Thread 24701904

If you want a long, detailed fantasy series that has tons of lore, monsters, magic, gods and whatnot, you can't beat this. The heroes feel virtuous and the villains make you hate them. 10/10 fantasy series here and there's thirty-two books to delve

>>24701904 (OP)
This is the first book. Art by the inestimable Larry Elmore

>>24701908
>Series
>The Legend of Drizzt (#4), The Icewind Dale Trilogy (#1), Forgotten Realms - Publication Order, Forgotten Realms Chronological (#22), Die vergessenen Welten (#1)
what the fuck

>>24701904 (OP)
>>24701908
can you post a sample of the prose?

>>24702591
Ooh, I'm not sure. I don't have that good of a memory, to capture it verbatim. My apologies. Drizzt does do a lot of self-examination and soul searching prologues? A lot of ppl find those parts to drag but I love those little insights and tidbits into his character. He's very noble and never wavers from his morals. At least, early on. Much later in the series, his morals are put to the test but I won't say much about those parts. Not because I don't like them but because I don't want to inadvertently spoil anything about the books. I love lotr, read the Silmarilion every year for probably over two decades now and this is the only series of fantasy books that captured my interest as much as JRR's.
Also, I would be remiss to not mention Guenhwyvar. The series is worth reading if just for her, a big, bad ass black panther that's Drizzt's constant companion. There's more to her than I can explain rn

>>24702591
Not OP, but I’ll do it:
>Blood trickled from many small wounds, but Heafstaag seemed able to shake off the punctures of the slender scimitars as no more than a discomfort. The great axe arced down, and though Drizzt was able to deflect its path, the effort numbed his arm. Again the barbarian swung his axe. This time Drizzt was able to spin out of its killing sweep, and the completion of the drow’s rotation left the overbalanced Heafstaag stumbling and open to a counter. Drizzt didn’t hesitate, driving one of his blades deep into the barbarian king’s side.
>Heafstaag howled in agony and launched a backhand swing in retaliation. Drizzt thought his last thrust to be fatal, and his surprise was total when the flat head of Heafstaag’s axe smashed into his ribs and launched him through the air. The barbarian charged quickly after, meaning to finish this dangerous opponent before he could regain his footing.
>But Drizzt was as nimble as a cat. He landed in a roll and came up to meet Heafstaag’s charge with one of his scimitars firmly set. His axe helplessly poised above his head, the surprised barbarian couldn’t stop his momentum before he impaled his belly on the wicked point. Still, he glared at the drow and began to swing his axe. Already convinced of the superhuman strength of the barbarian, Drizzt had kept up his guard this time. He knifed his second blade just under the first, opening the lower part of Heafstaag’s abdomen from hip to hip.
>Heafstaag’s axe fell harmlessly to the ground as he grabbed at the wound, desperately trying to keep his belly from spilling out. His huge head lolled from side to side, the world spun about him, and he felt himself endlessly falling.
>Several other tribesmen, in full flight and with dwarves hot on their heels, came by at that moment and caught their king before he hit the ground. So great was their dedication to Heafstaag that two of them lifted him and carried him away while the others turned to face the coming tide of dwarves, knowing that they would certainly be cut down, but hoping only to give their comrades enough time to bear their king to safety.
>Drizzt rolled away from the barbarians and leaped to his feet, meaning to give chase to the two who bore Heafstaag. He had a sickening feeling that the terrible king would survive even the last grievous wounds, and he was determined to finish the job. But when he rose, he, too, found the world spinning. The side of his cloak was stained with his own blood, and he suddenly found it difficult to catch his breath. The blazing midday sun burned into his night eyes, and he was lathered in sweat.
>Drizzt collapsed into darkness.

>>24701904 (OP)
>>24701908
I did book reports on this back in middle/high school (one of which involved some kind of illustration requirement as I recall drawing the crystal shard). I really enjoyed The Icewind Dale Trilogy and The Dark Elf Trilogy but eventually got bored with the rest of the metaseries back when Transitions was being published (I believe The Orc King is the most recent book I own and The Pirate King is the most recent book I read) and don't think I'll ever finish it with how much my reading list has grown. I may revisit those two first trilogies at some point.

While not my primary complaint, as the years went on it felt like the author was getting lazier with the heavy-handed anti-racism lessons, enough for me to notice and tire of the moralizing lectures back when I wasn't in the habit of noticing such things.

>>24703712
i might get this for my brother this christmas, he likes genre fiction. thanks.

>>24701904 (OP)
The Death Gate Cycle

https://www.goodreads.com/series/41764-the-death-gate-cycle

The Drenai Saga

https://www.goodreads.com/series/77118-drenai-saga-chronological-order

The Chronicles of the Black Company

https://www.goodreads.com/series/54284-the-chronicles-of-the-black-company

Saga of the Forgotten Warrior

https://www.goodreads.com/series/150976-saga-of-the-forgotten-warrior

Penric and Desdemona

https://www.goodreads.com/series/211886-penric-and-desdemona-chronological

>>24703712
LOL. Sounds like a write-up of a D&D session.

>>24706663
Forgotten Realms is literally a D&D setting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgotten_Realms

>>24706828
Yes, I knew that. And the books exist to promote D&D, which is hardly a promise of literary merit.

>>24706833
Shove your snobbery up your ass

>>24706951
>calling out crap writing is snobbery
LOL. I bet you read GRRM too.

>>24707010
Nope but please continue being a faggot

>>24707068
Your the one with the ass obsession.

You're, you insufferable mongoloid

>>24701904 (OP)
>negros
pass

>If you want a long, detailed DnD campaign scrawled out for you to peruse because not even socially inept nerds want to hang out with you to play DnD
Fixed for you. Please read real books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

>>24701904 (OP)
I absolutely loved Drizzt when young, now I'm more a Bakker fan but I should return to it I think. I ended the 13 first books and the Entreri / Jarrlaxle trilogy (those were great), what should I read next, I guess it's "The Thousand Orcs"? I only remember vaguely the story though, it's been a long time.

>>24709344
Chronological order, I'd think. I'm not sure what's next for you without knowing the last book you've read

>>24701974
The series was originally called The Icewind Dale Trilogy, which was an adventure in the Forgotten Realms D&D setting. The side character Drizzt became incredibly popular and basically took over as the main character of the series, so a prequel trilogy was written to begin The Legend of Drizzt. There's lots of other books in the Forgotten Realms setting, especially the Elminster Saga. Simple as.

Anyway OP, yeah Drizzt is sweet. I read the first 10 or so books when I was a kid up to when he and the rest of the gang go back into the Underdark and Artemis teams up with the evil Drow.

>>24708771
I couldn't get any of my friends to play D&D with me on a consistent enough basis to maintain a campaign so I did actually enjoy these books for that reason.

>>24702591
>prose
I was never a fan of the Forgotten Realms books but people who care a lot for prose quality are usually pseuds terrible at assessing anything else.

>>24711025
I disagree, but I’m curious about how you came to that conclusion. Feel free to elaborate.

>>24709544
Icewind Dale was intended as its own thing before TSR convinced Salvatore to shoehorn it into the Realms. Which he did, because he's a hack

>>24711828
Someone on /wg/ called my prose terrible

Y'all are haters and snobby bitches

>>24701970
>a long, zany, looney tunes ahh ""literary"" word vomit that has tons of tangents, piss, shit and muh human conditions™

>>24706213
>The Death Gate Cycle
This fairly obscure series is available at the slop bookstore nearest to me. And yet they still fuck it up by only having the last book of the series available. I never understand why they do this. Like at least just have the first one of the series. Anyways, this series has always caught my attention

>>24701908
Ha, I actually know Larry, vaguely, through my family. I happened to get a copy of his book and it blew me away how many memorable pictures from my childhood he had done. He did a lot to define the classic "DND look." A lot of the new stuff is good, but I'm not as wild about the style. ADND era art is peak, and third edition was pretty good too. Granted, some of it looks a little dated (the 1980s-90s female hair styles, and body builder physiques) but these only jump out at me in some of the old stuff.

Sounds like you like baby shit, pal. I don't know what to tell you. Sounds like you are into baby stuff.

>>24701904 (OP)
I read up until wulfgar comes back then stopped. That was in school a decade ago. I liked them. Should I continue?

>>24709544
Would you recommend reading Icewind Dale before reading Drizzt or can I just jump into the Drizzt books without any prior knowledge?

>>24712236
I just read As I lay dying so whatever. You guys are just stuck up bitches

>>24711828
You could easily prove me wrong by finding some other aspect of Icewind Dale to discuss. But you won't.
I arrived at the conclusion after 30 years of discussing books on the internet. The surest sign that someone is a pretentious snob is that their first comment about any book is that the prose isn't good.

>>24701904 (OP)
Salvatore is a cool guy.

>>24701904 (OP)
After my mom died I went through a spell of reading trash fantasy to keep my mind off things. Most of it was shit but I was shocked to discover how much I genuinely enjoyed Drizzt. I've kept reading it off and on, I'm like 13 books in now, just read the two books with no Drizzt. The pretty good one thats all Wulfgar, and the one thats all Artemis and Jarlaxe which fucking ruled.
Bazil Broketail was also a fun discovery from this period.

I confused forgotten realms with Dragonlance and got confused about why nobody was discussing Raislin Majere.

These old pulpy 80's books were incredible as a 9 year old, I imagine that's what smoking meth was like

>>24712666
It's ultimately tie in fiction anyway, the prose only need to not be shit. In fact, going into the other direction and having dense McCarthy-esque prose would be counterintuitive because these books are meant to be read by a wide audience and especially younger readers.

>>24712750
Op here. I love Dragonlance too.. I bet I'm 120 books into that series. Nothing beats Chronicles tho

>>24701904 (OP)
>>24701908
The sidekick gets repeatedly cucked in the sequels and its full of the most vile spiteful male feminist shit. Not to mention genreslop.

>>24712799
I must have read 2 of those a week as a kid, I tore through them faster than candy, favorite, or at least the only ones I clearly remember was "test of the twins" from Dragonlance legends. I guess they made a movie, but never saw it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcnoKnuWus8

>>24712911
That movie is dog water

>>24704565
Try The Black Company. Trust me, it's great.

>>24712911
Did you ever play Myth? It has beautiful animation sequences and a great story, very dark and "thick" setting, very bleak:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfUgYurnh8U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbRyxHRnFqA

If you can't get into the (unique but challenging) gameplay I recommend a Let's Play.

>>24712666
>But you won't.
You’re right about that much. I don’t have strong opinions on Icewind Dale (including its prose), and I read it a long time ago anyway. I don’t have much to say about it. I’m not about to start waxing poetic about the Crystal Shard’s powerful themes or something (maybe I could for Starless Night, though).

If you were talking about people valuing nothing in a book except the prose, I would see your point. Good prose can’t save a bad story. But the prose is the vessel that delivers the story, and a good story can be obscured by bad prose. It’s not a non-factor.

>>24712323
Not that anon, but the Icewind Dale trilogy is part of the Legend of Drizzt series, and Drizzt is a major character from the beginning. If I were giving a recommendation to my past self, I would say read them in release order (Icewind Dale, then prequels), because I think it’s a more natural progression (the elements introduced in the prequels lay the groundwork for books 7-9) but you can do whatever you want. Start at whichever point sounds more interesting to you.

>>24701904 (OP)
I heard the Gor series has alot of lore too.

>>24713694
>>24713698
>>24713700
>>24713702
>>24713708
Based series.

>>24713754
Is it? So it is readable? I heard it is less Conan but more myso.

>>24713754
The lost art of book covers, before SM and phones I used to pick out the most wild looking book covers at the library and dig in.

>>24713700
>so the cover is just some guy on a boat?
>yeah, why? It’s minimalist, it’s cool.
>I dunno, it just seems like it’s missing something….
>hang on, I’ve got this.

>>24713987
Sex sells!

>>24713064
i don't trust you. we have never met. we are strangers, you and i. care to post an excerpt?

>>24713934
Yes.

>>24713207
>If you were talking about people valuing nothing in a book except the prose, I would see your point.
So you can only think in binaries? People can still value prose too much and render themselves unable to consider any value in a book with pedestrian writing.
>But the prose is the vessel that delivers the story, and a good story can be obscured by bad prose.
Can be, sure.
But I never see anyone actually make that argument. It's only "haha look at how pedestrian this passage is" "look at the author spoonfeeding to the reader here" and so on.

>>24713070
>Did you ever play Myth? It has beautiful animation sequences and a great story,

Never even heard of it, the only Video Game backstories I ever got into were Castlevania and Mortal Kombat, from playing them as a kid. However I wonder if the future for many fantasy authors now is in creating lore and dialogue for Video games like, God of War Ragnorok, and Elden Ring, rather then trying a straight up novel.

>>24713934
It's great. Written by a university professor, i.e. someone who can actually construct a sentence.
It's not fantasy, however, but science fiction. It's a "planetary romance" inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

>>24712715
>just read the two books with no Drizzt. The pretty good one thats all Wulfgar, and the one thats all Artemis and Jarlaxe which fucking ruled.
Which two are those?

>>24717365
I think it's called the Assassins trilogy

>>24713694
Can you read these in any order?

>>24717646
Thanks. I don't think that was the name of it but it gave me the search terms I needed to find it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sellswords
I vaguely remember reading these back in the 2000s and I recall being entertained by the characters of Artemis and Jarlaxle. Do you recall what the name of the Wulfgar series might have been? I think I remember reading that, too.

Some people seem to refer to the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb as the Assassins trilogy. Have you read that one? I'm not familiar with Hobb.

>>24712187
there was a decent adventure (illustrated and text) adaptation. Legend Entertainment. They did a "Gateway" too arguably better than the book.
I know, I know, >>>/vr/.

>>24717365
The Spine of the World was the Wulfgar novel, and Servant of the Shard was the Artemis novel.
Later he continued the Artemis series and called it the Sellsword Trilogy. But that was years and several Drizzt books after Servant came out. I exclusively read in order published because anything but the order the author developed the story in is bullshit.
So next up for me is Sea of Swords. Gonna start that one as soon as I finish up the Dark Sun Prism Pentad. It really made me appreciate Drizzt, reading shit like these Dark Sun novels, or even worse that Dragonlance crap. I read Dragons of Autumn Twilight and it was so incredibly bad. Rastlin was alright.

>>24717785
>>24717812
Continued,
Yes Im familiar with Assassins Apprentice. It is top tier fantasy. Drizzt is like candy, or maybe fantastic taco bell. Prism Pentad is like McDonalds that hits the spot. Dragons of Autumn Twilight was like some rancid ass Wendys.
Assassins Apprentice is a fine pumpkin soup in a bread bowl on a snowy day. It is real food.
I just finished all 16 volumes. I read one of the final ones on a plane and the dude next to me probably thought I was going through a breakup I was tearing up so much.
To me theres a Big Five in fantasy:
1. Tolkein
2. Song of Ice and Fire
3. Second Apocalypse
4. Realm of the Elderlings (Assassins Apprentice)
5. Berserk

Ive yet to experience anything fantasy to really compare with these.

>>24717812
>even worse that Dragonlance crap
>Rastlin was alright
I remember reading Dragonlance novels growing up because they were available to me but I had to read a lot of slop to find a little value. I could see revisiting it for nostalgia's sake. Which volumes would you recommend for the highest quality Raistlin bits?

>>24717999
Legends

>>24718047
>Legends
legends trilogy for sure. Kind of scared to read it now, worried it might be bad and destroy happy memories

>>24718362
I read the Chronicles and Legends as an adult and found them to be better than I remembered. The character arcs resonated a lot more. This first book reads like a transliteration of a D&D campaign (which is essentially what it is). It's really unfortunate because a lot of people (eg >>24717812) just drop it there and don't continue.

Essentially, Weis and Hickman are hacks and had almost no experience when they began. But they clearly loved Dragonlance and poured their soul into the novels. So although the first book is clunky and boring, the quality improves significantly in the second book and peaks during the Legends trilogy.

It's a solid fantasy epic. I can't guarantee anyone will like it, but it's much better than the first book would suggest.

>>24718630
rereading some of these books as an adult, they go so hard on descriptions, as if giddy to paint the world of swords and dragons that they love. However I do appreciate the characters are over the top pulpy and fun to be around. I reread a Conan book not to long ago and really enjoyed it.

>>24706663
>fantasy book adapted into a game
>le bad
>mmorpg genre adapted into a book
>le good

>>24717720
They're pretty self-contained, but there's a lot of world lore to assimilate.
It's best to read earlier titles first, just to get a grounding, although the series doesn't really hit its stride until the fourth book (Nomads of Gor).

>>24709544
I remember when I was getting into DND and everyone and their cousin was trying to play their own Drizzt

>>24718630
We’ve all been laughed at one time in our lives. We’ve all been jealous of someone. We have felt pain and suffered, just as he has suffered. And we’ve all longed – just once – for the power to crush our enemies. We pity him. We hate him. We fear him – all because there is a little of him in each of us, though we admit it to ourselves only in the darkest part of the night.

— Justarius, Time of the Twins

Hell yeah brother

>>24717999
Oh I used to love Dragonlance.

>>24718630
I actually did a reread of the first two books somewhat recently. 1 was fun enough, pretty much a pure DmD campaign and BOY HOWDY do the Hickmans Mormon influences make themselves apparent. They're not preachy or anything but they are also not subtle. But its fun. Winter Night the second book is way better.I still need to read the last book Spring Dawning which I'll probably get around too after I finish some other stuff. I remember also liking the twins trilogy so I'll check that out too.

I play AD&D 2 times a week and even I would never read this stuff.

Would rather read R.E Howard, Tolkien, Lovecraft, etc.

>>24722880
It's a guilty pleasure, like an action flick, I might just start posting random dragonlance pages i forgot how much I loved it.

>>24722880
I mean it certainly doesn't hold to those but I don't always want to sit down with Lord of the Rings and while REH is my favorite he only wrote so many short stories that fit this mold. Sometimes you want a dragonlance or an icewind dale

>>24722888
I don't like calling things guilty pleasures. I think at their best they were competent enough that there's no shame in liking them

>>24722888
>>24723660
I think it's mostly that I greatly dislike The Forgotten Realms as a setting.

I'll admit that I've read a few Dragonlance books in my time though.

>>24723660
>there's no shame in liking them
I agree, although I am able to recognize the cheese factor when they sperg out on descriptions of weapons, battle and dragons. I think my adult personality was forged by reading 100 of these books at an impressionable age as often describe things in an epic grandiose manner.

>>24725366
>although I am able to recognize the cheese factor when they sperg out on descriptions of weapons, battle and dragons.

It's pretty much how I've learned to DM my games when I played

I always loved that Elmore art. That's kind of what has been my vision of fantasy in general for ages.