I thought completing this book meant that I was 3/4 of the way through my birthday present of almost random paperbacks, but I guess I was counting the Heathcliff comic book in it as well; as it stands, I am 2/3 of the way through the paperbacks having already read John Grisham’s The Judge’s List. I have John Grisham’s The Runaway Jury to go, and it’s entirely possible I will get through it before I finish The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Karate, perhaps the slender volume of Alexander Pope I’ve bogged down in, and certainly before The Life of Greece.
It’s been a while since I’ve read R.A. Salvatore. I read The Sword of Bedwyr in 2012 and The Servant of the Shard in 2006, and I know I’ve read the first two parts of the Icewind Dale trilogy (and reclaimed an omnibus edition of the trilogy in January so I can re-read the first two parts and finish the whole thing which I could not in my initial collegiate reading of it because my brother only gave me the first two books in the set). Have I read anything else by R.A. Salvatore? Not in the last twenty years, apparently (according to the blog here). He was absolutely huge in the fantasy space in the 1990s, but after college, I guess my mainline reading tastes moved from fantasy to detective stuff. I mean, I read both of them interchangeably. And maybe I’m mistaken. It was thirty years ago, you know. But Salvatore was huge back then, and I think I missed most of it.
Within this book, the forces of good have defeated the forces of darkness at some cost. The main baddie, who has summoned a powerful wraith to do his bidding, is not sure he can control it in his diminished state and withdraws to his distant stronghold. A ranger and the witch daughter of the main green/nature witch in the world are conducting mop-up operations on the orcs talons, but the witch daughter feels the presence of the wraith and goes looking for him. The ranger follows, and the wraith defeats them and brings the daughter to the stronghold. And vast armies of the good guys, including ranger bands, an elf army, and the main body of the human kingdom, march out to the bastion of darkness (the bad guy’s stronghold) just as he discovers he can raise an undead army which grows each battle.
So much of the book is the events leading up to that march and the battle at the stronghold. If you’re familiar with the preceding two books, which took place hundreds of years or decades or maybe just a little while before (or both), and if you just read them, you probably get a head start on keeping the characters straight, especially as the main ranger characters (three different guys in three different places with three different goals) all have similar names. But I did all right with it anyway.
I did read the thin Wikipedia entry on the series (The Chronicles of Ynis Aielle) to pick up what I could on the lore, especially as the main magic users had Earth names as well. I guess some people on a submarine (?) survived an apocalypse/were hurled into the future after the apocalypse and became the main magicians in this world? And some of the magicians were already there, which is why they’re hundreds of years old but the others were not. That was definitely an 80s trope, ainna, the normal people or, better yet, gaming group were hurled into a fantasy world? Maybe I’m making too much of the Guardians of the Flame series and the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.
So: An all right bit of pastiche or homage to Lord of the Rings mixed with other bits. Salvatore’s writing is pretty good and moves along all right, but with trilogies and series, it pays to already be invested in the world.
