Mar 14, pRo nigHtFury. Salvatore The Sellswords 3. Tags assasins dragons dungeon fantasy fictions forgotten realms magic r. Mar 29, iqnectcafe. Rovan Jan 30, Replies 1 Views Feb 2, Struppi. Salvatore The Sellswords 1. Replies 0 Views 1K. Salvatore The Sellswords 2. Eden Jan 31, Jan 31, Eden. Tags fantasy ebooks fiction ebooks. Eden Apr 27, Apr 27, Eden. Anya Jun 2, Jun 2, Anya.
Top eBooks of the Month. View all 4 comments. Sep 23, Fiver rated it it was ok. This beginning to the Icewind Dale trilogy is a guilty pleasure at best. I fully admit that I've read eight books in the entire Drizzt series, and that this kind of novel is just the thing I need to curl up with sometimes.
But the sad truth is that it is books like this one that, in my opinion, sometimes give fantasy a bad name. Salvatore is undoubtedly more talented in writing than the format of these books might suggest I'm sure he's writing for a fairly young audience , and the success o This beginning to the Icewind Dale trilogy is a guilty pleasure at best. Salvatore is undoubtedly more talented in writing than the format of these books might suggest I'm sure he's writing for a fairly young audience , and the success of the series shows its popularity, but with only decent writing, only one really fleshed-out character, and plot that feels like watered-down and sugared-up Tolkien and yes, the rip-offs are many , this book just isn't really something worth reading.
Drizzt, the drow dark elf , is a classic romantic character, who is just too noble to ever show any weakness, and too good with his scimitars to ever be beaten by anything. As much as I love that idea I plan to go as Drizzt next Halloween , it is puddle-deep. The latter Dark Elf trilogy is better and deeper writing, although still not quite literary.
My suggestion? Try the Dark Elf trilogy. If it's too juvenile for you, then the Crystal Shard will be too, by bounds. View all 3 comments. He kept the cowl of his brown cloak pulled low over the flowing waves of his stark white hair and moved with such effortless grace that an onlooker might have thought him to be no more than an illusion, an optical trick of the brown sea of tundra. In the first part of the book we find Drizzt helping out a few of the towns against a barbarian raid.
He has help from his dear friend, Bruenor Battlehammer who is a dwarf. I love the banter and camaraderie between the two. During this battle one of the barbarians that was in a fight with Bruenor was hurt by Bruenor himself. But the dwarf felt a soft spot in his heart for this young barbarian and took him in without killing him. He told the barbarian named Wulfgar, that he had to work for him for a number of years and then he was free to go.
Wulfgar and Bruenor started feeling like family and when the time was up, Bruenor sent Wulfgar to learn fighting skills from Drizzt. He uses this for bad things of course. Controlling all of the giants, orcs and bringing demons through portholes.. Of course Kessell is going to attack the villages like will everyone just leave them alone with his huge army.
He has the barbarians on his side too. Drizzt and Wulfgar become good friends while Wulfgar is learning to fight and then truly fighting the evil peeps with Drizzt and Bruenor. Then Wulfgar wanted to go back to his people, which worried the others a little bit. They shouldn't have worried, he brought them to their senses.
Now they are on the next quest to somewhere that I'm not telling you :-D How many books do you know that a side character has more time than the main character then becomes the main character? That was the way for this book, which mean the character of Drizzt rather than for Wulfgar. One of the many reasons that why this book is different from most books in fantasy. This reason is the biggest reason that this is different from most of the book out there.
View all 7 comments. Shelves: fantasy. This harks back to an earlier age of fantasy -- before "gritty," "grey" and "gory" became the norm -- where the heroes are larger than life, good and evil are clearly defined, and the fate of many hangs on a singular magical macguffin.
Seen through this lens, this novel is a rousing success. The setting, Icewind Dale, was surprisingly well developed, with ten towns surrounding multiple lakes, and clans of dwarves and barbarians living on the outskirts. Our heroic party contains Drizzt the dark e This harks back to an earlier age of fantasy -- before "gritty," "grey" and "gory" became the norm -- where the heroes are larger than life, good and evil are clearly defined, and the fate of many hangs on a singular magical macguffin.
The antagonist is Akkar Kessal, who wields the crystal shard of power, Crinshinibon. That brings me to my biggest gripe about this book. We can start with the magical crystal shard, Crinshinibon, which sounds like an angry Cinnabon. Or the drow elf, Drizzt Do'Urden, which has both double Zs and an apostrophe in it.
Or Drizzt's homeworld, Menzoberranzan, which is fourteen letters long. I could go on, but I think my point is made. I liked this well enough to begin the sequel, Streams of Silver , as soon as I finished this book.
This ain't no A Game of Thrones , after all. Oct 13, Wanda rated it liked it Shelves: reading-project , interlibrary-loan , speculative-fiction , read-in I can see where this would have been an extremely popular book in its time. It does, however, very much show its status as first published book by this author and as a high fantasy published in the s.
It reminded me strongly of the Shannara series by Terry Brooks, which started off very dependent on The Lord of the Rings for races, imagery, and even some plot points, but which eventually moved off in its own direction. I think nowadays we could refer to works like these as LOTR fan fiction.
To give credit to Salvatore, he moves things off in his own direction quite quickly. The good people may have slight shadings of grey to their goodness, but the villains are definitely mustache-twirling, evil-laughing baddies, very typical of the time period. There is some battle detail, but certainly nothing resembling the nitty-gritty of the grim-dark fantasy that is currently popular.
The reader can be quite confident that all the main characters will survive to have another adventure and that good will conquer in the end. Salvatore adds some imaginative elements—for example, Drizzt, our Dark Elf main character, has a magical panther companion. Instead of a pastoral setting, all of his characters live on or right beside the tundra. The barbarian tribes make interesting enemies and eventually allies frenemies perhaps? I was particularly amused by the knucklehead trout, the skulls of which were ideal for carving, rather like ivory in our world.
Also typical of the s, female characters are scarce and barely have names, let alone roles to play in the action. But this is merely the first book, so there is room for development. The ending leads me to believe that the second book will be the more familiar quest tale. My first dive into the Forgotten Realms, written in You can tell that he must be a huge Tolkien fan.
And we get an elf and a dwarf engaging in funny banter Spine of the World twanged my memory as well. I checked and the first Wheel of Time novel was published two years later. That book also very heavily copied elements of LOTR. Ok, so we have a halfling, a My first dive into the Forgotten Realms, written in Ok, so we have a halfling, an elf and a dwarf.
Now we need a wizard and a human with mysterious heritage and two more sidekicks to get the party going Eventually we get a barbarian to fill the spot of the humans.
Our bad guy is not quite Saruman, but a rather sad example of the evil wizard in thrall of a higher force. A nice touch is the dark elf with his magical animal sidekick.
The whole book had one female character and she did not show up often or have a lot of dialogue. Definitely not passing the Bechdel test. However, roughly 35 years later Salvatore could have done so. This is very underwhelming. A bit like average LOTR fanfic. First book, right? Who knows, the following books might become more imaginative and suspenseful.
I have a few of them, bought cheaply through Humble Bundle. I am not in a hurry to get to them, but will do so eventually, hoping that the writing will get better. I skimmed through large parts of this book.
What where my issues? Very predictable, therefore boring. It never felt as if the good guys with shades of grey where in any danger to not make it to the sequels. The bad guy was really stupid, the typical, cackling cardboard version of evilness.
The characters were all pretty one-dimensional and unreflected. There was nothing new or inspiring in the story. If you want some shallow sword-and-sorcery without surprises for a chilled afternoon on the sofa, go for it.
I was bored. Feb 24, Traci rated it really liked it Shelves: fantasy , aficionado-topchallenge. An elf, a dwarf, and a halfling walk into a bar Yeah, okay. There's nothing truly original here. Nothing we haven't encountered before. But I like it. A little different than the usual "quest" style of fantasy this one concentrates on a group of settlers trying to save their home from an invading wizard who has been possessed by an ancient artifact.
If you've read Homeland, Exile, and Sojourn first you will notice a difference in style. The Crystal Shard was wri An elf, a dwarf, and a halfling walk into a bar The Crystal Shard was written first even though chronology it comes after. Homeland matches the later books more. But if you have a problem with the characters, especially Drizzt, you might as well stop now. I want ye to see the misery yer people have brung.
Bruenor saw that the youth had slumped back into unconsciousness. Onlookers to the spectacle of the gruff dwarf showing kindness to the barbarian youth were indeed startled, but none could guess the implications of what they had witnessed. Far to the south, in a wide pass among the towering peaks of the Spine of the World, Akar Kessell languished in the soft life that Crenshinibon had provided for him.
His goblin slaves had captured yet another female from a merchant caravan for him to play with, but now something else had caught his eye. But then they came into a wide chamber, by far the largest they had seen, and beyond its reaches, the tunnel spilled out into the open night. Do you believe that Biggrin has left? The drow thought that he had heard something in the darkness on the far right. He motioned for Wulfgar to stay in the middle of the room with the torch as he crept away into the shadows.
Drizzt stopped short when he heard gruff giant voices ahead, though he couldn't figure out why he couldn't see their bulky silhouettes. When he carne upon a large hearth, he understood. The barbarian nodded. He hoisted Drizzt up first - the drow's left arm still wasn't of much use to him -.
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