[Astra]

Hiyas.

Could someone help me please to make a list of all Drizzt books by R.A. Salvatore in chronological order?

Tahnks al lot.

[zeeny]

Google could.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Or you could go to the bookstore and look inside the cover of the most recent one. I bet there's a list there. Or, there's probably a Salvatore page somewhere.

[williamjm]

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

[Astra]

williamjm;128221 said:

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

Thanks!

[Aptorian]

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Salvatore:

Spoiler

As the author tasked with writing the first book of the New Jedi Order series, Salvatore was ordered by Lucasfilm to kill off Chewbacca, one of the most popular characters in the franchise. Many fans thought that Salvatore himself had made this decision, and he received death threats as a result.

Ha! those nutty Star Wars geeks...

[Astra]

williamjm;128221 said:

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

Uhm. They list The Icewind Dale Trilogy as the first. I always thought that The Dark Elf trilogy is the first one with Drizzt. He was born there.

Anyone who has read the series can help me please? They idea behind my question is not to find all the books Salvatore has written about Drizzt but make a chronological list so I know what to read first, then second and so on.

Thank you in advance.

[Obdigore]

in order of writing, Icewind Dale was written first, in order of his 'timeframe'

Read the Dark Elf Trilogy First... and it continues on logically.
Homeland
Exile
Sojourn
I think then

Icewind Dale stuff

Then it goes on from there with... halflings gem.. and theres like 12-15 of them, and a new one that just came out... although the new one is about enteri and jarlaxle...

[amphibian]

Apt;128349 said:

Spoiler

As the author tasked with writing the first book of the New Jedi Order series, Salvatore was ordered by Lucasfilm to kill off Chewbacca, one of the most popular characters in the franchise. Many fans thought that Salvatore himself had made this decision, and he received death threats as a result.

Ha! those nutty Star Wars geeks...

I find it funny that an author who can blithely kill off a character like that seems to be incapable of doing something similar in his own series.

I don't know if Salvatore's stuff is worth the amount of time and energy you (astra_lestat) are going to put into it.

If you have already read just about everything else in the genre (i.e. Donaldson's Covenant series or Hobb), there's non SF books out there that are much more rewarding, but if you feel like it, go ahead. Just prepare to be underwhelmed, especially after Erikson.

Actually, considering your screenname possibly derives from Anne Rice, who's written two and a half good books, you're fine.

[Astra]

amphibian;128426 said:

Actually, considering your screenname possibly derives from Anne Rice, who's written two and a half good books, you're fine.

Thanks

[Werthead]

Yep, the reading order (with dates!) is:

The Dark Elf Trilogy: 1297-1350 Dalereckoning
Homeland, Exile, Sojourn

The Icewind Dale Trilogy: 1350-56 DR
The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver, The Halflings' Gem

The Legacy of the Drow (I): 1357-58 DR
The Legacy, Starless Night, Siege of Darkness

The Cleric Quintet: 1363-64 DR
Canticle, In Sylvan Shadows, Night Masks, The Fallen Fortress, The Chaos Curse
The Quintet does not feature Drizzt or his friends, but events and characters play a role in some of the later Drizzt books.

The Legacy of the Drow (II): 1364 DR
Passage to Dawn

Paths of Darkness: 1364-66 DR
The Silent Blade, The Spine of the World, Servant of the Shard, Sea of Swords

The Hunter's Blade Trilogy: 1368-69 DR
The Thousand Orcs, The Lone Drow, The Two Swords

The Sellswords Trilogy: Unknown, but after Paths of Darkness
Servant of the Shard, The Promise of the Witch-King, Road of the Patriarch

Servant of the Shard is confusingly both Book 3 of the Paths of Darkness series and Book 1 of The Sellswords Trilogy. How this works, I'm not sure (I've only read up to The Silent Blade before giving up on the books as they grew increasingly lame).

Certainly the earlier books in the series, particularly the Icewind Dale and Dark Elf trilogies, are solid, enjoyably cheesy epic fantasies, but the law of diminishing returns later sets in, with the series finally jumping the shark in the tedious Passage to Dawn.

[Astra]

Werthead

Many Thanks.

Maybe I will not read all of them, but I will try. I just finished Exile. I think it is quite good. I even ordered a new hardback edition of The Dark Elf trilogy.
So far, there are 2 drawbacks - a little bit too much of fighting scenes details and no romance

[Obdigore]

Werth,

Because Servant of the Shard has numerous groups in it, and The Sellswords is a take off of a different group of people than the normal drizz't group.

[williamjm]

astra_lestat;128391 said:

Uhm. They list The Icewind Dale Trilogy as the first. I always thought that The Dark Elf trilogy is the first one with Drizzt. He was born there.

Although the order Wiki lists them in is order of writing, if you look at the list there then they have the date each book is set in to the right of the name of the book.

Quote

I find it funny that an author who can blithely kill off a character like that seems to be incapable of doing something similar in his own series.

I read an interview with Salvatore a while back where he said he wanted to kill off characters (or leave them dead when they were killed) but the publishing company wouldn't let him. He doesn't own either the setting or the characters (they are owned by whoever owns Dungeons & Dragons nowadays) so he can't just write what he wants.

The early books are reasonably good fun, but the series does get a bit too repetitive/pointless after a while. "Siege of Darkness" might be a good place to stop.

[Werthead]

Yeah. Basically, what happened is that Salvatore was comissioned to write the second Forgotten Realms fiction series, which turned into The Icewind Dale Trilogy. The Crystal Shard became a bestseller and really helped sell the whole Realms as a concept and led to many people discovering D&D through the books (although Weis and Hickman had done this four years earlier with their Dragonlance books). In other words, Salvatore played a key role in establishing the Realms' popularity.

After writing the first nine Drizzt books, he wanted to kill Drizzt off. However, the guys at TSR wouldn't let him. They even said that if he tried to kill Drizzt off, they'd take the character away from him and give him to another writer. Salvatore was pretty pissed off by that and there was a big rift between him and TSR for a while. Happily, TSR went bust and Wizards of the Coast picked up the D&D universe. They asked him back to write more Drizzt books, but again asked him not to kill the character...yet. So RA agreed and thus the latest round of Drizzt books. Given that WotC have been happy to kill off other iconic Realms characters (such as King Azoun), it seems that Drizzt's immortality may no longer be assured. Although I'd rather them kill the irritating and pointless Elminster first.

[amphibian]

Werthead;128754 said:

Post

Awesome information. This might be a lesson to aspiring authors: constructing your own universe may be harder work, but it pays off in creative control later.

Disclaimer: I've never played Dungeons and Dragons and most likely never will.

Did the death of this King Azoun noticeably affect D&D in terms of sales or creditability (negatively or positively)?

Does the meta-game require the characters to be alive?

[Werthead]

Basically there's a 'canon' history of the Realms which is developing continuously through the novels and the game products. However, when a roleplaying group are playing in the Realms, they are not beholden to the canon and can use as much of it or as little as they like.

Azoun was a popular character in the Realms and his death wasn't too popular in some quarters, but it did introduce some added realism to the setting. One of the key weaknesses of any fiction based on D&D is that in the game it is relatively straightforward to resurrect any dead characters, so the novels have to have tedious explanations for why they can't do this when a major character perishes (usually by having the soul imprisoned or destroyed, or the character following a religion that refuses to use resurrection magic).

The Forgotten Realms was also an anti-influence on Steven Erikson, who in a 2002 interview stated that he was impressed by the maps and the size of the setting and the world, but found much of it unoriginal and that the lack of explanation for the economics of the world and the lack of religious or racial strife between neighbouring nations of different races unrealistic. Ironically, the Realms were later expanded and developed in areas which addressed these concerns, but it's still pretty cheesecorn.