What's /tg/'s opinion on R. A. Salvatore? I remember really liking his books when I was 12, but I doubt I have the attention span for them these days.
>>43796532
Passably good fantasy fiction. Better if you like DND, worse if you hate drow. Some highpoints, some lowpoints. Overall slightly above average but you might want to avoid the barbarian in hell drama.
>>43796532
Mixed feeling on my part.
Liked them for the most part when I was a kid, now get slightly pissed at them for being what so many players have copied to make characters.
>>43796579
Oh shit barbarian in hell part was godawful.
The books about assassin in some desert city or something were cool.
>>43796532
I loved his earlier books when they were good, but after reading every FR book he's ever written, I can safely say that his later works just feel like he's being tortured by publishers to fit bullshit into them.
Like Dahlia for example, the most retarded bullshit I have ever read in any novel(Worse than some of the Grey Knight Novels even, which universally read like I'm sliding my face across an angle grinder). She's some chaotic evil elf mary sue who woes drizzt and fucks him repeatedly. This is a massive step in the complete opposite direction of everything he's previously written.
Other than that.. Read Icewind Dale, and Thousand Orks, you'll be amazed. Anything recent as of 2 years ago is complete shit compared to those two, don't even bother with it.
>>43796532
It's popcorn fiction. His non-Drizzt books are passably entertaining at least.
He's admitted that he actually would have rather stopped writing him and had planned on killing him off years ago but he was contractually obligated to keep him around thanks to the character's fame. This possibly explains why his novels starring Drizzt and their plots get increasingly tired and dull even compared to his normal "just okay" writing; he's really just doing this because he's being told to.
Weirdly, I find a few of his villains more interesting then his fairly one-dimensional heroes; the assassin guy actually turned out to be a relatively interesting character over time, as far as his writing ever goes.
>>43797302
>The books about assassin in some desert city or something were cool.
Artemis Entreri actually ended up more interesting then Drizzt simply because he started one dimensional (he was created to give him an obsessed rival character) but his books have him actual character development while Drizzt basically stayed exactly the same until he's angst over something and then go back to being exactly the same.
>>43796532
Nothing amazing, but rereading the Homeland trilogy made me realize that he's not actually bad. His characters can be pretty interesting and he does a good job of injecting some life into the FR setting which I've always found boring.
I think he's better than Rothfuss, and on a personal level I like him better than GRRM even if I think GRRM's prose is better.
>>43796532
Decent popcorn writer. Being tied down to the Forgotten Realms means he was tied to whatever meta-plot TSR/WOTC decided to push at the time.
Not being able to retire the characters and instead of having to drag them along continually hurt I think though.
The 3.5 to 4th edition transition series pretty much sucked a lot of life out of his characters too.
His non D&D titles such as Crimon Shadow were a lot more enjoyable. DemonWars saga was quite good, but felt like it took itself a bit too seriously at times.
>>43797361
>I can safely say that his later works just feel like he's being tortured by publishers to fit bullshit into them.
I'm fairly certain it is literally true. Wotc got taken over by psychopaths a decade ago.
>>43796532
>having a shorter attention span now than as a child
You are the cancer anon.
>>43796532
I could take Drizzt Do'Urden with both hands tied behind my back!
Read Dark Elf Trilogy, Icewind Dale Trilogy, and Cleric Quintet. Then stop.
>>43797450
It's also noticeable that Wulfgar was the original hero. Drizzt was a sidekick who somehow became popular when NOBODY thought it'd work.
>>43798098
as someone who works a full time job and hosts two detail-heavy-as-fuck games, I can vouch that I do not have the patience what-so-fucking-ever for bible-thick fantasy shit that genuinely amounts to "it's all just a good time in word format" for all of the reading i'd be doing.
my books got thinner as i got older since age 15 as well. when i graduated college i was practically refusing anything over 100 pages on sheer time constraint. I don't even read rulebooks any more! just brush as much off as i can from my players by pretending i did read and then going off how they explain it to me assuming I know too
am i cancer? nah, i'm a great DM. but some asshole poring his years into words to read does not mean I have to pore hours into his words out of any sense of obligation.
Oscar Wilde said something once about how the mark of a bad writer is the lack of books he'd recommend. but oscar wilde's shit is shit so i'm sure the opposite might be true at this point
>>43796532
Can't stand his novels, but he wrote my favorite setting supplement.
I loved Drizzt in high school. Afterwards I become gradually bored with it. I think I stopped at Orc King. Something was lost either in the series or I just changed.
>>43798098
complaining is cancerous
>>43796532
recently picked up the books. I left off fight when the drow lay siege to mithral hall back when I was in highschool. Im two books away from finishing Wulfgars whole ptsd thing and theyre not terrible. I read Serveant of the Shard and I agree with everyone that Entreri is cool. My fav character is probably Jarlaxle though.
>>43796532
The Icewind Dale Trilogy (The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver, the Halfling's Gem) is passable enough.
The Dark Elf Trilogy (Homeland, Exile, Sojourn) is fantastic to the point where even most of /tg/ will get behind it, as long as they're not "D&D and therefore terrible" Virt-like hipsters.
Everything after that is hit or miss, with the hits coming less often and the misses more often as you go by.
As for his non-D&D stuff, I've only ever read one of them - Vector Prime, the first of the New Jedi Order books. It is *amazingly* better than all subsequent NJO books and managed to sell me on the idea of the Yuuzhan Vong.Also it's the book where Chewbacca dies (though not anymore thanks to the new EU). Salvatore pulled it off very well, I think
He wrote a weird hypersexual book involving magical rocks. I say hypersexual because I read it when I was prepubescent and all of that shit was an utter, vaguely uncomfortable mystery to me.
Pic related. It had weird fairy-elves and shit.
....I quite liked Kingdoms of Amalur.
>>43796532
Horrible author with a juvenile writing style and unimaginative characters. That's why you enjoyed his books when you were 12
>>43799063
>liking anything FR
Please find a new hobby
>>43804779
Or just continue playing the hobby you like.
Imo, pretty good.
Dark Elf Tri, Icewindale Tri, and the next one involving Mithril hall were awesome.
After that, passable fantasy good time reading. At this point its like a DnD game where the characters are high level but just want to retire, the GM has to throw crazy kingdom/all loved ones ending shit at them to modivate them and everyone just seema tired.
>>43801578
It wasn't supposed to be Chewbacca, originally. They were throwing around ideas on who could be killed off, and Lucas just went "no, you kill Chewbacca" reportedly. Then later on, right in the middle of Anakin Solo's big development, he decided that people might confuse Anakin Solo with Anakin Skywalker, so he told them to kill the former off (hence his weirdly sudden death in the back third of Star By Star and the very awkward realigning of Jacen to fill Anakin's role - a role I don't think he ever quite fit).
The Vong weren't exactly amazing in and of themselves, though. What that series did establish, or rather solidify, my undying hatred for the NR's stupidly retarded politics. For the vast majority of the books I literally wanted to be able to reach into the pages and slap their shit, then subsequently put the Skywalker-Solos in as a dynastic power. The galaxy would be better off.
>>43796532
I don't like the way he makes people talk. His dialog is very dry and stilted, even when he's trying to be cute and make his dwarves spell things out phonetically. Drizzt talks like a middle manager.
On the other hand, he does write combat scenes clearly enough, and it's always obvious what's going on. So it's utilitarian writing. That makes him easier to read than whoever writes the Farideh novels.
>>43805357
Spine of the World was amusing because Drizzt isn't in it at all aside from a few of his self-righteous monologues, and it's mostly about Wulfgar being a terrible person. It made it fun to imagine that that sad sack in the bar who smells like whiskey and menthols used to go on great adventures back in his day.
>>43796532
I think the first three books were tremendously fun, but I never could finish anything beyond it.
