never in really making you think. His most poignant book struck me as personal catharsis for his own struggles with alcoholism, that being The Silent Blade or maybe it was The Spine of the World, and they were just really boring reads.

His talent, I believe, is writing really gnarly, detailed action scenes.

Also, Thibbledorf Pwent is my hero. Easily my favorite Salvatore character of all time.

Jolanthus

Starlight and Shadows trilogy by Elaine Cunningham is pretty good too. It involves Gromph's daughter whom goes to the surface and another Rashemi Berserker whom is more like game Minsc like (minus the hamster and mad ramblings) than the book Minsc is.

Howie

There are hundreds of FR titles, I say Icewind Dale Trilogy is a good read for a starter.